The coming generation of electric and hybrid gas-electric vehicles will need safer, longer-lasting, faster-charging batteries. Boston-Power—the Westborough, MA-based known up to now mainly for its “green” lithium-ion laptop batteries—wants to supply them, and it’s pursuing federal stimulus money to fuel its bid.

At a planned media event today featuring Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, the company will introduce a new “green” lithium-ion battery for electric and hybrid cars called Swing. To build the new product, the company is unveiling plans for a 455,000-square-foot manufacturing facility to be located in Auburn, MA, a Worcester suburb about an hour’s drive from Boston.

Boston-Power says the proposed facility could create 600 new jobs, and both the company and state officials are describing it as a major step toward making Massachusetts into a vehicle battery mecca. “This is the state of innovation,” says Christina Lampe-Onnerud, Boston-Power’s founder and CEO. “It’s a state that is committed to clean technology and has been for a long time. We put Boston-Power’s headquarters here for the same reason. We believe manufacturing should be close to the innovation.” (Below is a complete interview with Lampe-Onnerud, who will also be a featured speaker at the June 24 Xconomy Summit on Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship.)

Indeed, Boston-Power’s project, along with similar efforts at Watertown, MA-based A123Systems, could give the state a key foothold in the reborn auto industry if, as expected, federal bailout conditions force American automakers to retool for a new generation of greener vehicles. A123 landed a deal in April to supply Chrysler with lithium-ion batteries based on its MIT-bred nanophosphate technology. (Those batteries, however, will be built in Michigan rather than Massachusetts, thanks to a $100 million tax-credit lure extended by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.)

Boston-Power’s plan to build in Massachusetts hinges on its ability to lasso a big chunk of federal stimulus cash. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, known colloquially as the stimulus bill, provides $2 billion for “facility funding awards” for “manufacturers of advanced battery systems and vehicle batteries that are produced in the United States, including advanced lithium ion batteries.” Boston-Power is applying for $100 million of that money. It also plans to hit up the Department of Defense for funds designated in the proposed 2010 federal budget for the construction of manufacturing facilities that contribute to national security.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has pledged up to $9 million for the Auburn facility—but that money is in the form of matching financing, meaning Boston-Power will have to secure the federal money first. The company says it’s “working closely” with state officials, including Governor Patrick, energy and environmental affairs secretary Ian Bowles, and Representative Jim McGovern (a Democrat who district includes Auburn), to pursue federal and state incentives.

Lampe-Onnerud says building the Auburn facility will cost far more than the $100 million the company is seeking from the U.S. government, but that “it’s enough to get private investors to believe that you can do battery manufacturing in the United States.” Without some pump-priming in the form of federal stimulus spending, she says, the financial markets might not back risky technologies in areas like energy and clean technology. “What I think the Obama Administration has realized, to its credit, is that if we want to be a player, the government has to help,” Lampe-Onnerud says. “It will not happen on its own.”

Boston-Power isn’t saying much yet about the Swing product itself, except that it will set new standards in the vehicle battery business for safety, lifetime, weight, cost, environmental sustainability, and energy density. (Lithium-ion batteries have a higher energy density, or energy output per weight, than most other battery technologies, and both A123 and Boston-Power have come up with engineering tricks that make it even higher.) But Lampe-Onnerud says the Swing builds on the same basic technology platform as the Sonata, which is marketed by Hewlett-Packard under the Enviro brand name. She adds that the manufacturing blueprints and procedures the company has already developed for its Sonata factories in Asia can be adapted relatively easily to make larger-format batteries for cars here in the United States.

And using an existing building—a warehouse off I-90 once used by the rapidly downsizing Filene’s Basement bargain clothing chain—will hasten the project, Lampe-Onnerud says. “This factory will be up and running full speed within three years, which is very fast in the battery industry,” she says. “We have experience with this type of manufacturing in Asia, so I think it’s a low-risk investment for the government.”

Boston-Power and other applicants for the battery-manufacturing grants have already submitted proposals to the government, and the Department of Energy plans to announce a list of grant recipients as early as July. Governor Patrick, Secretary Bowles, Rep. McGovern, Lampe-Onnerud, and other officials plan to promote the Boston-Power proposal at a noon ceremony today at the Auburn site.

Xconomy spoke with Lampe-Onnerud about the project Friday evening; a transcript follows.

Xconomy: How much of the actual cost of the proposed Auburn plant would be covered by the $100 million stimulus grant you’re seeking?

