BCI Yearbook & Special Pre-2015 Convention Report

Savannah, USA • May 3-5, 2015

Bringing the industry togetherwww.batteriesinternational.com

• BCI: global ambitions stride ahead

• Lead and the ever-changing rule book

• Convention highlights explored

• Personal perspectives: Kubis, Vechy

• Battery Council origins, goals, successes

• Battery heroines: Bullock, Burbank

& Special Pre-2015 Convention Report

CONTENTS

www.batteriesinternational.com Batteries International • BCI 2015 Yearbook • 1

Battery Council International’s 127th Convention and Power Mart Expo, looks yet again to be

the hottest meeting of the North American lead acid (and more) battery community this year.

With an exciting agenda covering many issues that urgently need to be discussed, the almost

600 delegates heading to Savannah, Georgia should find much to talk about.

Editorial 2

Catching the gleam of the morning’s first beam — a brief guide to Savannah 4

The view from BCI, speaking with a single voice 6

Hands across the Pacific: the BCI-CBIA partnership 10

Wiley Rein: dealing with the new regulatory landscape 14

Presentations: the keynote, data findings, the price of lead and energy 16

Personal views on the convention: Steve Vechy, Ray Kubis 20

Find us! Power Mart floor plan for the exhibitors 26

New product launch at BCI: MAC Engineering’s In-line AGM COS 29

Managing levels of lead in the blood 31

The BCI story: the way we were — and are 35

BCI’s Marketing Committee 38

The Class of 2015: the new members 40

BCI members directory 41

The business of running the business — BCI committee directory 43

Battery heroines: Kathryn Bullock, Jeanne Burbank 45

BCI Yearbook & Special Pre-2015 Convention Report

EDITORIAL

2 • Batteries International • BCI 2015 Yearbook www.batteriesinternational.com

Lawrence Freedman in a truly outstanding book, Strategy: the History, puts his fi nger on a problem directly at the heart of discussions that need to be held at this year’s BCI meeting.

It’s the difference between strategy, speculation and planning.

Strategy is governed by its starting point and not the end point. Speculation comes in many forms but is normally the reverse. (And planning is something else entirely.)

The question that needs to be posed to the visionary gabblers and theorists that our latest generation of advanced battery developers have thrown up is this: at what point does your thinking start from?

Put simply. Most are looking at the end point. They imagine a sunlit la-la land where 120% recyclable batteries — or maybe even 1200% — store harvests from the energy of the sun. In this bright new world, we may not have to hug trees but these green electrons will even keep our open-toed sandals polished.

Sarcasm aside, they’re not mapping out the route that we get there.

In which case it’s neither strategy nor planning.

Their talk is always that the problems of today will be solved by the march of a technology that is frequently unproven (certainly in the scale that will be required) and still unknown (in its achievability).

Clearly, this makes it more of a leap of faith than any attempt at taking a cold-blooded view of the future worthy of calling itself a strategy.

So, although we believe that ‘advanced’ — that blanket marketing term which verges on the meaningless — battery products of all chemistries will eventually win through, this is no more than a leap of faith, if a logical one.

If advanced means better, cheaper, more powerful, we can only hope that the better will succeed. It’s not certain; despite our dreams.

But the core issue at the heart of any strategy is whether it is possible to manipulate and shape our environment rather than simply become the victim of forces beyond one’s control.

Freedman points out that the inherent unpredict-ability of our environment — being subject to chance events, the efforts of opponents, the mis-steps of friends and enemies — provides strategy with its challenge and its dramas.

Armies or corporations or nations rarely move from one predictable state of affairs to another, he says. Rather they feel their way through a series of states, each one not quite that anticipated, requir-ing a reappraisal of the original strategy, including its ultimate objective.

And here at Savannah rather than glibly assume (as some do) that lead acid will necessarily triumph over other chemistries because of its price — an-other leap of faith — we need to think how this can be made to happen.

At the moment the lead acid battery industry is a sleeping giant, the huge momentum of its automo-tive battery sales around the world, has deprived it of any meaningful sense of strategy.

What seems to be left could best be described as planning. And that’s not strategy at all.

Planning for the future is common sense. But it’s also a one-dimensional approach; a simpler solu-tion that ignores swathes of the diffi culties and challenges ahead.

The Bible says in the book of Proverbs: “Without a vision the people perish” — it’s as relevant today as it was a couple of millennia go.

If we can combine strategy with vision then who knows what will be in store for us at a BCI con-vention in a generation’s time?

The difference between strategy and desire

Mike Halls • [email protected]

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SAVANNAH


Savannah is also famous for one of the largest St Patrick’s Day celebrations in the world and, perhaps unsurprisingly given its affi nity with St Patrick’s Day, its unrivalled hospitality. It also fea-tured heavily in the fi lm Forrest Gump, was the location of the fi rst Girl Scouts meeting and was once offered by gen-eral Sherman to president Abraham Lincoln as a Christmas present — one of the reasons it was not completely de-stroyed in the Civil War.

Established in 1733, the city of Sa-vannah was the colonial capital of the Province of Georgia and later the fi rst state capital. But, today, Savannah is an industrial centre and an important Atlantic seaport. It is Georgia’s fourth-largest city and third-largest metropoli-tan area.

With its pedestrian-friendly layout and innovative urban design, Savannah attracts and inspires many millions of visitors with its emerald tree canopy, quaint cobblestone streets and majestic architecture.

This coastal city comes to life in the spring when the azaleas reach their full bloom, blanketing the city in an explo-sion of colour.

It’s also a huge tourist destination but with good reasons why. In the past 10 years more than 50 million people have visited Savannah, drawn by its enchant-ing history, elegant architecture, ornate ironwork, fountains, green squares and year-round activities — from St Pat-rick’s Day events to music and food

festivals to exhibitions and Civil War re-enactments.

Although this year’s conference un-fortunately misses St Patrick’s Day, del-egates might be tempted by an Andy Warhol exhibition taking place at the Jepson Center nearby. Spanning three decades of Andy Warhol’s career, this features some of the artist’s most iconic screen prints, including portraits of Marilyn Monroe and Mao Zedong, the splashy camoufl age series, and the con-troversial electric chair portfolio.

But there many other sites and attrac-tions for visitors with the city’s archi-tecture and historic buildings including birthplace of Juliette Gordon Low (the First Girl Scout), the Telfair Academy of Arts and Sciences, the First African Bap-tist Church, Temple Mickve Israel, and the Central of Georgia Railway round-house complex.

Savannah’s downtown area, which includes the Savannah Historic District, the Savannah Victorian Historic Dis-trict and 22 park-like squares, is one of the largest National Historic Landmark Districts in the US.

A brief historySavannah’s recorded history begins in 1733 when a British general James Oglethorpe and 120 passengers of the good ship Anne landed along the Sa-vannah River. Oglethorpe named the 13th and fi nal American colony “Geor-gia” after England’s king, George II. Sa-vannah became its fi rst city.

One famous son of Savannah is Henry Constantine Wayne, who has gone down in history with the dubious distinction of being the man who tried to bring the use of camels to the arsenal of the US Army.

Wayne was a US Army offi cer who, with fellow offi cer George Crosman, advocated the military use of camels for transportation of supplies. In 1836, an extensive study into the matter was presented proposing the creation of a US Camel Corps.

Wayne led an expedition to the Middle East to buy $30,000 worth of camels. They eventually returned with 33 camels and experimented with the animals in the deserts of the western US. More than 40 more camels would arrive later to join the corps.

Subsequently, camels were used in several minor army expeditions in the desert regions of the southwestern US in the 1840s and 1850s. By the time of the Civil War, however, the concept of a Camel Corps had been abandoned.

A HUMP TOO FAR

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however, the concept of a CamelCorps had been abandoned.

General William Sherman, conqueror of Savannah and a military man who avoided poli-tics all his life famously saying: “If forced to choose between the penitentiary and the White House for four years, I would say the penitentiary, thank you.”

AIR 82F • OCEAN 72F

AVERAGE TEMPERATURES IN SAVANNAH IN MAY

Catching the gleam of the morning’s fi rst beamWelcome to Savannah, the largest city and county seat of

Chatham County, Georgia, but also known as America’s fi rst

‘planned city’. This is because its founder, general James

Edward Oglethorpe, on arriving from England, organized

Savannah into grids — most of which remain to this day.

SAVANNAH


The plan was to offer a new start for England’s working poor and to strengthen the colonies by increasing trade. Under its original charter, indi-viduals were free to worship as they pleased but rum, lawyers and slavery were forbidden.

Upon settling, Oglethorpe became friends with the local Yamacraw Indian chief, Tomochichi. They pledged mu-tual goodwill and Tomochichi granted them permission to settle Savannah. As a result, the town fl ourished without the warfare and hardship that burdened many of America’s early colonies.

During the American Revolution, the British took Savannah in 1778 and held it until 1782. After independence was secured, Savannah fl ourished. Its soil was rich and climate favourable for cul-tivation of cotton and rice.

With slavery proving profi table in neighbouring states such as South Car-olina, Georgia legalized slavery. The trade brought many African-Americans through the port of Savannah ultimately helping form the unique Gullah culture of the coastal communities in Georgia and South Carolina.

With their new-found wealth, resi-dents built lavish homes and churches throughout the city. After the invention of the cotton gin on a plantation outside of Savannah, the city rivalled Charles-ton as a commercial port. Many of the world’s cotton prices were set on the steps of the Savannah Cotton Exchange.

But Savannah was not spared mis-fortune. Two devastating fi res in 1796 and 1820 each left half of Savannah in ashes. But residents re-built.

In 1820 an outbreak of yellow fever killed a tenth of its population. Savan-nah has also survived fi res, epidemics and hurricanes but always bounced back.

Pre-Civil War Savannah was known as one of the most picturesque and se-rene cities in America. The Georgia His-torical Society was founded in that era. Magnifi cent Forsyth Park acquired its ornate fountain, a sight worth seeing.

But during the Civil War, the city suf-fered from sea block-ades and its economy crumbled. The city fell at the hands of Union gen-eral William Tecumseh Sherman who entered after burning the city of Atlanta and everything else in his path.

But upon entering Sa-vannah, Sherman was said to be so impressed by its beauty that he

could not destroy it. On December 22, 1864, he sent a famous telegram to president Abraham Lincoln, offering the city as a Christmas present!

After the end of the Civil War, the economy was in ruins. Despite these hardships and the added burdens of prejudice, the freed slaves who remained in Savannah built a thriving community, with its own churches, schools and eco-nomic strength. Savannah became one of the most historically signifi cant Afri-can-American cities in the nation.

At the turn of the 20th century, cot-ton was king again. Savannah thrived, as did her new industries, including the export of resin and lumber. Then the boll weevils came, destroying most of the cotton and the state’s economy — about the same time that the Great De-pression began.

It wasn’t until the post-war years that Savannah bounced back again, not just economically but also culturally and aesthetically. A group of women banded together in the 1950s to preserve histor-ic structures threatened by the wrecking ball. Their brave endeavours began the Historic Savannah Foundation, which is credited with saving the beautiful ar-chitecture that was the foundation of Savannah’s charm.

Savannah’s Historic District was des-ignated a National Historic Landmark in 1966. It is one of the largest historic landmarks in the country.

• Parts of Forrest Gump were fi lmed in Savannah, most notably the bench Forest sat on the north side of Chippewa Square, for the famous “Life is like a box of chocolates” quote. The bench is now located in the Savannah History Museum. • Girl Scout founder Juliette Gordon Low was born in Savannah, and the very fi rst Girl Scouts meeting was held there. • The book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is based on events in Savannah from the 1980s, particularly the murder trials of John Williams. • The Pirates’ House was an inn that is mentioned in Robert Louis Stevenson’s book “Treasure Island”, it is now a restaurant. • Savannah was voted one of the “World’s Top 10 Trendy Travel Hot Spots” by the New York Times.

SAVANNAH: THE NOTORIOUS?

Savannah has one of the largest St Patrick’s Day celebrations in the world

General Oglethorpe became friends with the local Yamacraw Indian chief, Tomochichi. They pledged mutual goodwill and Tomochichi granted them permission to set-tle Savannah

Check out the Jepson Center’s Andy Warhol exhibition

THE VIEW FROM BCI


These continue to be exciting times for BCI. And on a variety of different fronts. “The new partnership with China’s battery industry association, the CBIA is a real achievement,” says Mark Thorsby, executive vice president, of Batteries Council Inter-national, “and refl ects our growing internationalization. Over the past couple of years we’ve been cement-ing our relationship with sister or-ganizations around the world,” he says.

“Our growing ability to speak with a single voice means we can exert real infl uence on behalf of the industry. Our CBIA tie-up for in-stance, means that just between the two of us we can speak for and rep-resent 70% of the lead acid battery manufacturing community.”

BCI continues to strengthen its ties with EUROBAT, the International Lead Association and its subsidiary ALABC (the Advanced Lead Acid Battery Consortium) and the Battery Association of Japan. Relationships are also being explored in South Ko-rea.

Thorsby is aware that the whole industry is increasingly having to re-spond to growing regulation, mak-ing the work of Wiley Rein, the asso-ciation’s legal counsel and lobbying arm, all the more important.

“It’s more than just responding to new legislation but being able to frame the rules so that they make sense for our members,” says Thors-by. “We’re making important moves in the separation and labelling of lithium ion batteries — many of which are designed to look like regu-lar lead acid ones — which is going to become increasingly important in the future.

“With the fi rst generation of lith-ium ion batteries coming to an end of their useful life, we need to make sure that they don’t enter the lead acid recycling stream where they are potentially highly explosive.”

BCI is also moving quickly in try-ing to deal with increased regulation to do with lead — something that is almost certainly going to be compul-sory in the coming years. “The his-tory of the lead acid battery industry is one of real achievements made in terms of reducing lead levels in

Speaking with a single voice

Batteries International spoke to BCI’s Mark Thorsby, for his views ahead of the convention in Savannah and his thinking of the issues and chal-lenges for the year ahead.

“Our growing ability to speak with a single voice means we can exert real infl uence on behalf of the industry. Our CBIA tie-up for instance, means that just between the two of us we can speak for and represent 70% of the lead acid battery manufacturing community”

THE VIEW FROM BCI


blood,” says Thorsby. ”The average blood level of a battery manufac-turing worker is under 20 μg/dL — which is about the same as that of the average American in 1975 before lead was taken out of petrol.

“There’s no question in science that exposure to lead is good for you and we’re looking at ways — from robotic equipment to sealed produc-tion lines — that could reduce this to nothing,”

A successful conference was held this January in Florida on the sub-ject. More are planned.

Thorsby says too that the themes of the convention — re-invention and reinvigoration — refl ect the changing industry. “BCI has tradi-tionally been a lead-acid based as-sociation but that’s changing. Many of our members have a foot in the lithium-ion camp as well,” he says. “BCI is reaching out to non-tradi-tional members as well.”

There are plans to encourage — and reward — re-invention and re-invigoration which Thorsby will re-lease during the convention.

He is particular excited by the key-note speaker Josh Linkner, the found-er of four tech companies which have been sold for over $200 million and the author of The Road to Reinven-tion: How to Drive Disruption and Accelerate Transformation.

“Linkner is also one of the men that are helping rebuild and reshape Detroit,” says Thorsby. “He’s got more than just an interesting story to tell but genuine case stories about how to put theory into practice.”

So much for the serious side of BCI conducting its business, what about the fun side?

Even the most hardened confer-ence veterans couldn’t help but be impressed with last year’s dining and band on the USS Medway in San Diego or forget the crab-bashing dinner the year before in Baltimore.

“This year we’re taking the pace down a little,” says Thorsby, “re-fl ecting the laid-back quality of the South. Both of our social events are going to be held outside — the weather should be perfect at this time of the year — close to the river. In our welcoming reception we’ll be celebrating with local whiskey and cigars. We know it’s a taste of the South that many have yet to enjoy.

“Likewise in our closing recep-tion we’ll be exploring Lowcountry cuisine. That’s the cooking for this very particular area of the US where

Georgia meets South Carolina. The food will include shrimps, fi sh, crabs and oysters. Imagine the sun going down on the Savannah River and some of the giant ocean-going ships heading in and out to the ocean.”

Thorsby’s plans for the next year are already well advanced. Typically BCI conventions are held alternately on the east and west coasts of the US. This time the convention heads for the middle: to San Antonio in Texas. “It’s a fabulous location to a riverside Marriott that has to be reached by fl at-bottom boats. It’s go-ing to be great,” he says.

Informal dining at the 2013 conven-tion in Baltimore — and fun too!

Networking of a different kind: last year’s winners of the golf tournament

Helping cement the BCI-CBIA link with Zhong Faping a congressman in the People’s Republic of China and head of the CBIA

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BCI AND CHINA

BCI has recently fi nalized the small print on a ground-breaking partner-ship with the China Battery Industry Association (CBIA).

The two bodies will work together to achieve some of the joint goals of the two associations.

It is not the fi rst such partnership BCI has entered into. It has similar relationships with bodies in Europe, Canada and Japan. But it is a signifi -cant move for the association because of the size and rapid growth of the batteries market in China.

Mark Thorsby, executive vice-presi-dent of BCI, says the aims of the al-liance include forging a productive relationship with Chinese government to nurture a supportive regulatory environment and nurturing a global

communications network within the batteries industry.

