Staff Reports
The Department of Energy's Inspector General is conducting an investigation into the circumstances under which the former administration of Joe Biden licensed potentially lucrative battery technology to a Chinese company rather than manufacturing the batteries in the United States.
According to recent reports, China is currently in the process of developing one of the largest battery networks in the world utilizing the technology. This technology has the potential to store enormous quantities of solar energy without deteriorating over time or needing lithium, so reducing a significant portion of the negative environmental impact caused by existing green technology, which is disposed of in landfills.
In spite of the fact that the license included a condition that the batteries be substantially manufactured in the United States, the business that was granted the license "clearly indicated on their official site that they intended to produce the batteries in China. The Department of Energy never expressed any alarm despite the fact that these conditions were repeatedly disregarded, according to what they wrote.
The senators came to the following conclusion: We are worried that this is an explicit dereliction of responsibility by DOE, and that this instance may be typical of a department that habitually and flippantly lets technology that has been supported by the government to be handed to China.
According to a report that was broadcast by NPR in the month of August, scientists who were receiving funding from the United States government to work at the Pacific Northwest National Lab had established the vanadium redox flow battery, which could keep enough energy to power a house and would have a lifespan of thirty years. The innovation would make it simpler to rely on energy derived from the sun.
The United States government owns the patent for the technology, and in 2012, it granted Gary Yang, one of the scientists who contributed to its development, a license to use the invention so that he could bring it to market. According to NPR, he started a company named UniEnergy Technology, but the company ran into difficulties obtaining money.
In 2017, Yang, who is a citizen of the United States but was born in China, was successful in obtaining a licence from the DOE so that a Chinese company could manufacture the batteries. In the year 2021, he sold the license in its entirety to a Dutch company known as Vanadis Power. The firm stated that it planned to manufacture the battery in China at first, but would later move operations to Europe in order to conform to the regulations of Europe.
The United States of America also had those rules, although they appeared to be enforced with less severity. UniEnergy sent an email to a state manager at the Pacific Northwest National Lab on July 7, 2021, requesting permission to transfer the license to Vanadis. The government approved the transfer 90 minutes later, despite the fact that Vanadis' website indicated that the batteries would be manufactured in China.
Officials from the Department of Energy who spoke on the condition of anonymity told NPR that they frequently rely on "good faith disclosures," which is another term for the honor system.
NPR was informed by a company based in the United States, Forever Energy, that despite the company's repeated warnings to the Department of Energy (DOE) that the license was not in compliance, the DOE just ignored them.
Following inquiries from NPR, the DOE decided to cancel the license, which opens the door for an American company such as Forever Energy to apply for the opportunity.
However, a Forever executive stated that the United States is currently very far behind and that she doubted China will stop creating the technology merely because it will no longer have the right to do so.
As we reported last month, Ernst claims that a secret Department of Defense report states that China, not the U. S., is the ultimate benefactor of DoD and other [U. S. Government] research investments; this report claims that technological advances supported by American taxpayers frequently wind up in the hands of China.
The preceding is a summary of an article that originally appeared on Daily Wire.