Christina Lampe-Onnerud: It’s not the whole amount, by far, but it’s enough to get private investors to believe that you can do battery manufacturing in the United States. For a company like ours, cash flow is everything. I believe that Boston-Power, 10 years out, will be a smashing success. But it’s tough in the early years because you’re growing the company at the same time you’re growing the top line. Revenue needs to grow and you need to establish market share at the same time as you’re innovating. This will allow us to …Next Page »

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San Diego-based Maxwell Technologies (NASDAQ: MXWL) said today it has begun supplying its energy-storage devices to three transit bus makers in China under purchase orders totalling $13.5 million. Maxwell says its BoostCap ultracapacitors will be used to boost the energy efficiency of the hybrid diesel-electric buses. According to Maxwell’s president and CEO David Schramm, deliveries of the company’s 48-volt modules have already begun.

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SAIC Motor Corporation, a state-owned carmaker in Shanghai, China, plans to use iron-phosphate-based lithium ion batteries from Watertown, MA-based A123 Systems for a new gasoline-electric hybrid car that could be available in China by 2010, according to a report yesterday in the Wall Street Journal. The Journal said A123 executives would not confirm the report, but the company has published a headline about the agreement on its website.

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Two weeks ago, Xconomy broke the news of the Seattle startup EnerG2’s $8.5 million first-round venture deal with Kirkland, WA-based OVP Venture Partners and Palo Alto, CA-based Firelake Capital Management. Today, the energy storage and advanced materials company is officially announcing its approach and giving the story behind its financing. I had a chance to speak in-depth with EnerG2 chief executive Rick Luebbe and OVP venture partner Rick LeFaivre about the company, its strategy, and what it could mean for the future of cleantech ventures, particularly in the Northwest.

As we reported before, EnerG2’s technology originally comes from the University of Washington. It revolves around synthetic carbon powder and “nanocomposite” materials that have novel properties on the molecular scale, such that they are extremely efficient at storing various kinds of energy—electricity, natural gas, and hydrogen, to name a few. I wanted to find out more about how the technology works and how it will be commercialized (think better batteries for tools, vehicles, and mobile devices), but I also wanted to hear the deeper story about the ideas and motivations of the key players and how the deal came about.

The story goes back to 2003, when Luebbe and his business partner Chris Wheaton first got into the energy game. Luebbe had been the co-founder and CEO of the Seattle software firm Hubspan, while Wheaton had been vice president of North American operations at Silicon Valley-based Loudcloud (now part of Hewlett-Packard). “We got interested in energy storage because we recognized no matter which direction the energy economy went, storage would be a critical, critical component,” says Luebbe. And whether it was electrical storage or gas storage, local or mobile applications, the future was in energy. “I really enjoyed my previous career from a business perspective, but I didn’t have same passion I have for clean energy,” Luebbe adds.

Luebbe and Wheaton began looking for renewable energy technologies at the University of Washington that were practical and could be readily commercialized. “We weren’t interested in science projects,” says Luebbe. At the same time, they thought “the most practical way to enter the space was to find a technology that was a market changer,” he says. In other words, they had to swing for the fences. So they met with various department heads at the UW, and were introduced to Guozhong Cao, a professor in the materials science and engineering department, and his graduate student, Aaron Feaver. Cao and Feaver were focused on developing novel materials to generate and store energy. It was a good match.

The status quo in energy-storage technology, roughly speaking, is that you try different natural materials and see if they work. What Cao and Feaver did was use advanced nanotechnology and …Next Page »

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Boston-Power, which makes advanced lithium-ion battery packs for notebook computers, is planning a ribbon-cutting ceremony today for its newly expanded research and development facilities in Westborough, MA. I caught up with CEO Christina Lampe-Onnerud by phone this morning as she prepared for the event, where a number of local business leaders and state officials plan to join the company as it unveils a state-of-the-art facility focused on improving the quality of the company’s existing notebook batteries and exploring new applications for lithium ion technology.

Already, Boston-Power’s Sonata notebook batteries are known for lasting longer and recharging faster than battery packs from competing manufacturers. Lampe-Onnerud—who will be one of the expert panelists at an upcoming Xconomy Forum on energy innovation, planned for December 2—says the company hopes to extend that advantage into other types of consumer electronics and, eventually, into hybrid and electric vehicles.

A few outtakes from our conversation:

Xconomy: We last talked when you collected a $45 million Series C investment round back in January. Can you say a little about what Boston-Power has been up to since then, and why you needed additional research and development space?

Christina Lampe-Onnerud: The company is three and a half years old now, and it feels quite wonderful—it seems that we have arrived in the market at a time when consumer awareness is pretty high around what next-generation electronics technology should look like, and it’s all about having a battery you can depend on. Our batteries are green, they’re the fastest to charge on the market, and it’s really fun for us today to be opening our new development facility, where we’re expanding both our chemistry laboratories and our electronics laboratory, as well as our testing capabilities and our quality-control production support. We’re also officially opening a whole new division around transportation batteries.

