China Increases Rare Earth Quota

This article from AP announcing China's relenting to pressure to increase rare earth exports. We have to question why other countries are not willing to put in or increase their own production. Is environmental degradation acceptable in some countries but not others? While we are debating this question we should ensure that every step to reduce the consumption of rare earth metals have to be explored and adopted.
This brings me to the Power Jockey and battery reconditioning. We have proven that we can double the service life of HV batteries with these methods pioneered by the Battery Clinic. Hybrid and electric cars are set to replace gas guzzling petrol versions as fuel prices escalates. This will increase demand for high capacity batteries and rare earth metal use. This technology developed by the Battery Clinic will stretch out our rare and limited resource a little further.

August 23/08/2012

BEIJING (AP) - China on Wednesday slightly increased this year's quota for rare earths exports under controversial controls on the exotic minerals needed by manufacturers of mobile phones and other high-tech products.

The Commerce Ministry announced an export quota of 9,770 tons for the second half of the year. Added to the quota for the first six months of the year, that brings the 2012 total to 30,996 tons - an increase of about 3 per cent over 2011.

China has about 30 per cent of the world's rare earths deposits but accounts for more than 90 per cent of production. It alarmed global manufacturers by imposing export curbs in 2009 while it tries to build up a domestic processing industry to capture more of the profits that go to US, Japanese and European companies that transform rare earths into mobile phone batteries, camera lenses and other products..........

Combining Ultra Capacitors With Lead Acid Batteries — for Hybrids

Yokohama Batteries in Malaysia have released into the market spiral wound capacitors when arranged in 12 volt configurations and no larger than a pack of cigarette, is capable of starting a truck. 

This was originally developed by Boulder Technology which went bankrupt. By combining this technology with a lead acid battery Yokohama hopes that they will be able to create a super battery capable of being used in hybrid vehicles.

With our invention the Power Jockey we are on the lookout for a powerful 12 volt battery that will highlight the power and advantages of our system.

Example of super capacitor battery.


A Lead Acid Battery Capacitor Hybrid—for Hybrids

This article from IEEE Spectrum explains a capacitor lead acid hybrid from AxionEast Penn that addresses the inherent weakness of the lead acid battery.

By Prachi Patel-Predd

First Published December 2008

Engineers give lead-acid batteries a makeover by crossing them with ultracapacitors

Lead-acid ­batteries are relics that haven’t changed much since their invention nearly 150 years ago. Heavy and unable to withstand rapid charge-discharge cycles, they are unsuitable for the automotive world’s killer app, hybrid-electric vehicles. Hybrids instead use expensive nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries or, experimentally, lithium batteries. But a new, souped-up version of lead-acid batteries could change that, cutting the cost of hybrids and also improving the function of power grids and a range of other applications. 


The new design ­combines lead-acid chemistry with ultracapacitors, energy-­storage devices that can quickly absorb and release a lot of charge, which they store along the ­roughened surface of their electrodes. Unlike ordinary lead-acid ­batteries, which are slowed by the movement of ­chemicals within them, these could ­provide quick bursts of power for acceleration and then recharge during braking, a must for hybrid-electric and electric vehicles. A hybrid’s rapid recharging cycles and high currents would destroy the lead electrodes in standard batteries, because lead sulfate would build up on them. The new batteries can go through at least four times as many charging cycles as lead-acid batteries, and, ­crucially, would cost about a quarter of NiMH batteries. 


At least two lead-acid/ultracapacitor ­technologies are now poised for ­market release. Battery giant East Penn Manufacturing Co., in Lyon Station, Pa., licensed the technology for the UltraBattery in September from Furukawa Battery, in Yokohama, Japan, which has already begun ­manufacturing the devices. Researchers at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), who invented the UltraBattery, tested it early this year in a Honda Insight hybrid, which ran for 160 000 kilometers. 


Meanwhile, Axion Power International, based in New Castle, Pa., has ­developed a slightly ­different design, which it will test for U.S. Marine Corps assault ­vehicles; the company got US $1.2 million from the Department of Homeland Security in October for the tests. A bank of 1000 of Axion’s batteries will also soon be tested as a ­utility-grid buffer in upstate New York. Axion CEO Thomas Granville says that the new ­technology “lets us get into markets that have been in the past closed to lead-acid batteries.” 


The new batteries’ advantage over standard lead‑acid batteries comes from ­simple tweaks of the negative ­electrode. Instead of a lead plate, Axion makes the electrode from activated carbon, the highly porous, spongelike material used in ­ultracapacitor electrodes. When a ­regular battery discharges, the lead electrode reacts with sulfate ions, forming lead sulfate and creating protons and electrons. Axion’s activated carbon electrode directly releases and adsorbs protons from the sulfuric acid electrolyte during discharging and ­charging. The batteries recharge four times as fast as conventional ones, Granville says. 


The UltraBattery is slightly different, says Lan Lam, ­project manager of the ­battery work at CSIRO. The ­negative electrode is split into two, one half made of lead and the other half of activated ­carbon. The two halves are connected in parallel so that their ­currents combine. This split­-­electrode design gives the battery the best of both technologies, according to Lam. While activated carbon provides quick energy bursts, it cannot store as much energy as the lead-acid chemistry. The combination gives the UltraBattery an energy ­capacity closer to that of a lead-acid battery than an ­ultracapacitor could get alone, Lam says.


Both designs have a big cost advantage. “Nickel-metal hydride, ­depending on the application, is as much as $800 to $1200 per kilowatt-hour,” Granville says. “Axion’s battery costs $200 per kilowatt-hour.”


These battery/ultracapacitor combinations will have to compete with lithium-ion batteries as the successor to NiMH for hybrid ­vehicles. Cost and safety, ­however, are still a concern for ­lithium. Lithium-ion batteries can overheat, ignite, and even explode if mistreated.


The lead-acid/ultra­capacitor batteries have other advantages. They are ­easier to recycle than NiMH or ­lithium, according to East Penn. Lithium-ion ­batteries don’t have much usable metal, so they are usually incinerated, while the nickel from NiMH batteries is ­consumed in the steel industry. The military, meanwhile, is interested in Axion’s batteries, not so much for hybrids but because they work at temperatures as low as –50° C and weigh less than standard lead-acid batteries, Granville says.