“We set out to establish a relation-ship with what we believed to be the main association that represents the lead acid battery manufacturing in-dustry in China today,” says Thorsby.

“China is, without question, the largest market in the in the world for many types of batteries and it contin-ues to grow. They manufacture a huge amount of lead-acid batteries includ-ing for a large number of US-owned companies. Although that is a minor-ity compared with the China-owned manufacturers we just felt it made sense for a number of strategic reasons to have this relationship in place.”

He points out that BCI and CBIA’s members comprise 70% of the lead

acid battery manufacturing compa-nies in the world. This means the part-nership is expected to create a unifi ed voice for the industry and allow both associations to better serve their mem-bers.

“We want to facilitate a global com-munications network, primarily be-cause of the global nature of the busi-ness we’re in. We’re going to continue to seek out organizations that repre-sent large groups of battery manufac-turers and suppliers,” says Thorsby.

Such partnerships enable BCI to help achieve far-reaching change in the global battery industry.

Thorsby says the origins of the part-nership came about some seven years ago when BCI held an environmental health & safety seminar in Beijing. It was attended mainly by Chinese staff working for US battery manufacturers operating in China, he says. Though successful, the experience helped BCI better understand the potential of such events if they could get buy-in from local Chinese companies and staff.

“We realized that only working with

Hands across the Pacifi c —

BCI has committed itself to a partnership with its Chinese equivalent, the CBIA. This means that the two bodies together represent 70% of the world’s lead acid battery manufacturing fi rms.

BCI and CBIA’s members comprise 70% of the lead acid battery manufacturing companies in the world — the partnership is should create a unifi ed voice for the industry and allow both associations to better serve their members


BCI AND CHINA

— the BCI-China connectionUS plants would not achieve the ob-jective we were seeking. And we re-alized we would not get buy in from local fi rms without some sort of sup-port,” he says.

Then, some three years ago, at the invitation of the Chinese authorities, the BCI organized a two-day health and safety seminar featuring a number of top health and safety executives. This time, some 200 Chinese execu-tives attended, all senior managers or directors. Thorsby says the event was very well received.

After that, the BCI started to formal-ize a working relationship with the batteries sector. It explored ties with a number of other bodies that represent the batteries sector in various forms before settling on the CBIA.

“Some of the bodies we spoke to were more the organizations behind trade shows — which is fi ne — but we want-ed a real partner in China with the right links to government and also a critical mass of manufacturing and suppliers as members. We also wanted a key event with gravitas that would act as an im-portant date in the calendar.

“In the CBIA we found everything we were looking for. We got to the point where we were comfortable and wanted an alliance. They visited us in the US and we discussed how the rela-tionship could work. They were very keen and understood some of the key objectives we were looking to achieve.

“We think this is the real deal and will make a big difference to some of the initiatives we want to push for-ward this year.”

He says the fi rst of these is to enlist CBIA participation around the initia-tive to prevent the contamination of the lead-acid recycling stream with lithium-ion. “This is becoming a big problem now,” he says. “There are more and more lithium-ion batteries that are even being designed to look like lead-acid ones

“This means that the identifi cation and segregation of lithium-ion is be-

coming more and more important. But because of the Chinese infl uence on the market and the extent of their manufacturing operations they need to be part of the solution.”

He says there are several compo-nents to trying to fi nd a solution. One is better labelling of batteries, poten-tially implementing a colour scheme that would be used to identify the dif-ferent chemistries being used inside.

The BCI is working on a proposal that would potentially implement such a scheme.

This will enable separation and seg-regation of battery chemistries at col-lection sites, which will help reduce the problem of lithium ion batteries fi nding their way into the lead acid battery recycling stream.

“It would certainly help in terms of the sorting and separation at the col-lection point. It wouldn’t be much use

“We wanted a real partner in China with the right links to government and also a critical mass of manufac-turing and suppliers as members”

BCI AND CHINA


at the smelter but we think that 90% of the problems could be solved at the collection point,” Thorsby says.

BCI is working with global partners including EUROBAT, the Interna-tional Lead Association, the Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium, the Applied Battery Research for Trans-portation Program and the Portable Rechargeable Battery Association to develop a labelling system for visual identifi cation of the chemistry inside each battery.

But adding China to that list could make all the difference.

“It’s an immediate challenge that we’re facing not just in the US but around the globe,” says Thorsby. “We think the labelling system will solve about 90%-95% of the problems. We now hope to secure cooperation from the CBIA in getting their members to affi x the proper labels on the batteries based on the chemistry.

“The scary thing that we all fear is if there were to be a serious accident at a lead smelter if we do not confront this problem. A lithium-ion battery in a furnace could cause an explosion and cause physical damage or even personal injury.

“In turn, that would also have a det-rimental effect on all the hard work that has been done historically to en-sure lead-acid recycling is successful — it is one of the most recycled prod-ucts in the world. We cannot allow anything to detract from that success which is why this issue is so impor-tant.”

Healthy outlookBCI is also working with the CBIA on initiatives to improve the health of battery manufacturing employees. This fi ts in with the ethos of the events it initiated in China several years ago.

“We aim to get blood lead levels down and with the ultimate dream of eliminating workers’ exposure to lead,” he says. “That is another long-term goal — to implement better health and safety and environmental standards to our industry regardless of the country and where the work-ers live.”

“So that is another of our goals in

China. We are not exactly sure what that system will be yet or how it will work as this is just early stages. But it is something we will work towards long term and our partnership with the CBIA represents a good starting point.”

This partnership with the CBIA is just the latest in a number formed by the BCI — part of a trend where it be-come increasingly outward focused as an organization and intent on devel-oping a global footprint.

Thorsby says this refl ects what their members need and the way the global batteries market is changing.

“The reality is that our members are becoming increasingly multi-national. Many have headquarters in the US but have substantial international re-lations.

“Having these global partnerships allows us to better advise members on problems and challenges and have a better understanding of the regulatory environment in different countries. We can also collect data that can be very useful to members.”

Thorsby admits that there are some language and cultural challenges in setting up such agreements but that the benefi ts outweigh any such diffi -culties.

“This sector is already completely global and will continue to becoming increasingly unrestricted by borders. We need to refl ect that trend in what we do and in a way that best serves the needs of our members.”

We think the labelling system will solve about 90%-95% of the prob-lems. We now hope to secure cooperation from the CBIA in getting their members to affi x the proper labels on the batteries based on the chemistry.

“China is, without question, the largest market in the in the world for many types of batteries and it con-tinues to grow. They manufacture a huge amount of lead-acid batteries including for a large number of US-owned companies.”

Another long-term scheme the BCI is working on involves the acceptance and implementation of a full and accurate global battery numbering system. Thorsby says there are at least three different

numbering systems globally and making it very diffi cult for companies operating globally.

“This is a direct response to something that would really help our members,” he says.

GETTING THE NUMBERS RIGHT

Faster Formation Improved

Deep Cycle Performance

Improved Reserve Capacity

Are You Staying Upwith the Competition?

CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS


David Weinberg, partner at law fi rm Wiley Rein, will present at BCI on regu-latory developments that have already happened since the last conference and some of those that are pending this year. The topic is both a huge one in terms of its implications and one that refuses to go away.

California will again dominate the talk as the state continues to take its own direction on a number of key en-vironmental issues critical to the bat-teries industry. How these play out in the future will be of great interest to the industry.

The fi rst issue he will cover is the move by California to reconsider gen-eral workplace standards for lead ex-posure.

The Federal Occupational Safety and

Health Administration (OSHA) has not updated its own general workplace standards for lead exposure since estab-lishing them 35 years ago. Now, with no change on the agenda, California is taking its own initiative. Its own Divi-sion of Occupational Safety and Health is working toward tightening these regulations.

Weinberg says that if California suc-ceeds and demonstrates that its lead-related businesses can survive tougher

Ahead of the 127th Convention, Batteries International spoke to David Weinberg, partner at law fi rm, Wiley & Rein to explain some of the themes in his own presentation — always regarded as one of the must-attend events.

“When you change these regulations, you put the onus on industry to invest more to clean up their operations and reduce emissions beyond the very low levels already reached. But that can be an expensive and sometimes unrealistic task. If the levels go much lower, it will get very, very expensive to reduce them further — there are substantial question marks over the real health benefi ts of doing that.”

All eyes on California’s regulatory charge

CONFERENCE HIGHLIGHTS


regulations, it could set an infl uential precedent that could become a big deal for the batteries industry.

“This process has been underway for several years already but there is an im-portant meeting coming up that means we could have more idea as to the di-rection this is heading before the BCI Convention,” he says.

He says it is no great surprise that California is going down this route. While every other state follows Federal rules and regulations, even if they have their own enforcing agencies, Califor-nia has a long track record of work-ing independently and setting its own standards on many things.

More rigorous standardsWeinberg stresses that the point that the standards have not changed since the 1970s is in fact a misnomer. The industry’s own standards are far more rigorous anyway. As such, the lead lev-els in the blood of a worker in a battery plant is roughly the same as what it was for every member of the population in the 1950s. “The point is that standards have improved massively anyway, with-out federal intervention,” he says.

But the proposals in California could potentially reduce this standard to somewhere in the region of a fi fth of the current recommended federal lev-els. This would be around a third of the accepted industry standard these days.

Although, in theory, any changes would apply to California only, Wein-berg says that the industry has concerns around the way such regulations would play out when applied to wider federal legislation relating to worker welfare.

“In addition to any specifi c regula-tions around materials, companies must also abide by a more general Federal “general duty” clause regarding worker protection. The relationship between this general duty clause and standards as set by certain states is ambiguous, but in theory you could see a situation where regulators argue that a guideline set by an individual state could become relevant.”

The second area he will cover, also in relation to California, relates to air quality standards. Again, California is setting high standards and this has a particular relevance to the lead indus-try because of the two major smelters based in the Los Angeles area. “Again, the industry is facing increasingly rigor-ous requirements,” he says.

Specifi cally, the South Coast Air Qual-ity Management District, the air pollu-tion control agency for Orange County and the urban portions of Los Angeles,

Riverside and San Bernardino areas, is pushing for higher standards — above federal standards.

This is especially pertinent because the federal government has recently proposed not to change its standard in relation to air pollution. The last time they reduced it — lowered their toler-ance of pollutants in the air — was al-most 10 years ago. The Fed reviews this level every fi ve years based on the latest scientifi c evidence. It recently decided the level was fi ne as it is. “They have been through an extensive scientifi c consultation which resulted in the deci-sion to retain the same level,” he says.

“So the move to lower the level has grabbed the industry’s attention. But it is the latest in a long series of situ-ations where California has chosen to be more aggressive on environmental regulations such as this,” he says.

The original proposals were made several months ago and a meeting this April should offer more clarity on the direction of this proposal now. Wein-berg believes the formal proposal could be scheduled for late summer or the fall.

Some of the tactics of California leg-islators have had a very direct effect on the batteries industry. Exide will now not reopen its smelter and Weinberg says the reality is that certain types of businesses will simply fi nd it easier to either relocate or focus their efforts on operations in different states.

“The fact is that when you change these regulations, you simply put the onus on industry to invest more to clean up their operations and reduce

emissions beyond the very low levels already reached. But that can be an ex-pensive and sometimes unrealistic task. If the levels go much lower, it will get very, very expensive to reduce them fur-ther for companies and there are sub-stantial question marks over the real health benefi ts of doing that.”

He also notes that since Exide is not now reopening whether further restric-tions are really necessary at all.

Practical realities“The practical reality is that compa-nies will start to avoid the state. There are four major battery companies in the LA basin, two of which also have operations in Georgia. They no doubt will simply invest more in those in-stead of in California. California is be-coming an increasingly diffi cult place to do business for manufacturers pre-cisely because the regulatory schemes there are so burdensome.”

His speech will also touch on the la-belling requirements being rolled out by the federal government that will af-fect battery manufacturers and a new control act relating to toxic substances. He will also discuss the consequences of the disparity between standards in Mexico and other countries compared with the US.

Weinberg has more than 35 years of experience in administrative and envi-ronmental law, specializing in environ-mental, occupational health and safety, transportation, product safety, and pes-ticide matters, and has represented BCI on these issues for over 20 years.

“So the move to lower the level has grabbed the industry’s attention. But it is the latest in a long series of situations where California has chosen to be more aggressive on environment regulations such as this”

About a third of the airborne lead analysed in a study of pollution in the San Francisco Bay Area came from Asia, according to a 2010 study “Pb Isotopes as an Indicator of the Asian Contribution to Particulate Air Pollution in Urban California”.

In the analysis scientists from the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the California Air Resources Board tracked variations in the amount of lead transported across the Pacifi c.

They used the lead particles’ isotopic signature as a chemical return address, which enabled them to trace some of the lead’s origins to coal and metal ore found only in Asia.

IT’S A GLOBAL PROBLEM

BCI PRESENTATIONS


Josh Linkner, the keynote address: harnessing innovation: turning raw ideas into powerful results The keynote speaker at BCI this year will be Josh Linkner a four-time suc-cessful tech entrepreneur and investor in dozens of start-ups.

Linkner says he has seen thousands of companies loaded with “creative buzz and big ideas”. The purpose of this talk will be to examine why it is that some of these companies “suc-cessfully harness their imagination to create game-changing drivers of growth and innovation” while others miss the mark.

“The answer: the best companies have a systematic process to focus their team’s creativity into practical outputs,” he says. Linkner says he dis-covered this by founding and building companies that collectively sold for over $200 million.

“As a professional-level jazz guitar-ist, I blend the improvisational quali-ties of a jazz ensemble with business

savvy to bring a fresh perspective on unleashing creativity in the organiza-tion,” he says.

His presentation delivers practical tools that can be used immediately to increase creative output and deliver bottom-line results.

He says attendees will learn to: use specifi c techniques to harness the most powerful ideas; apply creativity on a daily basis across business ac-tivities and roles; break free from the three biggest blockers of creativity; apply best practices from the world’s most innovative companies; avoid the fi ve biggest creativity killers; master the three most powerful brainstorm-ing techniques that you’ve never even heard of; and build a culture that cel-ebrates fresh thinking and embraces new ideas.

2014 Battery Shipment Review & Forecast ReportDale Gospodarek, director of market-ing for the US/Canada region at John-son Controls, will present the fi ndings and analysis from the 2014 Battery Shipment Review & Forecast Report.

Gospodarek will cover the key de-mand drivers in the battery space as well as a fi ve year outlook for the OE and aftermarket.

The starting point for this year’s presentation will be last year’s, he says. Among other things, that presen-tation covered new and used car sales during the recession and the infl uence these trends have and will have on battery sales going forward.

“There are some short-term head winds but some long-term tail winds,” he says. “But sales improved dramati-cally from 2010 on in terms of the batteries. We are starting to see the fi rst replacement windows emerge now.”

He says the picture for battery man-ufacturers is made more complex by the growing emergence of electric and hybrid vehicles. But the drivers infl u-encing growth this market are varied and complex.

“There is a question over what would really kick-start this market. Would it be government incentives,

the cost of fuel increasing beyond a certain point or improvements in the range of certain types of vehicles?”

He notes there were many factors that infl uenced demand for certain types of batteries during the economic downturn. People didn’t use their boats as much or take as many holi-days, he notes, affecting batteries used by leisure craft. Fewer new homes were built, affecting demand from the construction sector.

Gospodarek’s talk will focus pre-dominantly on the North American market. While the topics covered here represent the starting point for his presentation, he says he is keeping the big themes for those attending the event in May.

He also notes that he believes one of the roles of the BCI should be to help protect the reputation and image of the batteries industry. “There has been some negative press and we should be looking to defend our reputation and ensure the positives messages from this industry are heard, he says.

“As a professional-level jazz guitarist, I blend the improvisational qualities of a jazz ensemble with business savvy to bring a fresh perspective on unleashing creativity in the organization.” —Josh Linkner, entrepreneur

and keynote speaker

The joys of anticipation

Batteries International invited four of the convention’s speakers to give a sneak preview of some of the content in their presentations. With surprises planned, all will not be completely revealed ...

The picture for battery manufacturers is made more complex by the growing emergence of electric and hybrid vehicles. But the drivers infl uencing growth this market are varied and complex — Dale Gospodarek, JCI

BCI PRESENTATIONS


Lead prices set to stage slow, erratic recoveryThe recent fall in lead prices has caused anxiety in the market and tan-gible consequences such as Ivernia’s closing of its Paroo Station lead mine. But one lead analyst has predicted a slow, albeit erratic recovery in lead prices over the coming months.

The price of lead has fallen dra-matically in recent months with prices dipping briefl y below $1800 a tonne. Neil Hawkes, lead analyst at CRU, a London-based commodity research consultancy, said developments in the Greece/EU debt negotiations — com-ing to a head as the yearbook went to press — combined with the strength of the Chinese markets will have an infl uence.

He says the drop in lead prices is mirrored by falls in the prices of other metals and commodities including oil and copper. However, the outlook for some metals remains bullish.

“This raises the question of what is going to be the supplier response,” he said. “Ivernia’s closing of its Paroo Station lead mine has drawn a line in the sand to say these kinds of low prices are hurting miners. There could possibly be some more responses, but Paroo Station is quite unique in that lead is its only product.”

