Altairnano Onboard With Navy
Altair Nanotechnologies is going out to sea with the Navy, partnering with the military org to develop battery backup systems on the megawatt scale. The $2.5 million contract is the second such partnership Altairnano has made with the Navy in the last year.
Reno, Nev.-based Altairnano’s (ALTI) ceramic lithium-ion batteries, dubbed “Nanosafe,” are different from other nanotechnology-based lithium batteries, like A123’s, in that Altairnano has replaced the traditional materials with nano-structured ones that can offer 100 times more surface area and don’t lose their ability to charge. In other words: faster charging and longer battery life.
In fact, Altairnano claim their batteries charge so fast that they can fully recharge your electric car in 10 minutes. They claim the battery will even outlast your car. Such long-lasting batteries could give ideas like Project Better Place’s battery-swapping infrastructure some trouble.
Altairnano is working on a number of vehicular projects. Altairnano has agreements to put Nanosafe batteries in Phoenix Motorcars’ electric SUVs and trucks, British Lightning Car’s luxury sports car, ISE Corp.’s hybrid buses, and Alcoa’s AFL Automotive’s hybrid trucks.
But for batteries backing up parts of the grid, the potential for Altairnano’s technology to smooth out the problem of intermittent power sources like solar and wind electricity generation is large. The batteries don’t have a great energy density but that doesn’t matter if you have plenty of space to plop down a huge battery array next to a remote wind farm. Altairnano just finished construction on a $1 million dollar deal with power company AES to provide two megawatts worth of battery storage for a wind farm, an Altairnano spokesperson also told us.
Altairnano started off using nanotechnology to produce pigment for paint, but over the last decade, have moved their nanotechnology into batteries. Currently they are finding the company has been losing money as they get closer to putting more batteries on the road. They lost $16.7 million dollars in the first three quarters of last year while only bringing in $7.5 million in revenue.
Altairnano’s Navy deal is also the second major military investment in large-scale battery technology this month. Earlier this month, ceramic battery maker EEStor signed an exclusive international rights agreement with aerospace giant Lockheed Martin for put EEStor’s electric energy storage units on the battlefield. Looks like the military-industrial complex is helping the cleantech venture world.
Green energy is definitely the best solution in most cases. Technology like solar energy, wind power, fuel cells, zaps electric vehicles, EV hybrids, etc have come so far recently. Green energy even costs way less than oil and gas in many cases.
Altairnano is making a name for itself by making ceramic lithium-ion batteries, dubbed “Nanosafe,” for giant corporations such as Lockheed-Martin and the US Navy. If car manufacturers begin buying these longer lasting and easily rechargeabl batteries next, we could be looking at less time with jumpercables and cars that don’t start.