It’s particularly inspiring for me and my colleagues, at a time when we’re reading a lot about the horrific evens in the financial markets all over the world, to be able to promise a glimmer of hope. We are stepping to markets that will not only create new opportunities for us but will actually solve major problems in the clean tech space.

X: What kind of work will go on in these new facilities?

CL-O: We now have close to 100 employees here in Massachusetts, and through our consultants, part-time people, and factory workers we have 500 people engaged in the company. The old facility was in the same building as the new one, but it was only part of a floor. We now have a whole floor, which means we’re able to house the whole team in one place, which is great. We have a dedicated customer support team for every OEM [original equipment manufacturer] that we work with, and now they, as well as the core expert groups in mechanical engineering and chemical engineering and material science, are all in the same space. That helps them make progress really quickly.

We are also fortunate to have many people who want to collaborate with us, so [the new facilities are] an opportunity to take in and partner with other organizations and truly come up with the best solutions.

X: Can you say more about the transportation applications for lithium ion batteries? That’s not something you’ve talked about a lot in the past.

CL-O: I think we have two really big opportunities for Boston-Power. We have all embraced mobile electronics in the last 10 years, and consumers are still hungry for better technology, and batteries have a big part in that. Now our company has the opportunity to leverage our experience with the [lithium ion] chemistry and apply it to the emerging market of transportation. That is a market that is still coming, no question. But it will probably be the biggest market in my lifetime. We really need people to come together to think this through from many different disciplines.

There are a number of new opportunities that will present themselves. Today we are showcasing battery modules for power-assisted bikes and scooters. And later we will be showcasing systems for larger systems like trucks and hybrid cars. In my opinion, it will be quite a few years before that becomes a real market, but I’m absolutely convinced that it will happen.

X: Right now the batteries in most hybrid cars, like the Toyota Prius, are nickel-metal-hydride batteries. Are you saying that you think you can displace that technology, or are you thinking about experimenting with other chemistries?

CL-O: I believe that we have only scratched the surface of lithium ion technology. If you look at the history of battery technologies, they typically stay around for 30, 50, or even 150 years. Lithium ion was only commercialized starting in 1991. You can think of a battery as a chemical factory where everything has to run exactly on time—and it takes a long time to refine a technology to that point. Lithium ion has had remarkable success in mobile electronics, where it is deployed in basically 100 percent of devices. The energy density is so much higher than for nickel metal hydride that there is basically no question that lithium ion will be the dominant technology.

But I have to be somewhat humble, because it takes a long time to commercialize these opportunities—longer than people sometimes might think. It just takes a very long time to scale up and trouble-shoot new batteries. It’s lovely to have an early demonstration in the lab, but it’s a whole new game to take it into mass adoption.

I think it’s quite likely that lithium ion is the only battery technology I will work on for my entire life. It’s going to stay around for another 50 years, at least.

X: Lastly—you’re talking today about Boston-Power’s lithium ion batteries as a “clean” technology. How so?

CL-O: Lithium ion is intrinsically environmentally friendly because it doesn’t have any heavy metals in it. Boston-Power is the only company in the world that carries “green” government accreditation from both the EU and China. It also has to do with the longevity of the battery packs. You are only going to need one Sonata battery for the lifetime of your notebook. The debate about whether batteries are recyclable misses the point. If you have a battery that can power-cycle 1,000 times as opposed to 400 times, you don’t have to recycle nearly as many batteries, which costs a lot of money, effort, and energy.

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Technique Lets the Deaf Sign Through Cell Phones

Voice communications don’t work for deaf people, and the quality of video carried by American cellular networks is generally too low to carry images of people signing. Now researchers at the University of Washington have overcome this problem by coming up with video-encoding algorithms that enhances only the important parts of a video feed, Ars Technica reports. Since speakers of American Sign Language rely mostly on hand gestures and facial expressions, the algorithm raises the image quality of hands and faces and lowers it in the rest of the video so the video doesn’t overrun the cellular network’s bandwidth limitations.

Municipal Wireless Could Still Be Coming

A few years ago, several cities around the country announced plans for wireless networks that would allow anyone in the city, especially those with lower incomes, to connect to the Internet. Many of those plans have fizzled and service providers have started to pull out. But the Progressive argues that projects in many small and medium-sized cities are thriving, and the larger cities should not give up just yet.

Intel Transmits Energy Wirelessly

Intel has demonstrated an ability to transmit energy without the use of wires or any other contact by lighting up a 60-watt bulb from a power source three feet away. Scientific American says the company appears to be using a technique similar to that described two years ago by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. If Intel successfully develops this technique, it could lead to laptops that can be recharged without any pesky cables.