Hawkes says it is likely that, as lead prices have already recovered a little, no further major mine cutting deci-sions will be made at this stage.

“At the moment people feel unclear about the future, which is why we’ve see prices bouncing around as they have done. There may be more of that over the next couple of weeks. Beyond that lead’s own industry fundamentals are still reasonably robust. It’s not a very exciting story for lead in the shorter term but it’s not a disastrous story either.”

Hawkes anticipates that lead should recover after people see evidence that the rate of Chinese growth is merely slowing rather than facing any major collapse.

“They will also see that demand is still holding up reasonably well in other parts of the world, but that sup-plies are more than able to meet de-mand at the moment,” he says.

He says supply is bolstered by sec-ondary production: despite the fact that scrap prices have been high and are squeezing smelter margins, gener-ally there will be no shortage of ca-pacity to treat that scrap so secondary production will continue to rise.

“On the primary side really you’ve

got an interesting dynamic because most of the mine production of lead is typically alongside zinc and silver,” he says. “We as a company are forecasting zinc prices to go considerably higher over the next three to fi ve years, silver prices to fall off a little bit further over the same period and lead to sit some-where in the middle, so the revenue streams for miners is one of the most interesting areas to keep an eye on.”

He says that rather than looking at lead in isolation it is necessary to look at it in relation to some of the other metals.

“Even if lead prices stay relatively fl at in its own industry, if zinc and copper were to rally, and if oil prices were to pick up again, if investors were to show a little bit more interest with nerves calmed over the Eurozone and Chinese growth getting back onto an even keel, all those kind of things could pull up lead even though lead’s market doesn’t change much at all.”

Lead’s fundamentals are still reasonably robust. It’s not a very exciting story for lead in the shorter term but it’s not a disastrous story either —

Neil Hawkes, CRU

Sean Fallmer, vice-president, commodity pricing & analysis at Noble Americas Energy Solutions, will present on the impacts of energy prices at the BCI, linking how the evolution of key market drivers such as policy, regulation and geopolitical shifts will impact energy prices in the future.

“My expertise is in deregulated electricity markets — I specialize in educating end-users on how to implement risk management products and strategies which are appropriate for their organization,” he says.

“Subsequently, I will be presenting on how environmental regulation, state regulation and geopolitical events have and will continue to impact the energy supply/demand imbalance. Moreover, we will investigate how the batteries sector is likely to be impacted both in terms of the opportunities it creates and the cost implications it has on their own businesses.”

One area he will concentrate on will be energy storage.

He notes that different US states have adopted disparate policies within the context of renewable energy targets; some more ambitious than others. California, for example, is targeting a signifi cant portion of its future electricity generation/supply from “renewable resources”.

This type of policy may have a direct knock-on effect on the business opportunities generated in these states for batteries companies.

“The issue of energy storage is huge at the moment and may represent a massive potential growth area for battery manufacturers,” he says. “However, that opportunity is also directly infl uenced by the costs of electricity and that, in turn, by policy (for example, various targets and standards) set by each state. It is an area that battery manufacturers targeting this sector need to be aware of.”

He says the main focus of his talk will be North America but it will have a global fl avour given that commodity risk is global in nature.

Fallmer will spend a large part of the presentation discussing wider trends in commodity pricing with a particular focus on electricity and natural gas as well as the differences between regulated and deregulated markets.

As vice president of pricing and analysis at Noble Americas Energy Solutions, Fallmer is responsible for overseeing all energy trading, portfolio management, commodity structuring, physical operations, and regulatory functions for the MISO, PJM, ISO-NE, and NYISO regions for one of the top fi ve commercial & industrial retail electricity suppliers in the US.

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STEVE VECHY — A PERSONAL VIEW


Steve Vechy, senior director, global product portfolio management, En-erSys, outlines several areas of great interest to him and EnerSys which he believes will dominate discussions among delegates this year.

In particular, Vechy says he is im-mensely interested in the progress of proposed global harmonization stand-ards and the way these initiatives tie in with changes to the materials safety data sheets used by the industry. Spe-cifi cally, this involves a move to a Global Harmonized Standard (GHS) Safety Data Sheet.

These changes do potentially mean more work for batteries companies and although he and the sector gen-erally support such standardizations long-term, it is also important to recognise that such initiatives can cause teething problems in the short term.

“All this will give everything more structure globally and we accept that is a good thing and very much needed. But it does also put more of a burden on manufacturers and that should be recognised. It will be inter-esting to get an update on some of the timeframes around these initiatives and to hear how other companies will deal with the changes,” he says.

Another area of interest to Vechy will be updates on the European po-sition on the exemption for lead acid in transportation. This relates to the EU’s End of Life Vehicle (ELV) Direc-tive. Lead-based batteries have always been exempted from the regulations but the last fi ve year extension of this exemption ends this year.

Last year, a number of lead-acid batteries associations and car manu-

facturers requested that the current exemption for lead-based batteries within the ELV Directive’s wider ban on lead in light-duty vehicles is main-tained for at least another eight years.

The recommendation by EUROBAT, the European, Japanese and Korean car industry associations, and the In-ternational Lead Association (ILA), was backed by a series of studies on

the technical benefi ts of lead-based batteries and their sustainability, which includes their 99% recycling rate in Europe and the general avail-ability of the natural resources used to make up the battery.

Part of the evidence submitted to the EU Commission was a study called A Review of Battery Technologies for Automotive Applications, which found that there are at present no al-ternatives, either technically or eco-nomically, to lead-based batteries for the SLI (starting, lighting, ignition) function in vehicles. This means lead-based batteries are essential in virtu-ally all conventional internal combus-tion engine vehicles, hybrid vehicles (mild, micro and Plug-in-HEV, PHEV) and full electric vehicles.

The study also concluded that lead-based batteries will remain the only viable mass market energy storage system in automotive applications for the foreseeable future. Their low cost and unparalleled ability to start a car engine at cold temperatures sets them apart in conventional and basic micro-hybrid vehicles, and as auxil-iary batteries in all other automotive applications.

Vechy says that the industry has giv-en some very compelling arguments in favour of the extension and points out that if the exemption were not granted it would have an incredibly detrimen-tal effect on European car manufac-turers.

“The EU auto manufacturing sector would fi nd itself in a world of hurt,” he says. “The fact is there is no direct replacement technology available. I am sure the exemption will be extend-ed but it would be nice to get an idea

A number of global regulatory standards and initiatives, all of which could potentially have important consequences for the batteries sector globally, remain in the pipeline and the implications of these and the time frames within which they are operating will be some of the biggest talking points at BCI this year.

“The EU auto manufacturing sector would fi nd itself in a world of hurt. The fact is there is no direct replacement technology available. I am sure the exemption will be extended but it would be nice to get an idea on the time frame and more certainty around the subject

Global changes and regulatory challenges

STEVE VECHY — A PERSONAL VIEW


on the time frame and more certainty around the subject.”

Another area he believes will gen-erate fascinating conversations at BCI this year will be some of the de-velopments around so-called hybrid chemistries, in particular the recent announcement that Johnson Controls and Toshiba are working in partner-ship on a hybrid start-stop product.

In January, the two fi rms announced plans to produce a 12-volt lithium titanate battery that they claim will help improve gas mileage in vehicles in the years ahead.

The battery, to be produced starting in 2018, represents a new version of a start-stop battery system that the fi rms claim will offer a more affordable al-ternative to improve fuel economy compared with a full-scale hybrid or electric vehicle.

The announcement was surprising in part because Johnson Controls has such a large market share when it comes to traditional lead-acid batteries.

Vechy says that he believes the part-nership and the chemistry being used will be talking points at BCI. “It is an-other way of trying to approach the problem and fi nd a solution,” he says. “It is especially interesting because JCI is so well established as a lead-acid player. They fact they are making such a bold move into a new chemistry is

very signifi cant I believe.”Finally, Vechy believes there will be

some interesting discussions around commodities pricing at BCI. And while he acknowledges that the main conversation will revolve around the price of lead, he believes the price of some other commodities such as oil should be equally interesting to the industry.

“As the price of oil declines that has a knock on effect on to many other products that have a great bearing on the batteries industry such as plas-tics,” Vechy says.

“While the price of lead will nat-urally be the main focus there is a much wider dynamic picture with commodities that also just cannot be ignored.”

In January, Johnson Controls and Toshiba announced plans to produce a 12-volt lithium titanate stop-start battery that they claim will help improve gas mileage in vehicles in the years ahead.

Vechy is concerned about the issue of tariffs within the wider context of US trade relations with other parts of the world. The increase or reduction of many forms of tariffs potentially has wide implications for the battery industry.

Vechy is specifi cally interested in the suggestion that tariffs on goods imported from China could be reduced or abolished. This would have a direct effect on the batteries sector and ultimately cost US jobs. He is referring to proposals by the US government to drop duty free relief on certain environmental goods’ something that would potentially include lead acid batteries.

“This is obviously a much wider political discussion that will be negotiated at the highest level but the political powers that be,” he says. “But the BCI has previously made its position clear on this — the lead acid industry believes that

the elimination of these tariffs would ultimately cost US jobs.”

In a testimony before the US International Trade Commission last May, David Weinberg, representing the BCI, said that over 15,600 Americans are employed in the domestic production of lead-acid batteries. Another 2,100 are employed by domestic secondary smelters, which recycle old batteries into lead that can be used in new ones.

Weinberg said more than 120 million automotive batteries are sold in the US annually and will grow annually between 0.6% and 1.2% in the coming years.

In a wide ranging testimony stressing the value of the lead-acid sector and its related technologies to the US economy, Weinberg concluded by arguing that including lead acid batteries in any agreement relating to duty free goods would be damaging.

“Thus, any reduction in US

domestic demand for lead-acid batteries, in any category, will have a direct impact on the 15,600+ lead-acid battery manufacturing employees nationwide. These workers could see their jobs vanish if their products are displaced by imported alternatives,” he said.

“This could also have a knock-on effect of reducing the industry’s ability to meet the demands of other traditional battery segments by eroding the total manufacturing capability of production facilities and reducing investment in the research and development of improved battery designs.”

Vechy says since the BCI made its position clear last year, he is not aware of any updates on the situation since then. “It will be interesting to see if any of the speakers are able to give an update on the situation as it does have serious implications for lead acid batteries companies in the US.”

THE TAXING MATTER OF TARIFFS

RAY KUBIS — A PERSONAL VIEW


Ray Kubis, president and managing director of ECO-BAT, the world’s largest producer and recycler of lead, will be attending the BCI event this year with a few key topics at the fore-front of his mind.

The battery business veteran — he joined the industry 35 years ago and has held senior positions in fi rms such as Exide, JCI and EnerSys — reckons that one of the most important issues that will be addressed at the confer-ence (and this applies to both lead-acid and lithium-ion battery produc-ers) revolves around their ability to innovate and meet the ever-changing demands of the automotive industry.

“A big issue is the extent to which different technologies will be able to keep pace with the demands of this sector and the extent to which advanced lead-acid technology can continue to advance and improve its performance and value proposition — whether we are talking about 12V or 48V, that remains true,” he says.

“We know some of the real quali-ties of lead-acid technology, such as its very high levels of recycling, but the question is how it can measure up long term against the challenge from lithium-ion batteries.”

He says it is a question of commit-ment to innovation and the ability to keep pace with what this sector is de-manding of battery companies.

“When you put everything else aside, you need to look at how com-mitted people are to improving their technology constantly and tracking the increasing expectations around these applications,” Kubis says.

“Whether you are talking about stop-start technology or other tech-nologies the question is how the per-formance attributes of that battery contributes to the performance and life of that car.”

He believes there should be more ur-gency around innovation in this sector

by the industry — especially given the explicit nature of the opportunity and threats that directly face the lead-acid sector.

“Some companies are getting better and more money is being thrown at it but I don’t believe it is enough or as much as could be done. The car mak-ers are speaking very clearly in terms of what they demand and the industry must respond.

Lithium-ion is expensive and lead clearly has great value and many great attributes. It is a case of improving things like charge acceptance and per-

formance over many cycles.”The second big issue for the industry

revolves around the continuing evolu-tion of environmental standards.

“Things are changing; regulations are evolving,” he says. “It will be in-teresting to see how things play out as there could be a knock-on effect on many other parts of the industry. You will see the market adapt to this change and some will do so better than others. That could mean new companies coming to the fore over time if they adapt better than others.”

He is interested in seeing what hap-pens to Exide, which remains in Chap-ter 11, in terms of if it emerges and what form the company will take if it does. “It is going through a fi nancial restructuring. Depending on the out-come of that will determine what gaps may exist in the market and which companies may eventually step in.

“In terms of environmental stand-ards, I would highlight air emissions as being the number one concern. There is a greater sensitivity in some states such as California where regu-lations are getting tighter all the time but there are also much wider issues than those that apply to the US alone.”

He points out that an increasingly important issue for the industry will be the way scrap destined for recy-cling is treated in terms of the trans-portation and regulations around its travel between different countries.

“It is about compliance and moni-toring and having effective controls,” Kubis says. “It is not just about setting rules.”

Europe has its own unique challenges in this regard. He notes that the Euro-pean Union’s directive designed to man-age end-of-life vehicles which generate between 7 million and 8 million tonnes of waste in the European Union annual-ly, and make the process more environ-mentally friendly constitutes a challenge to the industry in its own right.

Innovation and environmental challenges will dominate BCI discussions this year. Batteries International interviewed Ray Kubis, the head of ECO-BAT, for his particular interests at the conference.

One of the most important issues that will be addressed at the conference — applying to both lead-acid and lithium-ion battery producers — revolves around their ability to innovate and meet the ever-changing demands of the automotive industry

Lead in a cold climate — dealing with innovation and environmental controls

RAY KUBIS — A PERSONAL VIEW


The directive sets out clear quanti-fi ed targets for reuse, recycling and recovery of the ELVs and their com-ponents. It also pushes producers to manufacture new vehicles without hazardous substances (in particular lead, mercury, cadmium and hexava-lent chromium), thus promoting the reuse, recyclability and recovery of waste vehicles.

“The lead industry has a good idea of how this will work and what they need to do but it is also a case of scratching your head in some ways when you consider that the recycling of lithium-ion batteries does not really exist right now,” he says.

He believes that lead acid is unfairly targeted by regulators in some ways — especially given how effi cient the sector has become at recycling and the fact that it boasts a very good safety record.

“I understand it is unrealistic to be-lieve anyone would love a toxic metal but, candidly, if you pick any metal associated with batteries either in the past or the future you’ll fi nd that none are without some issues.

“The fact is we have developed a comprehensive and effective way of managing lead. We have a closed loop recycling scheme that has been de-veloped at great cost and we have a higher recycling rate than any other product. Is it unfairly picked on? I would put it another way and suggest that out effectiveness in recovery and sustainability is underappreciated.”

The Asian dynamicKubis says another fascinating issue will be the changing dynamics of the batteries markets in Asia — their po-tential growth having a big effect on other markets around the world.

“The evolution of the Asian markets is a fascinating subject and well worth covering,” he says. “It will be interest-

ing to see what the growth forecasts show: whether there will be better growth prospects in India and if they really are diminished in China. There are also many other countries worth following — it is something worth understanding even if it is not at the forefront of my job each day.”

He says he is particularly interested in the way China will address some of the challenges it faces in terms of renewable energy and energy storage. “It is also starting to clean up not just its energy sources but also the way it makes batteries and its ability to recy-cle,” Kubis says. “Their challenges are very different but it is worth watching what solutions emerge.”

He notes that other countries in Asia are interesting for other reasons.

There is a big push in India, towards lithium-ion, for example, in a move that many in the industry suspect as being politically driven.

The fi nal big talking point at the BCI meetings he believes, will be the bur-geoning energy storage market and the extent to which different chem-istries and technologies grab market share and solutions in this space.

“This is a very positive story for the industry as a whole,” he says. “En-ergy storage is still growing fast as a sector. As opposed to fi ghting for the best piece of that pie, different com-panies can instead be looking at ways of growing that market further and developing new solutions that offer better performance to specifi c sectors within it.”

Car makers are speaking clearly in terms of what they demand and the industry must respond. Lithium-ion is expensive and lead clearly has great value and many great attributes. It is a case of improving things like charge acceptance and performance

Kubis reckons that the steady evolution of environmental standards has brought some issues to a head and some of these have been crystallized in the challenges Exide Technologies has faced at its lead-acid battery recycling facility in Vernon, California.

The facility will be closed under the terms of a non-prosecution agreement reached with the US Attorney’s Offi ce for the Central District of California (the USAO)

that resolves the USAO’s criminal investigation into Exide. Moves to close the facility began immediately after the agreement was made.

In conjunction with the closure of the Vernon Facility, Exide also has entered into an amendment to the 2014 stipulation and order with the California Department of Toxic Substances Control that provides a framework for the orderly closure and clean-up of the Vernon Facility. Exide reached this amendment

after, among other developments, hearing from the department that it would likely deny Exide’s Part B hazardous waste facility permit application.

Kubis says the case illustrates the fact that regulations and the enforcement of those regulations is tightening up in the US. This has multiple potential consequences for lead-acid producers and recyclers in the US as well as any company that relies on this sector.

