Large Format NiMH Battery Suppression

[Magical]

Chevron owns the patents...
Here is why there isn't a viable all-electric vehicle RIGHT NOW.
This is what is WRONG with our system.
The greed of a few...ruin it for everyone.
I propose a new law...NO ONE can purchase a patent, keep the product off the market, and retain the rights.
You suppress it, you lose the patent rights. Period.

http://www.ev1.org/chevron.htm

[poverlay]

1. Thanks. That's good to know. I've had "Who killed the Electric Car" on my table for a

couple of weeks. I need to watch it and write some letters.

Thanks for the "jump start"...
:freak:

[Cobalt-60]

2. Theres a boycott target

Surrender the battery.
Or your corporate *ss belongs to us.

[krkaufman]

3. Hmmm... The recent criminal prosecution against Chevron ...

... for violating the Iraq sanctions (paying kickbacks to Hussein under the UN oil-for-food program), should be used as leverage to free-up that patent.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Report_Chevron_settling_Iraq_oil_probe_0508.html

US energy giant Chevron is preparing to settle a government probe into kickbacks under the now-defunct oil-for-food UN program for Iraq.

The New York Times says the US oil giant was to make an acknowledgement that it should have known about kickbacks – in the guise of surchages – on its Iraqi oil purchases, as part of an expected agreement with US prosecutors likely to include fines of up to $30 million.

[UpInArms]

5. lest you forget

Condoleezza Rice was a Chevron Director from 1991 until January 15, 2001 when she was transferred by President George Bush Jr. to National Security Adviser. Previously she was Senior Director, Soviet Affairs, National Security Council, and Special Assistant to President George Bush Sr. from 1989 to 1991

Another Chevron Corporation giant in the Bush administration is Vice President Dick Cheney. Vice President Cheney was Chairman and Chief Executive of Dallas based Halliburton Corporation, the world’s largest oil field services company with multi-billion dollar contracts with oil corporations including Chevron. Lawrence Eagleburger, a seasoned Bush counselor who held top State Department posts under George Bush Sr., is a director of Halliburton Corporation.

Halliburton's global network of investments includes projects in politically volatile areas including the Caspian Sea region. Dick Cheney was instrumental in negotiating a Caspian Sea pipeline for Chevron. The crude oil pipeline is a 900-mile project stretching from western Kazakhstan to the Black Sea that will primarily benefit Chevron by connecting the Tengiz oil field to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in Russia. Chevron, the largest oil company member of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, holds a 55 percent ownership interest with the Republic of Kazakhstan in Tengizchevroil. The 40-year, $20 billion joint-venture company was formed in 1993 to develop the Tengiz field. Tengiz is one of the world’s largest oil fields with 6 to 9 billion barrels of recoverable oil.

Also, there are allegations that the Bush Administration declared war in Afghanistan, not necessarily to combat terrorism, but to make it possible for U.S. oil interests to construct gas and oil pipelines from the Caspian Sea through Afghanistan to Pakistani harbors on the Indian Ocean. The first phase, now accomplish, was to install a friendly "puppet" regime in Kabul. La Voz de Aztlan has a report on this subject at:

[krkaufman]

9. I hadn't forgotten. Just didn't think it necessary to go any further ...

... since the possibility of making the proposed exchange is nil.

(Hopefully, Condi will face some heat, at a minimum, for the oil-for-food bribes -- but I won't be holding me breath.)

[Davis_X_Machina]

4. No bill needed. If they're that good...

.... and their unavailability impedes a public good, you simply take the patent by eminent domain, reimburse the patent holder, or license it with public funds, and get on with it. Eminent domain is used for real estate, but is isn't intrinsically limited to real estate.

You suppress it, you lose the patent rights. Period.

Workable, constitutional legislation to get at the problem this way is impossible.

[skids]

6. The other patent fight for the new Lithium nanotechs...

...is still pending in court. The two companies named in the suit, Valance and A123, claim it is frivolous and won't go anywhere, and are still shipping product -- their innovations are more in the structure of the electrodes rather than the actual material it is made from, which is what the plaintiff has a patent on.

There's a wrinkle in that A123's founding technology itself was kind of taken from the lab by an understudy over the objections of his prof, but that was settled out of court. I've seen someone ranting that the prof's work to produce a fully solid state battery would be a superior product, but Valence and A123 are shipping product now, which is what really counts.

On the lead acid front, that technology isn't dead yet either, since Catapillar is playing with fancy electrodes for lead acid which vastly improve their specs. If they were able to produce those cheaply, they might get a slice of the market given lead acid is still bang-for-the-buck a better buy and only passed over because of weight and lower specs.

And then with ultracaps looming it is understandable that investors don't really know where to safely put their venture capital in this field. However, it appears that Valance and A123 have managed to find some willing to take the risk.

I am leaning towards pandora's box being open and the attempts to suppress good battery tech will probably fail, but I'm not so convinced of that to be comfortable. Knock on wood.

[SnowGoose]

7. Drug companies do this all the time.

It's detestable, but let me ask you a question.

How would you argue against the patent-holder claim "We're still testing the safety (efficiency, durability, whatever) - we're not ready to bring it to market." Any product could be delayed forever, while officially "in development."

You wouldn't want to set arbitrary time limit, because some things really ought to be studied for a good long time before they're released into the environment. The famous compound DES, for example, didn't to anything to the women who took it, but gave cervical cancer to their daughters twenty years later.

[Gregorian]

8. I knew one of the guys who engineered this car. It's GM's mistake.

What a trip. I'll just say that he came to class the next day, after a 3am run without the doors on yet, and was ecstatic.

Remember we could have gone to metric? Remember photovoltaics that were owned by a large corporation that didn't develop them? It was the very same situation in the last case. But as for metric, there is a parallel to this car. You see, we sit on our ass in fear while missing a good opportunity. Fear and greed seem to play roles in the same arena.

You see, this engineer was ecstatic about the performance of the car. We laughed because the car had no doors, and it blew the doors off of any car he'd ever been in.

We are too late. The world knows the performance qualities of the electric car.

GM could have made an absolute killing on the new era. And all they had to do was market it on just one aspect. Performance. Everyone would have wanted one. Of course they'll still do it. But we're too late. Maybe we can quickly print up a bunch of worthless dollars and get our automotive manufacturing and engineering up to speed. But China knows what's going on. They were snooping around the chip manufacturing companies looking for proprietary motor controllers back in the late 70's. They were already working back then.

I'm glad you posted this.

[Kolesar]

10. Do you think the Chinese will manufacture the batteries and ignore the patent rights?

This could be a fun story to watch unfold :popcorn:

[Gregorian]

11. Remember the diode?

Or the transistor? Those were not patented. And they did that so we would all benefit. And thank goodness we were free to use them.

To be honest, I wouldn't have a clue what the Chinese's intentions are. For all I know they have already eclipsed this battery technology.

I believe that we are on the verge of an energy economy explosion. I think the details are going to be lost in the overall picture. It's no different than other inventions. Some of the big companies just steamrollered over inventors and their patents. Just tie them up in court, and produce the product. Then 20 years later pay the poor soul their $20 million, and be done.

My biggest concern is the 200 billion tons of ice that's melting. We may never have enough time to see this new energy economy.

But yeah, it is certainly going to be exciting.

[madokie]

12. I was just a kid when the transister was put in radio's

you were styling if you had a two (2) transister radio, I'm a tellin ya