How it all began

In early 1991, the formation of the United States Advanced Battery Consortium, USABC, was announced as a 3-year/US$262 million joint programme between the Big Three automakers and the Department of Energy with DoE planning to develop advanced battery technologies for electric vehicles. Up until this time, the international lead zinc research organisation (ILZRO) had financed a number of lead-acid battery projects with individual battery companies dealing with fundamental problems such as alloys, positive-plate technology and the like, but nothing of a broader nature had been attempted, not just because of funding issues but primarily because of the reticence of the major lead-acid battery companies to work together. From the beginning, it was clear that none of the USABC funds would go to lead-acid, but in April of 1991 the ILZRO Executive Committee approved action to try to obtain funding from USABC.

On 6/7 June, 1991 Jerry Cole, President of ILZRO, called together a group of industry experts in Marina del Rey, CA to put together a Research Plan that would be submitted to USABC for consideration. While I still hadn’t joined ILZRO (I was hired on 1 July, 1991) I was part of that group who put together a large number of research ideas to serve as raw material to forge into a finished Research Plan, discussed here. It was agreed early on that, while the focus would be on developing and optimising valve-regulated lead-acid (VRLA) batteries for Electric Vehicle use, roughly half of the programme would be fundamental research that would benefit all lead-acid application areas. In addition to Jerry and myself, the participants included David Rand, Norman Bagshaw, Dean Edwards, Gene Valeriote and Dodd Carr, my predecessor at ILZRO. I took the minutes and, when I joined ILZRO on 1 July, I worked on converting the contents of the 20 or so flip chart pages into a draft Plan.

In early August, the draft Plan was submitted to USABC and DoE for consideration; as expected, it was rejected and one of the USABC guys did us the favour of suggesting that we form our own Consortium— an excellent idea!

 As part of our efforts, I recall meeting with a DoE technical guy in his office in Washington, DC, with Dave Prengaman, who had kindly offered to help out with getting the Plan going. I don’t believe I’ve ever been in such an uncomfortable meeting before or since, as it was clear that the DoE manager had been instructed to deal with us as quickly as possible and end the meeting. I had the distinct feeling that he just wanted us to leave so he could have a stiff drink from the bottle of scotch or whisky that I imagined he had in the drawer of his desk!

Shortly after that , Jerry and I called an organisational meeting in Washington, DC to “pitch” the programme to a small number of lead smelters and lead-acid battery companies. To our delight and surprise, the general opinion was very positive. After they had left, Jerry, in an uncharacteristically agitated moment, shouted “They bought it, they bought it!” – and we were on our way. 

In late November, we met with the Jefferson Group in Washington to formulate the Consortium structure and to engage them in lobbying for us with government agencies that we might approach for funding; over the early years they turned out to be very helpful and productive.

In January/February of 1992, the Research Plan was put out for comments to everyone who had been at the Marina del Rey meeting as well as an additional number of industry experts. Based on this input, it was revised and refined (I still have the scars to show for the voluminous feedback!) and ILZRO put out an organisational announcement for the Advanced Lead-Acid Battery Consortium, ALABC. At the LME meeting in the fall of 1991, Howard Meyers of RSR and Helmut Maczek of Metallgesellschaft, MG, sat next to one another and agreed that the lead-acid industry had to do something in light of the indifference of USABC. At the time, neither RSR nor MG were members of ILZRO, so Jerry worked through senior executives among the lead smelters to make the point that we had a finished Plan and that the Industry should back it rather than the RSR/MG effort.

In late February, 1992, several Technical Working Group meetings were held in different parts of the world to discuss issues related to the formation of ALABC; at this point, four smelters and 7 battery companies were expressing interest. Jerry was working on recruiting the smelters and I was approaching various battery companies to solicit membership in ALABC, as well as ILZRO.

 The competition between ILZRO’s ALABC Plan and the RSR/MG initiative came to a head at a meeting on 18 March, 1992 in a hotel at JFK Airport in New York attended by senior lead industry executives. The location was chosen so that the CEO of MG, Helmut Maczek, could fly in that morning on Concorde and be back in Europe later that same day – that must be nice! In addition to membership (RSR and MG agreed to join ALABC but not ILZRO in carrying out the ALABC programme), the lead producers agreed to assess themselves a yearly fee of US$1/metric ton of production, whether primary or secondary lead. Like many of the key issues involved in forming ALABC, there was considerable discussion in arriving at this agreement. It should be noted that MG was supportive of ALABC in the early stages and Howard Meyers has given his unconditional support and has provided creative input to ALABC over the years – and still does; many thanks, Howard!

The following day, the main organisational meeting for ALABC was held at the ILZRO headquarters in Research Triangle Park, NC. The Consortium was not a reality yet, but the meeting in New York pretty much “sealed the deal”, as the lead producers would provide the bulk of the funding for ALABC. There were about a dozen battery companies and an equal number of lead producers around the table. For me, this moment was the high point of my association with ALABC, not just for the frenetic 8 months leading up to it but, as a battery guy, to see technical representatives from a dozen different lead-acid companies from several continents representing the U.S., Europe (Germany, U.K., France and Italy) and Japan, all sitting around the same table expressing an interest in joining an international effort to improve lead-acid batteries. Now, after 20 years of ALABC and many more battery companies being involved, this may not sound like such a “big deal”, but in those days most companies jealously guarded their “secrets” and were loathe to interact with other manufacturers on serious technical matters.