EXIDE AND THE CHANGING FACE OF ENVIRONMENTAL STANDARDS

POWERMART FLOORPLAN


Batteries International

Batteries International has been serving the energy storage and battery industry for over 20 years and has come to be regarded as the defi nitive source of unbiased news reporting, taking an authoritative stance on all aspects of the business. Batteries International’s editorial team has a reputation for fairness, integrity and impartiality — it’s in the business of trying to serve the $30 billion energy storage industry rather than simply work it for its own good.

The batteries business is in a state of fl ux. All the previous certainties are being challenged. Geographically, manufacturing has moved away from its traditional base in North America and Europe. The work horse of the industry — the lead acid battery — is increasingly being threatened by rapidly developing chemistries funded by governments trying to fi nd out where they can domestic industries a new competitive edge.

In this environment there are business opportunities — as well as dangers — galore. Keeping abreast of this rapidly changing world is a must, which makes Batteries International’s fair-minded reporting compulsory reading for the energy storage executive.

Batteries International is provided by independent publisher Mustard Seed Publishing.

Contact details:10 Temple Bar Business Park, Strettington, West Sussex, PO18 0TU, UKPhone: +44 (0) 7792 852 337Web: www.batteriesinternational.comEmail: [email protected]

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Contact detailsSusan HoffmannTel: +1 414.902.5309Susan.Hoffmann@itsllcusa.comwww.internationalthermalsystems.com

Sovema

Stand 102

Founded in 1969 SOVEMA is one of the most signifi cant and diversifi ed battery equipment manufacturers in the world, able to supply individual equipment for specifi c processing operations, as well as complete lines for the entire production cycle, using an integrated technological approach starting from the study of factory and departmental lay-out, through to product know-how and plant commissioning by specialized staff.

In 2008 SOVEMA acquired BITRODE CORPORATION, the world’s most respected supplier of electric power conversions systems for EV/HEV battery testing, as well as production and test systems used in the manufacturing of batteries; in 2011 SOVEMA set up “SOLITH” a new branch for Lithium-Ion battery machines development in Bologna.

SOVEMA is implementing its equipment range more and more, as to improve its market leadership and serve any kind of energy storage manufacturers.

Contact details: Phone: +39 045 6335711Web: www.sovema.itEmail: [email protected]

Inbatec

Stand 201

Inbatec is the world leader in formation systems with acid recirculation technology with 200 systems in operation worldwide. Our formation modules are reliable and proven and are used by many lead-acid battery manufacturers around the world.

Your benefi ts• Closed formation system allows complying with MAC values and environmental regulations• Precise acid gravity and temperature control results in very uniform cell-to-cell voltage• Shorter formation time means higher productivity, less space requirement and lower work in progress / inventory• Self-contained and independentmodules – to be supplied only with concentrated acid, demineralised water, compressed air, electrical power• Whole acid management is done inside the module• Production capacity grows step-by- step

The Inbatec formation process combines uniform and repeatable quality with high productivity and environmental compatibility. The Inbatec modules – the benchmark for lead acid battery formation.

Contact details

Inbatec GmbH, Konrad-Adenauer-Ring 40. 58135 Hagen , Germany Tel.: +49 (0)2331 39650-0 E-Mail: [email protected] Fax: +49 (0)2331 39650-29

Web: www.inbatec.de

OMI-NBE

Stand 97

OMI-NBE is a company specialized in the production and installation of formation and charging systems for any type of lead-acid batteries.

We can take care of your batteries coming from the assembly, starting from the acid and water preparation, fi lling and forming them with our water cooling systems or with the acid recirculation formation system, test and prepare your high quality batteries for the shipment to your fi nal client and user.

Our focus is to give our customers the maximum effi ciency and fl exibility, an increase in production and productivity, a better quality of the products and a reduction of the costs.

Our solutions for your business:

• Acid recirculation formation• Advanced water bath formation• Filling process for fl ooded & AGM• Finishing & dispatching equipment • Acid preparation, storage & recovery• Tubular plates fi lling, slurry preparation• Auxiliary equipment

Contact details: Email: [email protected]: www.omi-nbe.com

Tel. & Fax: +39 0363 901 9811

WIRTZ Manufacturing

Stands 104-106

The WIRTZ group of Companies provides

global solutions to the world-wide battery

manufacturing industry.

With state-of-the-art equipment

designed and developed by; WIRTZ

(gravity-cast, continuously-cast and rolled,

punched grid and plate production);

OXMASTER (ball-mill and barton oxide

production systems, and paste mixing

equipment); LEKO (semi-automatic

and high speed fully-automatic battery

assembly lines); CONBRO (battery

filling and formation plants); and

BATTERYRECYCLING (turnkey battery

breaking lead and plastic recycling

systems, including paste desulphurisation).

At BCI, WIRTZ will demonstrate their

commitment to automatically control,

and continuously improve critical process

variables, in order to ensure that their

resulting battery products are of the highest

QUALITY, DURABILITY and PERFORMANCE.

Contact details:

WIRTZ Manufacturing Company Inc..

1105 Twenty-Fourth Street

Port Huron, Michigan 48061-5006

USA

Tel: +1 810 987 7600

Email; [email protected]

POWERMART FLOORPLAN



POWER MART EXPO FLOORPLAN

KEY — BY COMPANY NAME

ACCUMALUX GROUP 211

AMER-SIL 93

AUTO METER PRODUCTS 105

BAODING FENGFAN RISING BATTERY SEPARATOR. 209

BATTERY WATERING TECHNOLOGIES 107

BERNARD DUMAS 114

BITRODE CORPORATION 100

BM-ROSENDAHL 116

CMWTEC TECHNOLOGIE 214

CO-EFFICIENT 212

DARAMIC 101

DIGATRON POWER ELECTRONICS 99

EIRICH MACHINES 204

ENTEK INTERNATIONAL 89-90

FARMER MOLD & MACHINE WORKS 115

FLOW-RITE 207

GAUTHIER NON-FERROUS PRODUCTS 200

INBATEC 201

INTERNATIONAL THERMAL SYSTEMS 88

JBI CORPORATION 108

JOHNS MANVILLE 109

KÄLLSTRÖM ENGINEERING 119

MAC ENGINEERING & EQUIPMENT 216

MICROPOROUS 202

MIDTRONICS 111

OAK PRESS SOLUTIONS 218

OMI – NBE 97

OWENS CORNING 206

POLYMER MOLDING 117

POWER-SONIC CORPORATION 103

PÜTZ PROZESSAUTOMATISIERUNG 110

RICHARDSON MOLDING 205

SOVEMA GLOBAL SERVICES 102

SUPERIOR GRAPHITE 208

TULIP MOLDED PASTICS CORPORATION 118

WATER GREMLIN. / OKABE 203

WIRTZ MANUFACTURING 104-106

YACHT BATTERY COMPANY 113

KEY — BY STAND NUMBER

88 INTERNATIONAL THERMAL SYSTEMS

93 AMER-SIL

89-90 ENTEK INTERNATIONAL

97 OMI – NBE

99 DIGATRON POWER ELECTRONICS

100 BITRODE CORPORATION

101 DARAMIC

102 SOVEMA GLOBAL SERVICES

103 POWER-SONIC CORPORATION

104-106 WIRTZ MANUFACTURING.

105 AUTO METER PRODUCTS

107 BATTERY WATERING TECHNOLOGIES

108 JBI CORPORATION

109 JOHNS MANVILLE

110 PÜTZ PROZESSAUTOMATISIERUNG

111 MIDTRONICS

113 YACHT BATTERY COMPANY

114 BERNARD DUMAS

115 FARMER MOLD & MACHINE WORKS

116 BM-ROSENDAHL

117 POLYMER MOLDING.

118 TULIP MOLDED PASTICS CORPORATION

119 KÄLLSTRÖM ENGINEERING

200 GAUTHIER NON-FERROUS PRODUCTS

201 INBATEC

202 MICROPOROUS

203 WATER GREMLIN S / OKABE

204 EIRICH MACHINES.

205 RICHARDSON MOLDING

206 OWENS CORNING

207 FLOW-RITE

208 SUPERIOR GRAPHITE

209 BAODING FENGFAN RISING BATTERY SEPARATOR.

211 ACCUMALUX GROUP

212 CO-EFFICIENT

214 CMWTEC TECHNOLOGIE

216 MAC ENGINEERING & EQUIPMENT

218 OAK PRESS SOLUTIONS

BCI UNVEILED: PRODUCT LAUNCH


MAC Engineering & Equipment is to reveal at this year’s BCI Convention its Inline AGM COS machine — a breakthrough, says the fi rm in battery manufacturing technology.

The Inline AGM machine has already been fi tted and tested with Crown Bat-tery in Ohio. The purchase of the ma-chine by Crown shows a new direction for the US-based battery maker, which provides an extensive range of both mainstream and specialized batteries but, as to date, has only made fl ooded lead acid batteries.

“Our Inline AGM machine provides a signifi cant step forward in the qual-ity of battery manufacturing machin-ery that we make,” says Doug Bornas, vice president of sales and marketing at MAC. “This is a cutting edge prod-uct and designed specifi cally for high quality AGM battery making.”

The Inline AGM machine’s main ad-vantage over other machines is that it gives consistent and accurate com-pression to each cell of the absorbent glass mat — either too little or too much compression limits the power output of the battery and also makes it susceptible to other external factors such as vibration.

Two cells will be loaded at a time in one of 12 group holders and moved out to start the process. Another hold-er will move in and be loaded with two cells as well and so on. Each cell will have the lugs aligned as well as be individually compressed to a set amount. These holders are designed to evenly compress each cell to a specifi c tolerance to ensure proper group size for insertion into the case.

After compression and turnover, each holder will go over a brush sta-tion, into a fl ux station, then a tin station, before heading for one of the three molds which make up a six cell battery. Each mold casts two cells with independent heating for each mold. With the smaller molds, vary-ing temperatures are easier to control

which helps give consistent quality casting from cell to cell.

After casting the cells go into the unload station where an 80kg robot places each cell into a fi xture above the case. Holders return to the load-ing station automatically.

Once the fi xture is full, the fi xture goes down pushing chutes into the case which help guide the cells. A

stuffer then pushes the cells fi rmly into the case to a pre-programmed depth.

“The two cell casting arrangement — whereby we fi ll one of (12) two-cell group holders (rather than six-cell or 12-cell group holders) is such that we provide a faster production process. This is a cutting edge product and designed specifi cally for high quality AGM battery making This two cell ar-

Lead acid USA: reasons to be positive about AGM

Highlights of previous BCI Conventions traditionally include the an-nouncement of new deals and product launches. MAC Engineering & Equipment reveals details of its latest cast-on-strap product to manu-facture absorbent glass mat products.

The purchase of the machine by Crown shows a new direction for the US-based battery maker, which provides an extensive range of both mainstream and specialized batteries but, as to date, has only made fl ooded lead acid batteries.

BCI UNVEILED: PRODUCT LAUNCH


rangement gives us shorter cycle times (around 20 seconds per mold) but moreover by dealing with only two cells at a time, we have greater con-trol of casting temperature and hence higher quality of the casted cell,” says Dan Duffi eld, vice president of opera-tions at MAC.

The In-Line AGM machine can handle plates of up to 10 inches high (254mm) and 7.375 wide (187mm) and stack heights of 5.625 inches (142.8mm) uncompressed.

“The cycle times vary with their size but on average there is a 60 second cycle per battery.

The Inline AGM COS machine is designed to meet the growing sophisti-cation of AGM battery manufacturers who now differentiate their companies on ever-higher specifi cations on the quality and life of their products.

MAC Engineering’s Doug Bornas (left) and Dan Duffi eld: “This is a cutting edge product and designed specifi cally for high quality AGM battery making.”

When Crown Battery elected to move forward with manufacturing AGM batteries we investigated equipment offering from various vendors around the world. MAC Engineering has built COS machines for our automotive, commercial, marine, deep cycle, motive power, railroad, and mining products, therefore we decided to discuss the possibility of a new AGM COS machine with them.

We met and discussed ideas about existing equipment, limitations, likes/dislikes, and unknown directions in possible AGM offerings.

We decided to build a new machine where we could try different concepts. If they didn’t work we would have had time to address them as we had an extensive product validation schedule incorporated into the product launch. The in-line concept allowed the most fl exibility in design and integration.

We opted for a modular design because this was a prototype machine that had many new ideas

and concepts. Each station is virtually a stand-alone machine networked together. This allowed us to take some risks on new concepts. These included induction driven carriages, a new lead delivery system, servo

compression, and a completely networked machine.

The most important decision was how many cells to process at a time. Typically we would cast an entire battery that was possible, however, Crown ultimately decided on casting two cells at a time.

This method allowed the most amount of control on each cell. By processing two cells at a time we could:• Decrease the possibility of uneven

compression on cells • Consistently compress or release

by station to perform necessary function

• Utilize torque on the motors as well as a fi xed position to ensure consistent cell compression

• Maintain individual temperature control by strap within a cell

• Allow for future possible utilization of post inserts and have the necessary temperature control to maintain.

• Manage mold cooling and processing time

• Maintain consistent mold temperatures by continuously cyclingThroughout the commissioning and

prototype production phases the concepts that needed to be refi ned were identifi ed and addressed. Overall this was an ambitious undertaking which has proven to be a great investment in our endeavor to build high quality AGM batteries.

COLLABORATION: HOW CROWN BATTERY AND MAC WORKED TOGETHER

“This was an ambitious undertaking which has proven to be a great investment in our endeavor to build high quality AGM batteries.”

Mike Fraley, director of engineering at Crown Battery, describes the approach and thinking behind the new design

BLOOD LEAD LEVELS


The lead-acid battery industry has al-ready travelled a long way down the road of reducing blood lead levels in its workers. The extent of the achieve-ment is clear when you compare the average blood lead levels of people working in battery manufacturing today against the average blood lead levels of the general American popula-tion 40 years ago.

In 1975, the average American had a blood lead level of approximately 15 micrograms per decilitre of blood

(15 μg/dL) — today that number is close to 1 μg/dL. This reduction is due primarily to the removal of lead from gasoline and paint. Today, the blood lead levels of the average worker in a battery manufacturing or recycling facility is approximately 15 μg/dL — and that level is decreasing every year.

How has this been achieved? Im-proved worker hygiene — showers, fre-quent hand washing, personal protective equipment, locker rooms and improved air quality have all played their part.

“In both the lead manufacturing and lead battery sector, companies have grasped the nettle and put in place programmes that enhance the existing procedures to limit employee expo-sure, such as engineering controls like dust/fume extraction, hoods and con-tainment systems; the use of personal protective equipment such as respi-rators; and frequent and thorough housekeeping, but have also intro-duced sophisticated employee educa-tion and behavioural initiatives,” says

Between a rock and a hard place: more fanciful rules for lead regulation

What is the current state of play regarding blood lead levels for employees in the battery industry — and where is the industry heading? Wyn Jenkins explores this highly regulated issue.

BLOOD LEAD LEVELS


International Lead Association regu-latory affairs director, Steve Binks.

“These initiatives highlight to em-ployees how they can reduce their own risk of exposure by taking simple measures such as avoiding biting their fi ngernails and effective hand washing and showering.

“One such example of a well run and effective employee education and behavioural based safety pro-gramme is the Eco-Bat Safe for Life Programme. Since its introduction, the ‘Safe for Life’ brand has brought a common theme to the campaign across all the company’s sites: come to work safely, work safely and go home safely to enjoy life.”

These initiatives are backed up by regular health surveillance of employ-ees, including frequent blood lead measurement that is capable of illus-trating whether the exposure controls have been effective.

Tight regulationsWhile schemes such as the Safe for Life demonstrate the industry’s proac-tive approach to the issue, any strag-glers are being ushered along the road to reduced lead exposure by a raft of legislation and regulations.

“There is extensive EU legislation in place to cover both manufacturing and recycling,” says Rene Schroeder, EU affairs manager for EUROBAT. “To name a few, there is the Industrial Emissions Directive, the Air Qual-ity Directive, the Water Framework Directive, and the Chemicals Agents Directive with rules for workers and pregnant nursing women including binding occupational exposure limits.

“On the recycling stage you addi-tionally have, for example, the Battery Directive and the End of Vehicle Life Directive — you have a whole range of legislation to cover the different phases of battery manufacturing, de-sign, use and end of life. It is very well regulated”

Mark Thorsby, executive vice-presi-dent of Battery Council International says that the industry has, if anything, a surfeit of regulations around lead exposure.

“If there is one metal in the world that enjoys over-regulation, it is lead,” he says. “In the US it is regu-lated at the federal level through the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, and the Department of Transportation as well as related agencies at the state level. The regula-tions are designed to limit lead expo-

In Europe there is a binding blood lead limit in the Chemical Agents Directive of 70μg/dL. This means that member states must not establish national limits that exceed this, but they can set lower limits. The consequence is that blood lead limits in member states range from 20μg/dL to 70μg/dL and some, but not all, set lower limits for women of reproductive age.

The situation is compounded by the fact that some scientists and health practitioners argue that research published in recent years has highlighted that the health effects of lead occur at much lower doses than previously believed and that the existing well established and long-standing occupational exposure standards fail to recognize this and require urgent reappraisal.

Some countries are starting to act on this situation.