Low-Tech Method Breaks Anti-Spam Defense

Software to automatically sign up for thousands of free email addresses is often thwarted by the use of CAPTCHAs, those little squiggly words you have to type in to register for a new account. The Washington Post’s Security Fix blog says that, while some spammers have made great strides in defeating the method, the quickest and easiest way is to hire humans to do the work. There are now websites that pay $1 for every thousand retyped CAPTCHAs sent in.

Could Multi-Fuel Cars Be in Your Future?

Lots of people are working on developing the best new fuel to power automobiles. At IEEE Spectrum one writer asks, why not design cars that can run on whatever fuel happens to be available at the moment? In Brazil, the magazine says, Fiat has already created its Siena Tetrafuel, which can run on pure gasoline, pure ethanol, any blend of gasoline and ethanol, or natural gas. That gives drivers the option to purchase the cheapest fuel, or use a better fuel that’s only available some of the time.

Obama May Have Social Media Advantage

The presidential campaigns of both Barack Obama and John McCain have learned to use the Internet to target potential voters and contributors. But the CEO of Rapleaf, a San Francisco company that analyzes data about people available on the Internet, says in BusinessWeek that Obama has the lead when it comes to using technology to his advantage. He says the Obama campaign is drawing on social networking concepts to build an army of volunteers, each of whom is asked to do only a small amount of work.

Bill Would Deal with Quiet Hybrids

Drivers of hybrid-electric vehicles love the fact that the vehicles are so quiet when they’re using electric motors instead of the gasoline engine, but the lack of noise raises the possibility that pedestrians crossing the street won’t hear them coming and get out of the way. So California lawmakers are calling for a committee to study the problem and make recommendations, according to Earth2Tech. One solution may be to add noisemakers to the cars.

Technique Could Make Carbon Capture Affordable

A chemical engineer at Penn State has come up with a way to capture the carbon dioxide coming out of industrial smokestacks and turn it into sand and magnesium carbonate, a chalk-like material. Science News reports that mixing the carbon dioxide with the mineral serpentine would allow industry to convert carbon on a large scale at a relatively low cost. The resulting materials could be buried for long-term carbon storage or used, for instance, to make cement.

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Should Hybrid Cars Have Solar Roofs?

Japanese news reports last week said Toyota is designing a plug-in version of its hybrid Prius that would have solar cells mounted on the body to charge the batteries. Technology Review says engineers are testing car-mounted solar arrays as electricity sources for vehicles. Unfortunately, the systems may be too expensive and produce too little power to be practical.

Gene Testing Cost May Be Higher Than its Value

As the California Department of Public Health wrestles with questions of how to regulate companies that offer the public genetic testing services, the Los Angeles Times asks whether such tests are worth the expense. In some cases, the gene associations with disease are so weak that the tests produce both false positives and false negatives. In others, say critics, even an accurate result isn’t very helpful because the tests identify diseases for which no treatment exists.

A Look at Tesla’s Long, Winding Road

Tesla Motors, which is about to open a sales office in California, is building the world’s first high-performance electric sports car. A long feature in Fortune looks at the twists and turns the company has taken in trying to get its zero-emissions muscle car on the road.

The Right Way to Patch Internet Flaws

Last week several companies, such as Microsoft and Cisco Systems, simultaneously released a set of patches designed to correct a security flaw in the Domain Name Server system, which controls Internet addresses. CNET News talks to Dan Kaminsky, the security researcher who found the flaw and kept it secret from the public while steps were taken to correct it. The writer argues that the decisions Kaminsky made are a model for dealing with such potentially high-risk security problems.

Use Your Cell Phone to Find Parking

The City of San Francisco plans a test this fall of a system that monitors parking spaces and allows drivers with smart phones to find empty spots, and even use their phone to pay the meter. The New York Times reports that the system will be tested in a quarter of the city’s 24,000 metered spaces. The hope is that the system will cut down on traffic congestion and air pollution while making it easier for people to get to local businesses.

FCC to Challenge Comcast on Throttling

Comcast ought not to be slowing down the Internet access of users sharing large files, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin says. According to the Washington Post, Martin wants the FCC to prevent the practice, but does not plan to levy any fines against Comcast.

New Technologies Drive Medical Costs Up

High-tech health care devices, such as the da Vinci robot that allows surgeons to operate in tight spaces with minimal incisions, can add a lot to hospital costs. But, as Business Week reports, healthcare experts are beginning to question whether the benefits of such devices are worth the added costs.

U.S. Offers Prize for Greener Jet Fuel

The federal government is giving money to the X Prize Foundation in an effort to kick start the development of renewable sources of jet fuel. The Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration  gave the foundation $500,000, Daily Tech reports. The hope is that private sponsors will raise that amount to $10 million.

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