Alternative Energy Technologies and the Origin of Specious

John Petersen

Thanks to a recent comment from JLBR, I’ve found a new hero in Dr. Peter Z. Grossman, an economics professor from Butler University who cogently argues that government attempts to force alternative energy technologies into an R&D model that was created for the Manhattan Project and refined for the Space Program will always result in commercial disaster because “the goal of the Apollo Program was the demonstration of engineering prowess while any alternative energy technology must succeed in the marketplace.” In a recent article titled “The Apollo Fallacy and its Effect on U.S. Energy Policy” Dr. Grossman summarized the problem as follows:

“The Apollo fallacy has been detrimental to the development of effective energy policies in the US [and] instead of asking what kinds of programs might be useful, the government holds out the promise of a technological panacea to be delivered simply by an act of Congress. The prospect of an energy panacea actually has some political benefits. It allows politicians to claim that they can provide simultaneously the two outcomes most Americans seek from energy policy: low energy prices and energy independence. In fact, with conventional resources these goals are mutually exclusive. To get low prices, the government should provide incentives to drill for oil and gas not just in the US but also in places where they might be exploited more cheaply – of course making the nation more dependent on outside sources. To lessen dependence (true energy autarky is not a feasible goal) on foreign resources, the only method government can use with conventional resources is to raise prices through taxes. But a new technology presumably can to both at once: provide cheap, US-made energy. Unfortunately, the history of energy programs argues that the pursuit of a technological-commercial panacea will fail.”

In a 2008 white paper titled “The History of U.S. Alternative Energy Development Programs: A Study of Government Failure,” Dr. Grossman started with the Eisenhower Administration’s wildly optimistic plans to commercialize nuclear fission reactors for civilian electricity and offered a brief history of serial energy policy failures including:

• The Nixon and Ford Administrations’ support for synthetic fuels from coal and oil shale;
• The Carter Administration’s support for synthetic fuels, nuclear fusion and ethanol; and
• The Clinton Administration’s “Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles” that failed miserably while privately funded initiatives from Toyota and Honda were remarkably successful.

My additions to Dr. Grossman’s list would include Bush the Younger’s support for fuel cells, the hydrogen economy and corn ethanol, and the Obama Administration’s support for vehicle electrification and alternative energy in general.

These ambitious energy policies all shared three fatal flaws:

• An inability to distinguish between the technologically possible and the economically desirable;
• A belief that intervention can force innovation and overcome technical challenges on time and within budget; and
• A failure to recognize that generous subsidies invariably lead to increased demand for more generous subsidies.

The end result has always been grandiose, unrealistic and extravagant mandates that resulted in catastrophic losses for naive and credulous investors who bought the hopium.

For over sixty years, the government has consistently and predictably failed to understand that industrial revolutions arise from technologies that are perfected by entrepreneurs and prove their value in a free market. The government can accelerate advances in basic science and engineering when cost is not an object, but it can’t make technologies cost-effective or ignore the realities of a resource-constrained world. The following cartoon from Jan Darasz appears in the most recent issue of Batteries International Magazine and may overstate the problem a bit, but only a tiny bit.

During the “Sputnik moment” discourse in his recent State of the Union Address, President Obama promised to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to put a million plug-in vehicles on the road by 2015. Back in the business world, Johnson Controls (JCI) and Exide Technologies (XIDE) are spending their own money, together with a $34 million ARRA battery manufacturing grant, to build factories that will make AGM batteries for 14.7 million micro-hybrids a year by 2014. The President’s plan will save up to 400 million gallons of gas per year by 2015. The 56 million micro-hybrids that will be built during the same time frame using AGM batteries from JCI and Exide will save 1.6 billion gallons of gas per year. Last time I checked, spending millions to save billions of gallons of gasoline was more sensible than the inverse.

I’ve frequently argued “Alternative Energy Storage Needs to Take Baby Steps Before it Can Run.” A favorite quote from William Martin’s novel “The Lost Constitution” says it all – “In America we get up in the morning, we go to work and we solve our problems.” Unfortunately government programs never use the tools that are readily available to do the work. Instead they impede sensible actions like using compressed natural gas instead of gasoline and let urgent problems fester while new, exotic and politically popular technologies are invented and refined, but never commercialized. A cynic might suggest that it’s a great way for a politician to kick the can down the road while deferring blowback from policy failures and unintended consequences until his successor takes the oath of office.

We have 60 years of experience that proves well intentioned but ill-conceived government alternative energy technology initiatives aren’t doing the job. Investing $46 of capital to save a gallon of gasoline with a plug-in vehicle is foolish when you can save that same gallon of gasoline with a $24 capital investment in an HEV. Taxing Peter to underwrite the cost of Paul’s new car will impoverish the masses instead of empowering them. Using imported metals to make non-recyclable batteries for the purpose of conserving more plentiful petroleum has all the intellectual integrity and economic appeal of using cocaine as a weight loss supplement.

There are solid growth opportunities in the domestic energy storage sector. JCI and Enersys (ENS) both trade at about eighteen times earnings while Exide trades at about twelve times earnings. In the more speculative small company space, Axion Power International (AXPW.OB), ZBB Energy (ZBB) and Beacon Power (BCON) all present intr
iguing value propositions as they emerge from the trough of disillusionment and begin to build industry relationships and revenue by proving the value of their products one baby step at a time.

I’m convinced that every manufacturer of energy storage devices that brings a cost-effective product to market will have more business than it can handle as dwindling global energy supplies make storage more cost-effective than waste. That conviction, however, does not extend to market darlings like Tesla Motors (TSLA), A123 Systems (AONE) and Ener1 (HEV) who owe their high profiles and huge swaths of their balance sheets to government largess and glittering promises of an all-electric future once they prove that their wonder products work in the hands of normal consumers and learn how to manufacture better than Toyota Motors (TM), Sony (SNE), Panasonic (PC) and a host of lesser industrial luminaries that have proven their capabilities with decades of successful execution.

Over the last several months I’ve become convinced that a transition from gasoline to compressed natural gas may be one of the great opportunities of our age. Natural gas is abundant and clean, and an easy domestic substitute for imported oil. While I don’t know as much as I’d like to about fiscal multipliers, I have to believe a massive shift from imported oil to domestic natural gas would reduce energy costs to consumers, slash CO2 emissions, generate trillions in additional GDP and go a long way toward ameliorating the looming deficit spending crisis many observers predict.

Just yesterday, the 2011 Honda Civic GX, a conventional vehicle with a CNG fuel system, tied with the all-electric Nissan Leaf for top honors in the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s list of the Greenest Vehicles of 2011, a position it’s held for eight years in a row. The Toyota Prius came in fourth, well ahead of the GM Volt, which came in seventh. I can only imagine what the ACEEE ratings would look like if Honda added a hybrid drive to the Civic GX or Toyota added a CNG fuel system to the Prius.

Mark Twain observed that “history doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme.” When it comes to specious and ill-conceived alternative energy technology initiatives that originate on the banks of the Potomac and rapidly mutate into bad investments, I can’t help but wonder whether we’re just hearing another chorus from the same old song – 99 Bottles of Energy on the Wall.

Disclosure: Author is a former director of Axion Power International (AXPW.OB) and holds a substantial long position in its common stock.