In 2014 Safe Work Australia initiated a consultation based upon its reappraisal of the new scientifi c literature that proposes strengthening workplace standards by lowering the workplace exposure standard from 0.15 mg/m3 to 0.05 mg/m3 and potentially setting a blood lead removal level of 20 μg/dL compared to the existing limit of 50 μg/dL.

Moreover, the new proposal recognises the potential increased susceptibility of the developing foetus to lead and a new blood lead removal limit of 10 μg/dL is proposed for women of childbearing age. Regulatory activity to review existing occupational exposure limits is also continuing in Europe and in the US state of California.

DIFFERING LEGISLATION

“In the US it is regulated at the federal level through the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, and the Department of Transportation as well as related agencies at the state level. The regulations are designed to limit lead exposure to the general public as well as people who work in battery manufacturing and battery recycling facilities.

BLOOD LEAD LEVELS


sure to the general public as well as people who work in battery manufac-turing and battery recycling facilities.

“The Occupational Health and Safe-ty Administration also regulates the amount of lead that can be in the air inside a battery manufacturing or re-cycling facility,” says Thorsby. “These regulations require battery manufac-turing and recycling companies to invest heavily in engineering controls in their facilities such as local exhaust ventilation that removes lead from the air that workers may breathe.

“This, in addition with use of per-sonal protective equipment such as respirators, ensures that workers are protected from lead exposure. This is demonstrated by the low levels of lead that are typically measured in employ-ees’ blood.”

On top of this, the US Environmen-tal Protection Agency regulates the amount of lead that can be contained in the ambient air outside battery manufacturing and recycling plants. The EPA requires that air monitoring devices be placed outside plants and records kept.

A developing fi eld“Regulation on occupational expo-sure limits for employees in the lead industry has been in place in most re-gions around the globe for decades,” says Binks.

“This legislation describes levels of lead that are permitted in the air and more importantly how to conduct health surveillance by monitoring the amount of lead in blood and when, if necessary, an employee should be re-moved from exposure.”

However, legislation differs from one region to another and these dif-ferences include not only the numeri-cal occupational and blood lead lim-its, but also for example, how to deal with sensitive sub-populations such as female workers.

“It is clear that the science con-cerning what represents a safe health limit for lead is developing and is at the same time very complex and con-troversial with some advocating that there is no threshold for the adverse effects,” says Binks.

“It is against this backdrop that lead recyclers, primary manufacturers and downstream users such as battery companies must operate. A culture of continuous improvement in health and safety that goes beyond mere compliance with state or national reg-ulation is therefore essential.”

In Thorsby’s view, companies op-

The long-standing — now almost two years — topic surrounding the EU protection of employees working with lead is the inclusion of four lead compounds — lead monoxide, lead tetroxide, pentalead tetraoxide sulphate and tetralead trioxide sulphate — in the public consultation for the 6th priority list published under the European REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals) Regulation.

All four are essential and irreplaceable in the manufacture of lead-based batteries with no substitutes available.

During the manufacturing phase of lead-based batteries, all four compounds are transformed into other substances with only trace amounts (<0.1%) present in the fi nished battery. Lead-based batteries are sealed units that operate in a closed loop with almost 100% collected and recycled at the end of life.

“Close to 100% of the vehicle fl eet worldwide currently uses lead-based batteries and making these substances subject to REACH authorization would signifi cantly undermine the competitiveness of the European battery industry as this regulatory instrument does not prevent the import of batteries considered as articles under REACH,” said EUROBAT and ILA in a joint statement in January.

“REACH authorization would have a severe impact on the economies of many member states and put thousands of jobs at risk in the battery manufacturing and lead recycling industries without delivering signifi cant improvements in employee exposure to lead — particularly as there is already extensive EU legislation covering the uses of lead and lead compounds.”

EUROBAT and ILA said that existing national statistics and occupational exposure data gathered by industry to support development of REACH

chemical safety reports and voluntary sector-wide voluntary blood lead reduction targets shows the effectiveness of the exposure control measures already in place under existing EU workplace legislation..

Existing legislation covers the risks related to the life cycle stages resulting from the use of the substances in battery manufacturing and this is further supported by additional legislation that covers the service life of lead-based batteries and waste stages.

“Pressure for substitution of lead and lead compounds from use in batteries already exists in the form of a restriction on lead in Council Directive 2000/53/EC on End-of-Life Vehicles (ELV) reviewed every fi ve years and requirements of the Batteries Directive (2006/66/EC as amended by 2008/103/EC),” said the statement.

EUROBAT and ILA believe that inclusion of these four lead compounds in the REACH 6th Priority list is not proportionate and suggest that these compounds should not be a priority for inclusion in the authorization regime.

“A better option would be to strengthen the obligations for the lead battery industry under already existing and comprehensive lead-specifi c legislation,” said the statement. This should include updating the now obsolete European Binding Limit Value for blood lead of 70 μg/dL.

“In the event that inclusion of the compounds in REACH Annex XIV is proposed we submit that exemptions should be granted for industrial use in the manufacturing of lead-based batteries in respect that this use is as an ‘intermediate’ outside the scope of REACH authorization and/or by application of REACH Article 58(2) in that existing Community workplace legislation for lead and lead compounds already addresses the use categories to be exempted.”

REGULATION GONE MAD: THE EU VIEW

BLOOD LEAD LEVELS


erating in the developed world are meeting existing legislative standards with fl ying colours. “With very few exceptions, if compared to legislative limits, occupational exposure to lead is a non-issue in North America and developed countries,” he says.

“However unfortunately in de-veloping countries, including China and others in Asia, Africa and South America there are still signifi cant chal-lenges in reducing lead exposure to employees to levels where risks would be low.”

This is picked up by the Internation-al Lead Association which cites work sponsored by its members through the International Lead Management Cen-tre which collaborates with NGOs (non-governmental organizations) such as the Blacksmith Institute to raise standards in developing regions.

Industry bodiesThere is no doubt that the use of targets and goals plays a key role in ensuring that a culture of continuous improvement is adopted within the industry.

Binks says that many companies have long had their own targets for limiting employee blood lead, some that are backed up by fi nancial incen-tives that apply at the individual, shift or site level.

“These have recently been supple-mented by sector-wide targets such as those promulgated by BCI for battery manufacturers in the US, by EURO-BAT for battery manufacturers in Eu-rope and by ILA for its membership of lead producers and mining compa-nies,” says Binks.

“The battery manufacturing indus-try in North America subscribes to voluntary efforts to reduce exposure,” says Thorsby. “For example, OSHA has established a standard for blood lead levels of 50 μg/dL — if lead ex-posure exceeds 50 μg/dL, the worker must be removed from the work envi-ronment until a blood lead level of 40 μg/dL is reached.

“The battery manufacturing indus-try, through BCI, had voluntarily es-tablished a standard of 40 μg/dL for removal with a return to work at 35 μg/dL and last year, in conjunction with EUROBAT, established a new 2017 target of 30 μg/dL for removal and 25 μg/dL for return — both stand-ards well below the federal standard established by OSHA.”

EUROBAT’s voluntary blood lead mitigation program has been in ex-istence since 2000 and is binding for

members that produce lead-based bat-teries. It has been subject to several re-visions — the latest in 2013.

“We even encourage non-members to meet these targets,” says Schroeder. “We organize regular workshops, to inform our members and discuss and exchange on practical measures that can be taken to control lead exposure and improve it.”

Similarly, in the ILA scheme enrol-ment is a condition of membership and companies are required to pro-vide annual reports detailing employ-ee blood lead levels which are shared with members so that they can bench-mark their performance against peers.

Progress against the target is a standing agenda item on the associa-tion’s executive committee and those companies at risk of missing it are re-quired to provide evidence that they have programmes in place to improve their performance.

Sector-wide reporting shows that there has been a signifi cant improve-ment in company employee lead ex-posure management over the last decade — and this is illustrated by EUROBAT statistics indicating that 40% of employees in European bat-tery manufacturers had a blood lead in excess of 30 μg/dL in 2001, which had fallen to 8.5% by 2013.

“In the developed world this trend in ever reducing employee exposure to lead is also evident in statistics re-ported by other organizations such as the NIOSH’s Adult Blood Lead Epi-demiology and Surveillance (ABLES) and the Health & Safety Executive in the UK,” says Binks.

The futureAgainst this backdrop of deep con-cern for the environment and em-ployee health, it is interesting to note that lead-acid batteries are the most widely recycled product in the world with more than 99% of all lead-acid batteries recycled. Furthermore, every lead-acid battery is almost 100% re-

cyclable — lead, acid and plastic are all recoverable, recyclable, and reus-able.

The overall picture for lead is very positive; however, Binks says that this is not the end of the story.

“Society is becoming ever more con-scious of the true costs of products and retailers now recognise that they have a role to play to ensure a better environment for generations to come. Therefore to keep pace with these challenges and turn them into oppor-tunities ILA works with its member companies to ensure that employee health and environmental protection remains top of their agenda,” he says.

Schroeder expects legislation to soon fall in line with the more aspirational targets established by EUROBAT and others, bringing the European bind-ing blood lead limit down from 70 μg/dL. “The scientifi c committee on oc-cupational exposure limit (SCOEL) is reviewing the adequacy of the current European OEL for lead.

“We hope this will soon be conclud-ed so that a more appropriate Euro-pean binding limit can be established that is more in line with current In-dustry practices.”

Binks highlights the fact that com-panies must strive to go beyond mere regulatory compliance if they wish to be successful..

“If lead-based batteries are to main-tain their market leading position then society will demand that com-panies manufacturing and recycling these products are at the forefront of responsible manufacturing and dem-onstrate standards that do not merely aspire to meet regulation, but have environmental performance, worker safety and health protection levels that are second to none,” says Binks.

“To ensure long-term sustainabil-ity the lead industry must evolve and strive to adopt practices in health, safety and environmental protection that refl ect the demands of the 21st century.”

“Society is becoming ever more conscious of the true costs of products and retailers now recognise that they have a role to play to ensure a better environment for generations to come. Therefore to keep pace with these challenges and turn them into opportunities ILA works with its member companies to ensure that employee health and environmental protection remains top of their agenda”

THE BCI STORY


It all started one wet, grey day on January 29, 1924. That day — one of the warmest that month hitting a still unbeaten record 3˚C above zero — a small group of battery manufacturers met in Chicago.

Their objective: to consider whether the organization of a battery manufac-turer’s association was worth the ef-fort. And if so what would be its initial remit and purpose.

Interestingly enough some nine dec-ades later, the two topics of discussion that day are still relevant to what was later to become the BCI: how to pro-mote a better understanding among battery manufacturers through an open discussion of their common problems; and, how to educate US consumers on the proper care of their batteries.

A more formal meeting took place two months later and was attended by some 25 manufacturers and battery suppliers — where the manufacturers were called ‘active’ members and the suppliers ‘associates’.

In June the association took its name as the National Battery Manufacturers Association (NBMA).

The association soon started to prove its worth. In the US, battery manufac-turing employed some of the most dan-gerous practices in the world — hand painting lead paste on to plates, for example.

At the turn of the 1920s, for exam-ple, lead poisoning was accepted as a risk that went with the job; even though it was reckoned that it was six times more dangerous to work in a US plant than a UK one and 18 times more dangerous working in the US than in Germany.

One of the earliest studies moving to mitigate the risk: Lead Poisoning in a Storage Battery Plant, was commis-sioned by the National Battery Manu-facturers Association in 1933 and — unusually at a time when ethnic and racial background was ignored, made a point of showing that the danger-ous work in the mixing room of the plant was done by African Americans or migrants (93%) versus the 7% by white Americans. Although the US had

Battery Council International started in Chicago in the 1920s. And although the organization’s name is relatively new, and its host locations have been varied, it has consistently championed the lead acid battery industry.

Changing times

Changing conventions: top, the Fall 1941 meeting in Chicago, the spring 1960 meeting in Los Angeles and last year on the USS Medway in San Diego

THE BCI STORY


lagged behind Europe in industrial hy-giene in the 1910s, by the 1930s it had become a global pacesetter in working practices and the NBMA, to its credit, was one of the instruments for such change.

But this is not to say that the early founders or members of the NBMA were saints. US Light and Heat (which helped found the association) as well as the Lead Industries Association were roundly criticized — along with other well known US and UK brands — when they set up operations in Aus-tralia where health standards were al-lowed to be as lax.

In echoes of the present situation in China, the reason for the shift to pro-duction in Australia was simple: it was an uncomplicated way to circumvent federal import tariffs on batteries. The difference of course being that BCI members are now on the side of the angels and are helping China’s battery industry to adopt international work and safety rules.

Although the early years of the organ-ization were clearly focused on national developments, it was not long before the very nature of the battery manu-facturing business — which largely followed the fortunes of the rapidly ex-panding car manufacturing industry — required an organization more global in scope. Something that would embrace members from Canada, Mexico and the rest of the Americas.

BCI provides a governmental,

legislative liaison service for the

industry and has established

itself as the collective voice of its

members and an authoritative

source of battery-related

information.

BCI maintains an extensive

statistical programme. BCI

compiles raw data on automotive

battery production shipments

(original and replacement) at the

manufacturer level and inventory

level.

This compilation enables

members to gauge their

performance against those of the

industry as a whole. BCI also

provides its members with annual

distribution reports that allow

members to keep abreast of ever-

changing channels of distribution.

Since 1990 BCI has been

collecting and disseminating a

monthly report on US industrial

battery and charger sales.

The programme consist of fi ve

active reports.

• Motive power battery sales

• Net sales of diesel locomotive

starting batteries

• Industrial truck battery charger

sales

• Standby power battery sales

• Stationary battery cell report

Members only receive the

industrial battery reports in which

they participate. In 2001, BCI began

reporting North American sales data.

In addition, BCI promotes the

development and implementation of

workable environmental, health and

safety standards for the industry.

BCI focuses much of its attention

on increasing the overall lead battery

recycling rate. BCI has developed

and is advancing model battery

recycling legislation at the state and

federal level.

The model legislation prohibits

lead batteries from being placed in

landfi lls or incinerated and imposes a

mandatory take-back system at the

point of sale. BCI’s goal is to reach a

100% lead battery recycling rate.

One of the most fascinating BCI sur-

veys — conducted every fi ve years

and now eagerly awaited this year —

looks at failure modes of batteries.

This shows that the quality of lead

acid car batteries and their expected

life continues to improve.

While the average life of a car

battery in 1962 was just 34 months

in 1962 when BCI fi rst started

compiling statistics, it had reached

55 months in 2010 — itself a further

improvement of fi ve months when

compared to the last BCI survey in

2005. In 1995 the average battery

life was 44 months.

The survey also shows that bat-

teries are more resistant to hotter cli-

mates than ever before. In the 2000

study, a change of 12°F affected

battery life by approximately a year.

In this study, this temperature factor

increased to approximately 22°F.

FASCINATING SURVEY

BCI GOALS — THE INFORMATION CHALLENGE (AMONG OTHERS)

BCI’s primary role is to provide its membership with up-to-date information on marketing and technical developments, plus regulatory and legislative initiatives that could affect the worldwide industry.

Some of this information is immensely valuable to its members, allowing them to get a clearer picture of the entire battery market.

THE BCI STORY


In May 1940 the association changed its name to the Association of American Battery Manufacturers refl ecting its fo-cus on the continent. Battery industry participation from Europe — then en-gulfed in war — would have been slight.

To better refl ect the post-war environ-ment and increasing global reach of the organization, the association changed its name again to Battery Council Inter-national. Four years later it held its fi rst overseas convention in London. At-tendance was huge: 32 countries were represented with some 600 delegates.

In 1976, BCI came full circle and re-turned to relocate its headquarters in Chicago — in the intervening years, the organization had set up operations in Ohio, New Jersey, and California.

At that time the management fi rm of Smith, Bucklin and Associates was re-tained to manage the affairs of BCI.

Today BCI membership consists of close to 300 corporations representing the leading lead acid battery manu-facturers, recyclers, marketers and re-tailers, suppliers of raw materials and equipment as well as expert industry consultants.

Two consistent BCI themes have been: how to promote a better understanding among battery manufacturers through an open discussion of their common problems; and, how to educate US consumers on the proper care of their batteries

jbicorp.com

22325 W. St. Rt. 51Genoa, Ohio 43430 USA

[email protected](419) 855-3389/p(419) 855-3226/f

INSIDE THE BCI


The BCI Marketing Committee, chaired by Donna Snyder, vice president of marketing and adver-tising at East Penn Manufactur-ing, consists of employees of BCI member companies. There are 27 committee members broken into two subcommittees: internal and external communications.

The Internal Communications Committee looks at member communications such as at pro-duction of BCI’s e-newsletter, The Energy Beacon. This provides an update to BCI members and in-dustry happenings and comes out every three months.

Jim Morath, sales director at GS Battery (USA), leads the Inter-nal Communications Committee on the project. He coordinates contributors and those involved in The Energy Beacon’s produc-tion to collect content and gener-ate ideas for future issues.

Launched in October 2014, the primary goals of The Energy Beacon are to better engage BCI members and increase aware-ness of membership and industry de-velopments and provide insight into some of the skills and competencies of fellow members. “The profi les al-low members to learn more about the membership,” says Claire Sereiko, associate director of marketing and communications at BCI.

“We also ask them why they joined BCI, the benefi ts of being a member and how they have seen the industry change over the years.” BCI board members and Quarter Century Club members are among those featured.

The next issue of The Energy Bea-con, which is sent to over 800 mem-bers, will be released in May after the 127th Convention + Power Mart Expo.

The External Communications

Committee is developing a social me-dia policy to inform members on how BCI and the lead-acid battery industry should be positioned for public expo-sure.

This initiative is led by Doreen Lucht, product development manager at Johnson Controls. It began when BCI decided to grow its social media presence. The thinking was to offer members guidelines on how to get the best from this media — and avoid the pitfalls.

Historically, BCI members have used a LinkedIn group account, which has around 2,000 members, where both members and non-members regularly discuss industry issues and compare notes on topical issues. In addition to this, BCI launched a LinkedIn and a

Facebook page in 2014. Sereiko says this second

LinkedIn page fulfi ls a different function. “Whereas the LinkedIn group account is geared toward industry member discussions, the company page can be used as a source of information for all things BCI,” she says.

“We want to remind members they should not use BCI social media channels as sales plat-forms or to generate sponsorship or fundraising. We also want to provide insight on social media best practices.”

The guidelines are being re-viewed by the External Commu-nications Committee and should be available this summer.

“We hope this will encourage members to engage with BCI,” Sereiko says. So far, the growth of both LinkedIn pages has been a lot faster than Facebook. Opening a Twitter account has been discussed, but BCI has no immediate plans to do this.

One of the other top priori-ties for the Marketing Committee is to revamp BCI’s website and increase its digital presence. BCI headquarters conducted a web audit last summer and found that a sizeable portion of BCI’s overall web traffi c could be at-tributed to consumers.

The BCI Marketing Committee is working to repackage the website content, so that all parties can easily navigate the website and fi nd the con-tent they are seeking.

“That survey revealed that a lot of our web traffi c was coming from Wikipedia to our “What is a lead-acid battery?” page,” Sereiko says. “That prompted us to look at the website in a different way and ask: are members fi nding the information they need?”

A website restructuring plan will be discussed at the Marketing Com-mittee meeting in Savannah. The BCI Marketing Committee is also focused on supporting the North American Communications initiative — an ini-tiative driven forward by the Interna-tional Lead Association.

The BCI Marketing Committee plays an important role in communicating the body’s goals and objectives. Here, the committee gives an overview of its recent activities and future goals.

Whereas the LinkedIn group account is geared toward industry member discussions, the company page can be used as a source of information for all things BCI

Bringing members together

Donna Snyder: chair of the BCI Marketing Committee

INSIDE THE BCI


The primary goals of The Energy Beacon are to better engage BCI members and increase awareness of membership and industry developments and provide insight into some of the skills and competencies of fellow members

One of the big changes at BCI is its growing international focus thanks to partnerships with other lead or battery representative bodies around the globe. This shift is also refl ected in the activities of the Marketing Committee which will be working closely with the International Lead Association on a North American communications campaign.

“The goal of this campaign is to deliver a unifi ed, positive, and benefi cial story on lead-acid batteries,” says Donna Snyder, chair of the BCI Marketing Committee.

Andy Bush, managing director of the ILA, says, “The North American lead industry has voiced strong concern about the current perceptions of the industry and its principal products, and

there has been agreement on the need to communicate the positive story of lead with a clear, consistent and united voice.

“It was also felt that the principle vehicle for that communication should be lead-based batteries, rather than lead metal itself, or indeed other products that utilize lead. The reasons for this are that the foreseeable future success of the lead industry is inextricably bound with the use of lead batteries, the main application for lead.

“As a proven cost effective and sustainable energy storage technology, lead batteries are also a key product in many crucial sectors of the economy such as transportation, communications, renewable energy and emergency power. There is also great potential to shift the narrative around lead and lead batteries, since there are strong positive messages around their essential, sustainable and innovative

role in modern society. “The objective of the programme

therefore is to build a more favourable and enabling environment in which the lead and lead battery industries can prosper for the foreseeable future.”

Bush says that, as a result, the ILA will take a greater leadership role in proactive communications in North America and to put together a programme proposal. A working group to develop this programme was set up with representatives from ILA member companies and the secretariats of ABR and BCI.

“The project is moving forward, PR company FleishmanHillard has been selected as our preferred partner agency, and we are working with them to develop a proposal for the fi rst phase of the project which is stakeholder surveying, media monitoring and developing the outline for delivery of the main campaign,” Bush says.

MARKETING LEAD-ACID BATTERIES GLOBALLY

p p p

BCI NEW MEMBERS


Michael GalyenPresident, Eclipse EnergyMichael Galyen, president of Eclipse Energy, says he joined BCI because he wanted more engagement with the industry he operates in. He will be attending the BCI annual conference in May for the fi rst time.

“I wanted to help contribute to the industry in another manner, as well as to stay up to date with relevant industry knowledge. I also joined BCI to get to know other people in the industry I serve,” he says.

Galyen says he values the opportunity to meet other members in person at BCI events and get to know peer companies better through networking.

“It is nice to put a face with a name,” he says. “Many companies

within the lead acid battery community participate in BCI, so it’s nice to be able to contribute and, in doing so, become more familiar with others in the industry.”

In the long-term, he hopes that membership will benefi t Eclipse Energy as other members become more familiar with the company

“In our case, I believe that this is best accomplished by active participation in BCI as there are many individuals that give their time and knowledge to BCI, for the overall good of the industry. I hope that I can do the same,” Galyen says.

Bill LauerSales executive, Metra Electronics Bill Lauer, sales executive at Metra Electronics, an audio electric systems specialist that also sells back-up batteries for car audio, says the company has joined BCI mainly for the high quality information it provides.

“We had been selling back-up batteries for car audio and got into automotive and power sports replacement batteries. So we joined BCI for the information it provides,” he says.

The company has found some of the materials provided by BCI useful. “We utilized the BCI application book, it was a great help and we anticipate on using that as a reference again,” he says.

Long term, he believes Metra Electronics will benefi t from membership because the company will be more up to date on battery information and developments in technology.

John TillyChief executive, Northeast Battery & AlternatorJohn Tilly, chief executive, Northeast Battery & Alternator, an independent battery distributor covering New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia and West Virginia, says he has joined BCI more a mixture of the knowledge and networking

opportunities it offers.“We have joined because we hope

to gain deeper industry insight, and for the educational and networking opportunities,” Tilly says.

“My expectation is that membership will help strengthen the overall knowledge base of our team in technical, market and industry areas, and I’m looking forward to sitting in on as many speaker/workshop sessions as I can in Savannah next month.”

The Class of 2015

BCI continues to add to its roster of member companies. Batteries International invited some of them to explain their reasons for joining

“I wanted to help contribute to the industry in another manner, as well as to stay up to date with relevant industry knowledge. I also joined BCI to get to know other people in the industry I serve”

“We have joined because we hope to gain deeper industry insight, and for the educational and networking opportunities”

Robert GreggLCB Battery LLC

William LauerMetra Electronics Corp. Carmalieta WellsMadewell & Madewell, Inc. Michael GalyenEclipse Energy, LLC William KoettingPower Systems Pete RumseyB2Q Technologies Bill NunneryFederal-Mogul Motorparts

Joseph LiSuperior Graphite Andrew KodisBlack Diamond Structures

John TillyNortheast Battery & Alternator

THE FULL 2015 INTAKE

BCI DATAFILE


MANUFACTURER MEMBERS

Silvano Gelleni ACUMULADORES DUNCANParth R. Jain ALF TECHNOLOGIES (INDIA)David Hector AUTOMOTIVE COMPONENTSPhilippe Westreich AXION POWER INTERNATIONALChristian Rheault. C&D TECHNOLOGIESHal Hawk CROWN BATTERYM. A. Knowlton DYNO BATTERYDaniel Langdon EAST PENN MANUFACTURINGWilliam Koetting ENERGY POWER SYSTEMSJohn D. Craig ENERSYS Eladio Dones Cardona ENERYA SA de CVRobert Caruso EXIDE TECHNOLOGIESAlessandro Dolcetta FIAMMMichael Gilchrist HIGHWATER INNOVATIONSGlenn Hollett INTERSPACE CONCORDE BATTERYBrian J. Kesseler JOHNSON CONTROLSRobert (Smokey) White MOTOBATT BATTERIESAttila Türker MUTLU AKÜ VE MALZ. Ling Chung Hwa NAVANA BATTERYJerry Hoffman NORTHSTAR BATTERYMunawar M. Moin RAHIMAFROOZ BATTERIESClifford J. Crowe RAMCAR BATTERIESMichael E. Moeller REMY BATTERYSyed Mahmud, Jobair Al-Hossain SILICON POWERRandy Hart SUPERIOR BATTERYJ. D. Surrette SURRETTE BATTERYMichael Shaw TELEDYNE BATTERY PRODUCTS Jeff Elder TROJAN BATTERYTerry Agrelius US BATTERY MANUFACTURINGDarren Chen VISION BATTERY USAChuck Fowler YACHT BATTERYHitoshi Ohta YUASA BATTERY

SUPPLIER MEMBERS

Anna Stuehrman ABERTAX TECHNOLOGIESLee Cowan ACCUMABrett Beal ACCUMALUX AUSTRALIA Charles L. Ackermann ACCUMALUXWilliam Lincoln ADDISON ENERGYGuy Dauwe AMER-SILJulia Lutz AMETEK PRESTOLITE POWER Dick Amistadi AMISTADI ASSOCIATESArthur T. Balcerzak A.T. BALCERZAK CONSULTING SERVICESEdward Puckett ATOMIZED PRODUCTS GROUPScott Crerar AUTO METER PRODUCTSCindy Song BAIN AND COMPANYElke Oschmann BATTERIE FULLUNGS SYSTEMERichard T. Johnson THE BATTERY CONSULTANCYJulie Elliott BATTERY WATERING TECHNOLOGIESDaryll Rardon BENNING POWER ELECTRONICSMaurizio Masotti BITRODEPeter Rumsey BLINQ DIAGNOSTICSGreg Schmitt BORREGAARD LIGNOTECHHelen Matthews BROOK HUNTBill Curtis CARLSON TOOLDavid Honkamp CELLUSUEDE PRODUCTSPaul White CENTRIFUGAL CASTINGSGary Bryan CHROMAMichael Wipperfurth CMWTEC TECHNOLOGIEBob Baginski COBRA WIRE & CABLEJozzepi Foo CO-EFFICIENT PRECISION ENGINEERINGAndrew Carr C.P. ENVIRONMENTALS. Tucker Roe DARAMICDarby Rockney DHC SPECIALTYRolf Beckers DIGATRON INDUSTRIE-ELEKTRONIKPierre-Jean Arvers DIGATRON POWER ELECTRONICSJose Hansen THE DOE RUNMichael A. Doyle DOYLE SHAMROCK INDUSTRIESThierry Touzeau BERNARD DUMASMichael Galyen ECLIPSE ENERGY

Nick Semitka EIRICH MACHINESJames Stockhausen ELANTAS PDGDavid Trueba ENTEK INTERNATIONALRussell S. Kemp ENVIRON INTERNATIONALDan Askin ESCA TECHJim Gilmour FARMER MOLD & MACHINE WORKSSanford Leavitt FERRIE DI STABIORob Brock FLOW-RITE CONTROLSGeoff Davies FROETEK PLASTIC TECHNOLOGYRobert Gauthier GAUTHIER NON-FERROUS PRODUCTSJoseph H. Coudon GLATFELTER COMPOSITE FIBERPaul Chidiac GLENCORE CANADADaniel Leach GOPHER RESOURCELee D. Raymond GREENWICH METALSTerrence H. Murphy HAMMOND GROUPSean O’Brien HOLLINGSWORTH & VOSERyan Sanderson IHS GLOBALNorbert Ahnemann INBATECJeff DePietro INTERNATIONAL THERMAL SYSTEMSJoseph P. Badger JBIJohn L. Devitt JOHN L. DEVITT CONSULTING ENGINEERBo Johansson KÄLLSTRÖM ENGINEERINGMax Mandt-Merck LAP LASER APPLIKATIONENCamden Arthur LAUSCHA FIBER INTERNATIONALSpencer R. Stock LESTER ELECTRICALThomas W. Windham, Jr. M.A. INDUSTRIESDouglas Bornas MAC ENGINEERING & EQUIPMENTCarmalieta Wells MADEWELL & MADEWELLJoyce Morales-Caramella MAYCO INDUSTRIESJoseph P. McKinley EAGLE OXIDE SERVICESParker Sword MICROPOROUSWill Sampson MIDTRONICSSteven W. Swogger MRLEAD PLUSJames Histed NATIONAL ACID PROOFINGMarc Desautels NEWALTAKenichioro Fukae NIPPON SHEET GLASSKent Lancaster OAK PRESS SOLUTIONSNada Bursac OKABEJacopo Maggioni O.M. IMPIANTI Steve Rau OMNI OXIDE Michael Chames ON BOARD SOLUTIONSJulianne Hayes (Julie) OWENS CORNINGCal Houdek PALICO INSTRUMENT LABORATORIES,Cesare Catelli – Joe Spiciarich PENOLES METALS & CHEMICALSAlan Wirsul PENOXJeff Hindman POLYMER MOLDING (PMI)James Tunnell POWERLABJoseph M. Arvai, IV QUICK CABLERoger A. Winslow RICHARDSON MOLDINGRichard Jonach ROSENDAHL MASCHINENRichard P. Aulenbach RPA ENGINEERINGRobert E. Finn RSRCharles Hwang RUIHUA/MEGAPOWER ELECTRONICS PLASTICSJ. Roy Bray SANDERS LEADFrederick J. Schneider SCHOLLE CHEMICALDuane Shooltz S&E SPECIALTY POLYMERYanfang Zhao SHENYANG JUGU EQUIPMENTTimothy G. Davis SMS DIV. OF SANDMOLD SYSTEMSPaul R. Fink SORFIN YOSHIMURASandy Saye SOUTHERN WEAVINGDavid Longney TBS ENGINEERINGAlberto Pezzotti TECHNOFIN ’98Jim Pedersen TECK METALSGilles Boucher TERMACORalph Tiegel TIEGEL MANUFACTURINGSteve Stack TONOLLI CANADAPeter Hochschild TRAXYS NORTH AMERICACraig Kellogg TULIP MOLDED PLASTICSJack E. Waggener URSH. Gerald Jowers US LEADErik Eberlein WEGMANN AUTOMOTIVE & KGJohn O. Wirtz WIRTZ MANUFACTURING

Membership directory: the great and the good

BCI DATAFILE


MARKETER MEMBERS

Charles Carr A-1 BATTERYEd Fuxa ACTION BATTERIES UNLIMITEDBobby Stafford ACTION BATTERY CENTERRichard H. Swearingen ADVANTAGE POWER BATTERYAron Haynes ALL-PAK BATTERYSteve Hixdon ART’S ELECTRICRobert Petersen ALL-TRA BATTERYPete & Steve Dufaud AMERICAN BATTERYDennis Loso AMERICAN BATTERYOrville Cottrell ASSOCIATED BATTERY SUPPLYSteve Stoll AUTOZONE PARTSBob Williamson AZTECH ENERGYBill Yates – Bob Giardina B & B BATTERY GROUPJeff & Monica Tunks BATTERIES NOWFrank Groccia, III BATTERIES UNLIMITEDKent Curry BATTERIES UNLIMITEDEd Cunningham BATTERY BARN OF VIRGINIAMelvyn Digitale BATTERY BILLBrad Winkler & Kerry Landis BATTERY BOYS UNLIMITEDMike Cash BATTERY DISTRIBUTORSJoe Carter BATTERY EXPERTSMarcus Compton BATTERY EXPRESSRick Kagle BATTERY ONE HAGERSTOWNMiles Hopson THE BATTERY PROSScott Stephens BATTERY SALESScott Winchester BATTERY SERVICEDan & Margaret Gafford BATTERY SOLUTIONSBrad Streelman BATTERY SYSTEMSJosh Lassiter BATTERY WAREHOUSEDavid Pulley BATTERY WAREHOUSE OF ALEXANDRIASam Williams – Charlie Williams BATTERY WAREHOUSE WHOLESALEJennifer Zalecki BATTERY WHOLESALERoland Best BEST BATTERYRichard Price BULLDOG BATTERYPatrick Crowley – James Parker CAPITALAND FILTER & SUPPLYKen Turner – Ted Turner C.C. BATTERYShane McMahon CDN ENERGY AND POWERIan Pinson CHLORIDE TECHNICAL AND TRADINGEdgar Dueñas COMERCIAL DE REPUESTOS Y SERVICIOSFrank Dumas COMPLETE BATTERY SOURCE/START-ALL

ENTERPRISESJim McCann CONTINENTAL BATTERYJames Gengler COPPERSTATE BATTERYCharlie Craig CRAIG BATTERIESPeter Maloney CROWN BATTERY OF CANADA Joy Czerwonky C-TROLRick Swan DIXIE BATTERY SUPPLYStephen Pal EDMONDS BATTERIESCandi Meana ELECTRO BATTERYRon Zeller ELECTROLIFE BATTERYDarren Ellis– Dwayne Ellis ELLIS BATTERYCraig A. Pahl EMERGENT BATTERY TECHNOLOGIESTim Shoepe EMPIRE BATTERIESClay Johnson FACTORY MOTOR PARTSRobert Boss FORD MOTOR Anthony Echols GENERAL MOTORS Zhida Sun GLOBAL POWER CENTRALJay Northey GS BATTERY (USA.)Jerry Harris HARRIS BATTERYGreg Shull INTERSTATE BATTERIESJerry Muller JEFFERSON BATTERYJeremy Jowers JOWERS BATTERIES – G.J. BATTERIES Ken Owens – Keith Owens KEN OWENS BATTERYAnoop K. Sunkara KRAUS INTERNATIONALRobert Gregg Hubbard LCB BATTERYPhilip A. Noznesky LEOCH BATTERYDel Downey LIBERTY BATTERIESJustin Bakhsh MAGNACHARGE BATTERYBrian Mathis MATHIS BATTERYWilliam Lauer METRA ELECTRONICS

John Farrell MILLENNIUM BATTERY EXPRESSGus Drosos MOUNT VERNON BATTERYNate Mullet – Lynn Mullet MULLET BATTERYJan Zogmaister – Darrow Zogmaister NATIONAL BATTERY SALESDave Saienni NEWARK BATTERYDalton Fulghum NORTH STATE BATTERY (NSB)Jim Beck NORTHWEST BATTERY & ELECTRICChris Hatton OIL MARTCarmen Robertson PA BATTERY & TRUCK ACCESSORIESJim Frock P&H AUTO ELECTRICSteve Ahmann PACIFIC POWER BATTERIESDavid Brown PASCORonald A. Weber PENMARalph Quinter PIQUA BATTERYPete Polete PLP BATTERY SUPPLYRick Hallock POWERMASTER BATTERIESGuy Clum POWER-SONICAlan Youda POWER SOURCE BATTERIESPeter Vander Linden PRAIRIE BATTERYRichard Beauchamp QUALITEKJoe Elras REACO BATTERYBrian J. Ricketts RG AUTOMOTIVE MARKETINGLou Neuf SPRINGFIELD BATTERYPaul Staab, III STAAB BATTERYTraci Sterling STERLING BATTERYMike Stevens STEVENS BATTERY WAREHOUSEBonnie Hughson SUR-POWR BATTERYPhil Simmons S&W BATTERYMike Swift SWIFT INDUSTRIAL POWERArnold & Judy Truelove TNT BATTERYTom McConnell TNT DISTRIBUTINGSteve King TREASURE COAST BATTERYGerald Johnson TRI-CITIES BATTERY & AUTO REPAIRDerek Severns TRIDENT BATTERYRandy Clark TRI-STATE BATTERY SUPPLYIan Edmonds UNIVERSAL POWER GROUPNick Stratigeas US POWER OF MIAMIRyder Keller VOLTAGE SYSTEMSJoe Jarvis – Jim Douglas VOLTAGE VENTURESTim Ruth WAREHOUSE BATTERY OUTLETDan Bell WHATCOM ELECTRIC d/b/a BATTERY SPECIALISTS

OF ALASKA

ASSOCIATE MEMBERS

Todd Milner AAA (AMERICAN AUTOMOBILE ASSOC)Alan Hyde AUSTRALIAN BATTERY INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION Michael S Halls BATTERIES INTERNATIONALRay Goodearl BATTERY ALLIANCERichard Dee CLUB ASSISTRick Hallock– Joani Bingham ENERGY BATTERY GROUPAndy Bush INTERNATIONAL LEAD ASSOCIATION Boris Monahov ILZROGeorge Kerchner PRBA – THE RECHARGEABLE BATTERY

ASSOCIATION

HONORARY LIFE MEMBERS

DeLIGHT E. BREIDEGAM East Penn ManufacturingHARVEY GERSHENSON Kappa Consulting

MULTIPLE MEMBERS

Robert Flicker EAST PENNDaniele Calasanzio FIAMM ENERGYBob Aaron HAWKER POWERSOURCEPeter Victor Cheng NEPOL. Sam Holden RICHARDSON MOLDINGAlessandro Fossemo SOVEMA GLOBAL SERVICES

Membership directory: the great and the good

BCI DATAFILE


AUDIT & FINANCE

COMMITTEE

Hal HawkDaniel LangdonChristian RheaultJames SurretteRoger Winslow

CONVENTION

PROGRAM &

ARRANGEMENTS

COMMITTEE

Gordon Beckley Lisa FranklinRobert G. GruensternHal Hawk, chairmanS. Tucker RoeDavid TruebaSteve Vechy

DATA BOOK

COMMITTEE

David BeidlerBill BessireRobert Boss Bill ClarkJohn Connell (alternate)Lee CowanJoy CzerwonkyMalcolm DewarFrank DumasIan Edmonds

Ed Fink (alternate)LeAnn FisherChuck FowlerRobert FrittsDonna GilesRay Goodearl, chairmanMark L. Hough, vice-chairmanKalyan JanaRichard T. JohnsonJeffrey H. Juds Davis Knauer (alternate)Alan KohlerWayne KrickWilliam LincolnBill LipseyPeter MaloneyDave McMullenMike MillerMichael E. MoellerGreg Moffi ttGeorge E. NoelPhilip A. NozneskyAyKaun OkumaMaria Orlando-KrickBill PerettoKathy PetersonPete QuinlanScott Rissell (alternate)Al SchmidtJoe SemensDonna Snyder Steve StollMarshall StullParker SwordMarilyn TarbetGary TaylorKeith TollLee WilsonRoger Winslow (alternate)Robert (Smokey) White

DEEP CYCLE &

ELECTRIC VEHICLE

BATTERY COMMITTEE

Terry AgreliusCarlos Manuel Aguilar TorresDick AmistadiJon AndersonJoseph M. Arvai, IVGeorge W. AyrtonArthur T. Balcerzak, Vice-ChairmanGordon Beckley, Chairman David Beninato Michael F. BergerPeter BersonDavid BodenRobert Boss Matt Bridge George H. Brilmyer, Rob BrockDaniele CalasanzioKevin CampbellLuis CedeñoBruce ChamberlainMichael ChamesDavid Cho

Allan CooperJim DavisJeff DePietroJohn L. DevittMalcolm DewarFrank DumasIan EdmondsDwayne Ellis Timothy Ellis Mike Fraley Ed FreyRobert FrittsMike GathmanMichael GalyenSilvano GelleniJim GilmourColby GodberBill Glover (alternate)Ray GoodearlRobert G. GruensternHal HawkNick Henen Mark HerremaJeff HiresGreg HumphreyCharles HwangParth R. JainMark JeskoRichard (Rick) T. JohnsonR. Steven KayJames K. Klang, (non-BCI member)Davis Knauer Paul KorinekJoe LiedhegnerDavid LongneyDoreen LuchtAchim LulsdorfCarl MadoryJohn McMillionJohn MillerMunawar M. MoinBoris MonahovHoward MuchnickAntonio MuñozPhilip A. NozneskyMaria Orlando-KrickTyler OwenRichard W. PekalaShawn PengR. David Prengaman (alternate)Pete QuinlanNawaz QureshiDaryll RardonGreg ReichDavid Rice (alternate)Dave RittenhouseRonald Rizzo (alternate) Darby RockneyWilliam J. RossEric RueterWill SampsonJoe SemensClark Smith (alternate) Brian StanhausSpencer R. StockJohn TimmonsKeith Toll

The business of running the business

PRESIDENT

Terry AgreliusUS Battery Manufacturing

VICE-PRESIDENT

James SurretteSurrette Battery

TREASURER

Christian RheaultC&D Technologies

SECRETARY

Jerry PyattThe Doe Run

EXECUTIVE VICE

PRESIDENT

Mark O. Thorsby, Battery Council International

VOTING

DIRECTORS

Robert CarusoExide Technologies

John D. CraigEnerSys

Alessandro DolcettaFIAMM

Jeff ElderTrojan Battery

Silvano GelleniAcumuladores Duncan

Randy HartSuperior Battery

Hal Hawk Crown Battery

Jerry HoffmanNorthstar Battery

Brian J. KesselerJohnson Controls

Daniel LangdonEast Penn Manufacturing

Hitoshi OhtaYuasa Battery

Mike ToleMAC Engineering & Equipment

NON-VOTING

MEMBERS OF THE

BCI BOARD

Howard MeyersQuexco Incorporated

Roger A. WinslowRichardson Molding Incorporated

HONORARY

AFFILIATE

MEMBERS OF THE

BCI BOARD OF

DIRECTORS

President, EUROBAT Johann-Friedrich Dempwolff(Johnson Controls Autobatterie)

President, Battery Association of JapanMakoto Yoda(GS Yuasa International)

Batteries Council International has 15 committees that are designed to advance the variety of needs of its membership. Some are merely administra-

tive, for internal use, while others are active internation-ally or work at a technical level.

Although the committees meet throughout the year, typically appointments to the committee are verifi ed at the annual convention.

• Audit and fi nance committee• Convention program and arrangements committee• Data book committee• Deep cycle and electric vehicle battery committee• Environmental committee• Industrial battery and charger committee — marketing • Industrial battery and charger committee — technical• Industrial health committee• Investment committee• Marketing committee• Materials committee• Membership committee• Product information committee• Product safety committee• Technical committee

BCI BOARD OF DIRECTORS PRE-CONVENTION

BCI DATAFILE


Mike TroyDon WallaceFred WehmeyerJohn WertzPhilippe WestreichKevin WhearTony WilsonRoger Winslow (alternate)Jeff Zagrodnik

ENVIRONMENTAL

COMMITTEE

Joseph M. Arvai, IVDan AskinJerry BaileyWilliam BeauchampSteve BinksJoseph BoleaRobert Boss Chip BremerTerry CampbellAndrew CarrRandy CasstevensTimothy CogginsTony CampiteliMark CummingsSteve DelmarMarc DesautelsFrank DumasIan EdmondsJulie ElliottEckhard FahlbuschPascal FerronTravis FoleyEd FreyJim FrockFrederick Ganster vice-chairmanColby GodberJohn GodberTroy A. GreissHal HawkJerry HoffmanRobert Gregg HubbardH. Gerald JowersRussell S. KempGeorge KerchnerWalter E. KozlowskiTimothy J. Lafond chairmanJames M. Lanzafame Syed Mahmud Jobair Al-HossainGerry ManleyJoe D. MarquardtCheryl L. MinorMichael E. MoellerGreg Moffi ttIsmael Pedroza, Jr.Lee D. RaymondJeff ReddickRandy ReyerAlfredo RodriguezShane RussellCharles SmithMark StadlerJohn TapperJack E. WaggenerAndrew WarrenDavid Willis

INDUSTRIAL

BATTERY & CHARGER

COMMITTEE

— Marketing

Terry Agrelius Jon Anderson

Gordon Beckley Doug BouquardMatt BridgeKendra Carter-Mansfi eldMichael ChamesGeoff DaviesMike FraleyDave GodberHal HawkMark JeskoMark KelleyJohn KlebaMike Kuznetsov William LincolnDoreen LuchtKlaus-Dieter MerzPete QuinlanDaryll RardonRonald Rizzo (alternate)Darby RockneyJim RubrightRob SalachAl SchmidtSteve SpaarSpencer R. StockTodd Stukenberg Mike SwiftGary TaylorKeith TollSteve Vechy, chairman Fred WehmeyerPatrick Williams

INDUSTRIAL BATTERY

& CHARGER

COMMITTEE

— Technical

Gilberto Acosta Terry Agrelius Dick AmistadiJon AndersonJoseph M. Arvai, IVGeorge W. AyrtonGordon Beckley Michael F. Berger vice-chairmanDavid BodenDoug BouquardMatt Bridge George H. BrilmyerGilberto CastilloMichael ChamesMike FraleyJohn GaggeMichael GalyenMike GathmanHal HawkGreg HumphreyCharles HwangGerd HoogestraatJoe JerglBernard KadowJames K. Klang, (non-BCI member)Mike Kuznetsov William LincolnSebastian MathesJohn McMillionKlaus-Dieter MerzSean O’BrienChristian PapmahlRob PayneDaryll RardonSteve Rau Greg ReichRonald Rizzo (alternate)Darby Rockney

Jim RubrightAl SchmidtRod ShaneClark Smith Brian StanhausSpencer R. StockJames StockhausenMike SwiftJohn TimmonsKeith Toll Mike Troy Stephen L. Vechy, chairman Fred WehmeyerJohn WertzKevin Whear

INDUSTRIAL HEALTH

COMMITTEE

James F. Anderson Dan AskinArthur T. BalcerzakWilliam BeauchampSteve BinksJoseph BoleaTony CampitelliMichael J. CasperTimothy CogginsSteve DelmarJeff DePietroIan EdmondsPascal FerronTravis FoleyFrederick GansterTroy A. GreissHal HawkWalter E. KozlowskiTimothy J. LafondCheryl L. MinorRandy Reyer, chairmanShane RussellRalph Tiegel Mike ToleJames TunnellClement VincentAndrew Warren

INVESTMENT

COMMITTEE

Raymond BurnsPhillip DamaskaHoward MeyersChris PruittChristian Rheault chairman.Mike Schmidtlein

MARKETING

COMMITTEE

Dick AmistadiJon AndersonBruce AshChad ChristJohn Connell (alternate)Amber DuBoseChuck FowlerLisa FranklinElke HirschmanJohn A. HowesMark JeskoMark KelleyStephanie KusibabMichele LeachDoreen LuchtEllen MaxeyDave McMullen vice-chairmanSaskia MooneyJim Morath

Bruce L. MurrayPatrick O’BrienVince PusateriClaire SereikoDonna Snyder, chair Tammy StankeyGary TaylorBob TollidayFred WehmeyerDavid WeinbergRon WoodMichele Zgola

MATERIALS

COMMITTEE

Charles L. AckermannLarry AtkinsLarry AxtArthur T. BalcerzakDaniel D. Breidegam chairmanLarry BurkertRandy CasstevensPaul ChidiacLee CowanBud DeSartRobert E. FinnThomas FlemingBryan GodberJose HansenPeter HochschildL. Sam HoldenCharles HwangJeffrey G. JordanWilliam KeithLou MagditsPhillip McGreevyJoe McKinleyJim PedersenEdward PuckettSteve RauLee D. RaymondGreg SchmittChris SedorJoe SpiciarichJames H. ThrashKeith Toll (alternate)Thierry TouzeauTodd WilsonAlan Wirsul

MEMBERSHIP

COMMITTEE

E. N. DeSartPaul R. FinkJim GilmourRick GodberHal Hawk, chairmanAl Schmidt

PRODUCT

INFORMATION

COMMITTEE

David BeidlerPeter BersonRobert Boss John ConnellAmber DuBoseFrank DumasDan Fetherolf (alternate)Chuck FowlerDave GodberRay GoodearlRick HallockJose HansenHal HawkElke HirschmanKalyan Jana

Wayne KrickEllen MaxeyDave McMullenGreg Moffi ttKathy PetersonPete QuinlanS. Tucker RoeDonna Snyder Paul Staab, IIIGary Taylor chairmanTodd WilsonMichele Zgola

PRODUCT SAFETY

COMMITTEE

Glenn W. AndersenJames F. Anderson chairmanJoseph M. Arvai, IVGordon Beckley Bill BessireSteve BinksTerry CampbellGil R. CubiaJoy CzerwonkySteve DelmarJohn L. DevittFrank DumasIan EdmondsPascal FerronChuck FowlerMike Fraley Ray GoodearlRick HallockHal HawkCharles HwangWalter E. KozlowskiJoe KumperTony M. LambJohn LetoJoe Liedhegner (alternate)Doreen LuchtPeter MaloneyGreg Moffi ttRalph QuinterJon SavageDonna Snyder Mark StadlerAndrew WarrenDavid WillisTodd WilsonFeng Xue (alternate)

TECHNICAL

COMMITTEE

Terry Agrelius (alternate)Carlos Manuel Aguilar TorresPierre-Jean ArversGeorge W. AyrtonJoseph Badger Arthur T. BalcerzakGordon Beckley David Beninato Michael F. BergerDavid BodenMatt Bridge Robert Boss George H. BrilmyerDavid Bryan (alternate)Gary BryanDaniele CalasanzioKevin CampbellLuis CedeñoMichael ChamesJohn ConnellGuy Dauwe

Malcolm DewarJeff DePietroWayne DuerfeldtFrank DumasTimothy Ellis Pascal FerronThomas FlemingRobert P. Flicker (alternate)Mike Fraley, vice-chairmanClark Frederick Robert FrittsMike GathmanRay GoodearlRobert G. Gruenstern chairmanRick HallockTerry Hartman (alternate)Daniel M. HenkeMark HerremaJeff HiresGerd HoogestraatGreg HumphreyCharles HwangRichard (Rick) T. JohnsonJohn KimJames K. Klang (non-BCI member)Davis Knauer Paul KorinekMike Kuznetsov Joe LiedhegnerDoreen LuchtAchim LulsdorfBob MalleySebastian MathesJohn McMillionTim McNallyJohn MillerTodd MilnerBoris MonahovAntonio MuñozJaime NavarretePhilip A. NozneskyMike O’MalleyRichard W. PekalaShawn PengR. David Prengaman, (alternate)Nawaz QureshiDaryll RardonGreg ReichDavid Rice (alternate) Dave RittenhouseRonald Rizzo Joe SemensDwayne ShumateKevin Smith (alternate) John Sowder Brian StanhausSpencer R. StockSteve StollChasen StoutRalph Tiegel John TimmonsKeith Toll (alternate)Thierry TouzeauMike Troy (alternate) Stephen L. Vechy Fred WehmeyerJohn WertzPhilippe WestreichKevin WhearTony WilsonRoger Winslow Alan WirsulJeff Zagrodnik

The business of running the business

BATTERY HEROINES: JEANNE BURBANK


Born, Jeanne Beadle, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in May 1915, she was the eldest of three children, to John Bookwalter Beadle, a civil engineer and his wife Isabelle.

Her father worked as a civil engi-neer for the US Reclamation Service and helped explore and map many parts of the still uncharted country. She spent most of her childhood in Washington, DC and was home-schooled by her father until high school.

It was perhaps a natural progres-sion that after high school she should study chemistry which she did at American University in Washington.

It was there that fate and music came together.

Enter Robert Jeanne, a charismatic

intellectual— also a chemistry major — with a passion for playing the pi-ano. Jeanne, a music lover and cello player, fell in love. They graduated in 1936, both cum laude.

Within weeks of fi nishing their de-grees — on July 1, 1936 — the two married. She was just 21.

They moved to Philadelphia, Penn-sylvania, where they both worked at the family-connected Peacock Labo-ratories (bought out by Libby-Ow-ens-Ford Glass in 1940) as chemists while earning MSc degrees in col-loidal chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.

In the summer of 1942 she had her only child, Carey Lea. But the joy in her daughter’s birth was tempered by the fi rst signs of Robert’s illness. He was sent home for a month of bed rest; there was something wrong with his blood. Robert’s battle with Hodg-kin’s Disease was to prove unsuccess-ful,

He died from cancer of the lymph gland on September 21, 1946.

Bravely, she put her life back to-gether. She moved back to Wash-ington DC where, hired by Joseph Clark White, she began to work as a research chemist for the Naval Re-search Laboratory (NRL). White’s main work, sponsored by the Bureau of Ships was to improve the habitabil-ity of submarines during their sorties under the ocean, which of course in-cluded their battery emissions.

In 1949, she co-authored a report on Phosphate Coatings on Steel, then

in 1952 came ground-breaking work — “Positive-grid corrosion in the lead-acid cell: corrosion rates of tin alloys and the effect of acid concen-tration on corrosion” and “Subgrain structure in lead and lead-antimony alloys”

Her fi rst patent — US2821565 fi led in October 1955 and issued in January 1958 — was co-researched with Al Simon (who became a long-time collaborator with her) and John Lander. In this the three proposed an improved and more resistant thin grid and plate for a lead-acid battery using an alloy of tin, antimony and lead.

During the 1960s, Jeanne with her colleague Charles Wales, worked on a lead-calcium battery for port-able cells. They also developed the electrolytic cell for X-ray diffraction studies of electrodes, such as lead and silver-zinc, to provide analysis for the battery companies such as Gates and Johnson Controls.

Among her other accomplishments, Jeanne was a leader in the diffi cult analysis of the entirely different roles played by the two polymorphs of lead dioxide in the battery operation. One markedly increased the physical sta-bility of PbO2, while the other was the principal source of reactive energy. Signifi cant groups in the US and Ger-many were struggling with this ques-tion, which infl uenced both battery design and the processing of materials in manufacture.

Her work is still discussed today.The cooperative work resulted in a

better understanding of the crystallo-graphic structure of active materials. Her colleague, Al Simon did parallel studies with the very latest technol-ogy from an scanning electron micro-scope.

Her infl uence was widely acknowl-

Figures such as, Esther Takeuchi, Cristina Lampe-Önnerud. Kathryn Bullock and Anne-Marie Sastry prove that the international world of batteries nowadays is not exclusively a male domain. But decades before, when it was virtually a man’s world, one woman gained huge respect from her fellow electrochemists: Jeanne Burbank.

Her fi rst patent proposed an improved and more resistant thin grid and plate for a lead-acid battery using an alloy of tin, antimony and lead.

Pushing back the boundaries of lead



edged across the industry — she regu-larly presented her reports to meet-ings of the Electrochemical Society across the US and even north of the border in Montreal and Ottawa.

In 1962 she travelled to the UK for the Third International Symposium on Batteries, held in Bournemouth where she presented a paper about the positive plate characteristics in the fl oating lead calcium cell.

In 1967 Jeanne and Charles Wales received the NRL Battery Division Research Award for their pioneering work. In 1969, she received the sixth annual William Blum Award from the National Capital Section of the Elec-trochemical Society where the award tribute said: “your methods of apply-ing X-ray and electron microscopy to the materials and components of lead-acid and silver-zinc batteries have made a substantial contribution to the understanding of battery grid corro-sion and active materials reactions.”

The following year, she received the fi rst Frank Booth Award for outstand-ing technical merit at the Internation-al Power Sources Symposium held at Brighton in the UK.

Much of Jeanne’s work concerned submarine batteries, and she was able to study the microstructure of lead acid submarine batteries under work-ing conditions on the USS Nautilus (SSN-571), the fi rst nuclear subma-rine.

“She visited the Nautilus while it was docked and was able to see what the conditions were for ‘her’ batter-ies,” her daughter later recalled. “She replicated the battery conditions and set-up at the NRL. She was so pleased when NRL provided her with own building with additional space to set up the confi guration of batteries.

“I remember her being very proud when NRL got their fi rst nuclear reac-tor. She took me to see it as soon as visitors were allowed in.

“My mother had one regret about her professional accomplishments: that she never had the time to pur-sue a PhD in chemistry or other sub-jects. She had been faced early in life with providing for a sick husband, a daughter, and later in life, for her sister at times of crises, and for her parents after their retirement. But she lived both her work and her life to the full.”

John Devitt, one of the key fi gures in the development of the valve regu-lated lead acid battery, later recalled: “Jeanne was able, in spite of many ob-stacles, not the least being the fact the professional women in her fi eld were almost unheard of, to accomplish much in research in electrochemistry. She was a lady in all the best ways — a beautiful personality.”

However, Jeanne said she always thought of herself as being was one of the Battery Boys and felt that her gender had nothing to do with her ac-complishments. She was an original believer in equal rights for women.

“I remember her complaining that many of her co-workers, mostly male, but also some of the women secretar-ies, didn’t understand her point of

view,” her daughter recalls. “Equal rights for women was in its

infancy, and women had only gotten the right to vote in 1920. The right to vote was often talked about in our household and was especially cel-ebrated by her mother.”

She published over 35 articles in professional journals, and received numerous awards for her work and publications. Several of these were published in four co-authored papers in the Journal of the Electrochemi-cal Society and Electrochemical Acta. One of these, edited by the legend-ary Charles Tobias, was Advances in Electrochemistry and Electrochemi-cal Engineering.

Her fi nal reports concern the crys-tallization of lead oxides on anodes of lead-antimony alloy.

In 1971 she retired to Tucson, Ari-zona. There she was able to devote time to that strange mixture of sci-ence and art that seems to character-ize many in the battery industry.

In 1986 Jeanne and her sister, Joan moved to Scottsdale, Arizona. Soon after her sister’s death in 1997, Jeanne moved to the Life Care Center of Par-adise Valley of Phoenix.

She was studying Oglala Lakota — one of the languages of the Great Sioux Nation — when she started failing. She died on March 2, 2002, aged 86.

Jeanne Burbank in earlier years

Burbank was a leader in the diffi cult analysis of the entirely different roles played by the two polymorphs of lead dioxide in the battery operation. One markedly increased the physical stability of PbO

2, while

the other was the principal source of reactive energy

1942: The Burbank family, Jeanne and Robert with baby Carey

She had been faced early in life with providing for a sick husband, a daughter, and later in life, for her sister at times of crises, and for her parents after their retirement. But she lived both her work and her life to the full

BATTERY HEROINES: KATHRYN BULLOCK


Kathryn Bullock was born in Okla-homa in September 1945. An early interest in chemistry developed into a degree at Colorado University and in 1967 (freshly married to Kenneth who later becam a minister), Kathryn applied to Gates Rubber Company where she was interviewed by John Devitt, the driving force behind the VRLA battery, who was organizing a battery development group.

She left to move to Chicago to get her doctorate before returning to De-vitt whose team had by then devel-oped the VRLA battery. The push was on to test and refi ne the design and develop the manufacturing process-es. The fi rst application of the Gates VRLA AGM battery was in power tools. Lead-acid batteries with silica gel added to the acid could be used in some portable applications, but the gel limited the power.

Portable power tool companies were interested in the VRLA cells because of lower materials costs and higher voltages and power. Although lead is heavier than nickel and cad-mium, they could use three lead-acid cells to replace the voltage of a bat-tery of four nickel-cadmium cells.

When lead-acid batteries are dis-charged, the state of charge decreases as the acid concentration decreases. Many stationary lead-acid battery applications, such as standby backup power, required regular monitoring of the acid specifi c gravity with a hy-drometer to determine the energy left in the battery. A sealed cell was not acceptable for these critical applica-tions.

With her background in computer modelling and physical chemistry, Kathryn was able to develop a model and numerical tables that would al-low customers to convert the open

circuit voltage of a VRLA battery to the acid concentration and battery state of charge. She was also able to use thermodynamic data from the lit-erature to correct the state of charge for the internal battery temperature.

She recalls: “To maintain my skills and increase my knowledge of lead-acid batteries, I began reading arti-cles in the Journal of Electrochemical Society on corrosion reactions at the lead-acid positive grid by Paul Ru-

etschi, Jeanne Burbank, Detchko Pav-lov, and others. With electrochemists from local universities, I also founded a local chapter of the Electrochemical Society.”

In an evening graduate course on corrosion at the Colorado School of Mines, Kathryn learned about poten-tial-pH (Pourbaix) diagrams. Since positive grid corrosion reactions are dependent on both sulfate (S) and hy-drogen (H) ion concentrations at the

The conception, invention and development of the VRLA battery has been an almost exclusively male preserve but one woman — Kathryn Bullock — has made a remarkable contribution to its evolution — and also to the theoretical and practical landscape of the modern energy storage industry.

Faith, reason and a life in batteries

“But from this experiment I did learn a useful lesson. If one electrode doesn’t fail, the other one will! Paying attention to chemical reactions in both positive and negative electrodes and the interactions between them is still very important if we want to understand and predict failure modes in VRLA designs for hybrid electric vehicles.”

Ernst Voss from VARTA Battery in Germany presenting the alpha/beta honorary membership scroll to me



corrosion interface, she developed a three-dimensional potential/pH/pS diagram that could be used to better understand and reduce the corrosion of the positive lead grids.

In 1977, she accepted a job at Globe-Union, a large battery company in Mil-waukee that became part of Johnson Controls. She worked there for nearly 15 years, fi rst as a research scientist and then, beginning in 1980, as manager of the battery research group. “We worked on many different kinds of lead-acid batteries, including fl ooded, gelled and acid-starved designs for all types of automotive, stationary, and portable applications,” she recalls.

Voltammetric dataAt Gates, Kathryn had worked on a project to determine how much phos-phoric acid should be added to the VRLA battery electrolyte and had presented a paper on her results at an Electrochemical Society meeting. Phosphoric acid was added to lead-acid gel batteries to increase their cycle life. She used cyclic voltammo-grams to study the effects of phos-phoric acid on lead battery reactions. Based on her cyclic voltammetric data, the amount of phosphoric acid added to the Gates cells was reduced to a very low level.

At Johnson Controls, she continued to study phosphoric acid effects on the positive electrode in lead-acid bat-teries and published additional work on the subject.

In 1980 the Electrochemical Society Battery Division presented Kathryn

Bullock with its research award for this work.

Kathryn’s research group was par-tially funded by the US’ Department of Energy to work on electric vehicle and load levelling batteries. The bat-tery research group also supported development work on nickel-metal hydride and zinc-bromine batteries. She began to fi le patents at Johnson Controls on her ideas of ways to im-prove lead-acid battery performance and on ways to decrease battery pro-duction times.

One of her fi rst projects was to fi nd an alternative way to make a dry-charged battery. Johnson Controls had a method of charging an acid-fi lled battery and then dumping out the excess acid and centrifuging the battery to eliminate as much moisture as possible. Unfortunately the shelf life of this battery was not as good as for dry-charged batteries due to the residual acid left in the battery.

The Johnson Controls battery divi-sion had a solid engineering depart-ment, along with a technical library, a materials research group and an analytical group that provided very good support for battery research and development. Many of their pro-jects were cosponsored by the US’ De-partment of Energy. The two built a new R&D laboratory and worked on lead-acid, zinc-bromine, and nickel-metal hydride battery development projects for applications such as load levelling and electric vehicles.

Kathryn and her colleague Bill Tiedemann assembled a top notch R&D team and soon built a new world-class R&D laboratory (that has now morphed into JCI’s Battery Technology Center).

“Back then we were working on many of the right subjects such as grid corrosion, battery thermal manage-ment, EV batteries, grid design, plate curing and even load-levelling,” she recalled. “I’ll never forget our work designing the new lab and purchasing some of the fi rst computer controlled battery cyclers from Bitrode (and it was all done without email)!

In 1991, AT&T Bell Labs asked Kathryn to lead the move of their bat-tery group from Texas to New Jersey “At AT&T I had an opportunity to get more experience in systems engi-neering and worked closely with sys-tems engineers and battery companies to develop new battery designs.

AT&T also agreed to let me accept a nomination to run for vice-presi-dent and then president of the Elec-

trochemical Society. They worked in Dallas for fi ve years, until Bell Labs became part of Lucent Technologies. At that time Medtronic, Inc invited Kathryn to lead a group developing an aluminium electrolytic capacitor design and factory and designing new lithium primary batteries for implant-able medical equipment.

In 1996, she was awarded the Gas-ton Planté medal — perhaps the most prestigious award in the lead acid battery business. At the end of 1999, she accepted a position as executive vice president of technology at C&D Technologies in Philadelphia.

In 2003, she founded a consulting business called Coolohm, Inc where she has been at the cutting edge of various new projects since.

Power of new designsFor example, in some new lead-acid battery designs, higher levels of car-bon are being added to the negative plate materials. In other designs, half of the negative plate is carbon and the other half is lead. This concept was developed in Australia and is being produced at Furukawa in Japan and at East Penn Manufacturing Compa-ny in Pennsylvania.

The lead/carbon negative plates and lead dioxide positive plates form a combination of a capacitor for pow-er at high currents and a battery for energy at lower currents in the same module. These batteries are working well in some hybrid electric vehicles.

She says it is nowadays as impor-tant to understand the chemical mechanisms of carbon in the new battery designs and applications as it has been to understand the chemical effects of oxygen and hydrogen re-actions, higher acid concentrations, other new additives, new separator components, and novel cell designs on the VRLA battery.

“The Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium has supported much of my recent work in defi ning the effects of carbon materials on the mecha-nisms and failure modes in this new system,” she says. She is the author and co-author of more than 60 scien-tifi c papers, chapters and books and has 11 US patents in battery, fuel cell and capacitor technology.

A committed Christian, her life has been based on the belief that science and faith are not incompatible and our duty is to push back the borders of our understanding as far as we can — and impart that wisdom and knowledge to others.

Kathryn working in the Johnson Controls research laboratory studying cyclic voltammograms of lead in battery acid containing phosphoric acid.

Over the last five years, Wirtz has installed 10 new CNC tooling ma-chining centers. These new tooling machining centers are not only capable of producing the closest tolerance tooling, but also feature increased capacity. As a result, Wirtz now is meeting on-time delivery commitments on 98% of all tooling orders.

Wirtz standard lead time is also the shortest in the industry. We can now produce automotive grid molds, paster tooling, and cutter tool-ing in only four weeks. Our continuous cast wheels and industrial grid molds can be delivered in just eight weeks.

To get the tooling with the closest tolerances and the fastest delivery time visit wirtzusa.com or call us at 1-810-987-7600.

WIRTZ TOOLING: 98% ON-TIME COMPLETION AND SHORT LEAD TIMES

“Our tooling operation is completely

assure you that we can meet any

delivery require-ment. Our quality control and

guarantees that your tool will meet your

Jason Wirtz,Vice PresidentTooling Division

INNOVATION. PERFORMANCE. RELIABILITY.

In-Line AGM COS Perfect for Large and Medium size AGM Product

Designed for consistent and controlled compression

3 Independent Molds for improved temperature control and lead flow

Robotic offload and Cell Insertion

MAC’s continuing effort to bring the Industry top of the line AGM Machines

MMAC Engineering and Equipment Company, Inc. 2775 Meadowbrook Road, Benton Harbor, MI 49022 U.S.A. [email protected] / www.mac-eng.com

Latin America (Sorfin Yoshimura, Ltd.) Asia (Sorfin Yoshimura Tokyo, Ltd.) China (Sorfin Yoshimura Qingdao, Ltd.) Europe (Sorfin Yoshimura Paris, Ltd.) Brazil (Sorfin Yoshimura, Ltd.)

New York, USA: [email protected] Tokyo, Japan: [email protected] Qingdao, China: [email protected] Paris, France: [email protected] Sao Paulo, Brazil: [email protected]

Documents

BCI Yearbook & Special Pre-2015 Convention Report