The decision was taken to form the Consortium, with the lead producers providing the bulk of the funding as outlined above and battery companies being assessed at a fee of US$25 000 per year – a low amount for the opportunity to benefit from the results of a US$4-5 million/year research programme. To me, though, the biggest benefit was in removing the isolationist mindset of many battery companies in being able to come together to work on common problems. It also opened a large funding door for their particular research interests, as members were encouraged to submit proposals for funding by ALABC.

Dick Amistadi from Doe Run was elected Chairman of ALABC, along with Dave Prengaman of RSR for the Technical Committee and Sanjay Deshpande of GNB for the Public Affairs and Marketing (PAM) committee. One of Sanjay’s first tasks was to commission the creation of a logo for ALABC; his effort has withstood the test of time, but I still don’t understand what it means or how it relates to lead-acid batteries – but I like it!

The ALABC Research Plan and Philosophy.

As noted above, the Research Plan was put together in a form shaped with input from a number of industry experts and a final “massage” by Dave Prengaman and me. The general intent was to have 50% of the work being focused on solving key problems that were holding back the broader dissemination of lead-acid technology and 50% dealing with the implementation of VRLA batteries into EVs. The plan began with three main segments, with each supported by a State-of-the-Art assessment that sought to bring together in one place most, or all, of the existing literature in each area as well as a series of research topics that would serve as a framework for solicitation of proposals in these areas:

Active materials and cycle life

Grids/alloys/top lead and materials

Charging, battery management and EV battery testing

The original ALABC programme was comprised of 18 project categories in these three areas and this was later augmented by the European Group’s Brite-Euram programme containing 11 more tasks. Since then, work has shifted more toward the development and testing of VRLA batteries for hybrid vehicles, but this work is progressing based on the early work that was more fundamental in nature.

When we shaped the structure of ALABC, it was based on a number of principles that seem obvious now, but were controversial in some instances and required considerable discussion at the time:

It was originally planned as a 4-year programme (1992-96) with a budget of US$19.3 million, with one-half coming from member payments and the other half from outside funding. In reality, the member contributions probably went beyond the US$2.5 million per year when all inputs are considered (in-kind contributions, travel, time at meetings, etc.) but we were not successful in matching this with government funding, which only came to US$4 million.

It is meant to be an “open” programme, with all research results available to all of the members; as companies joined in later years they still had access to all previous work.

As much as possible, regional funding was tied to regional research grants but in some cases this was not followed because of unique skills of some organisations in unfunded areas.

Member battery companies were encouraged to submit proposals and, where appropriate, put together teams of companies and research labs to make the strongest efforts possible.

Battery companies were allowed to protect proprietary design and materials details and keep them out of project reports; i.e., cell and battery constructions could, in some cases but not all, be kept in confidence; i.e., be treated as a “black box”. 

 ALABC was highly structured, from an overall Steering Committee, through Technical and PAM committees in three world-wide regional groups (Americas, Pacific Rim and Europe) down to Project Advisory Teams assigned to key research programmes. Jerry Cole published an excellent overview of all this (J. Power Sources, 40 (1992) 1-15) and over the first few years of ALABC Jerry, Dave Prengaman and I made a point of giving many conference presentations to make people more aware of what we were doing. 

In general, Jerry took responsibility for keeping the lead producers involved in ALABC and Dave Prengaman and I worked on the battery companies and suppliers. I can’t say enough about Dave’s contributions to the success of ALABC; it was his “second job”, unpaid, and he put in a tremendous amount of time and provided material and moral support to me, in particular when things didn’t look too good (which, early on, was a lot of the time).

We also made a point of personally visiting as many lead producers and battery company/supplier members as possible to give ALABC status updates, preferably on at least a yearly basis. In addition, we held Technical Committee meetings and recruiting exercises at all major international conferences (BCI, LME, ELBC, ABC, Long Beach, etc.) to include as many member companies as possible without imposing onerous travel requirements. In all presentations, we stressed the fact that ALABC was an “open” consortium with free sharing of all research among all members; to the credit of all involved, it still is.

“Herding Cats – ALABC, EALABC and the EEIG Group”

Administratively, the structure and functioning of the Americas and Pacific Rim Groups ran fairly efficiently. We had difficulty in soliciting projects from the Japanese companies (later on, Dave Prengaman succeeded in persuading at least one company to submit and carry out a meaningful, useful research project), but they faithfully paid their dues and were model members. In the Americas, we probably should have had a stronger recruiting effort in South America, as well as with a few major companies in the U.S. but otherwise things ran smoothly.

In Europe, recruiting was successful and a number of the initial research projects were placed with European companies and many of these projects were models of cooperation between battery companies and independent research or government laboratories. In addition, the participation of the Lead Development Association, a sister organisation to ILZRO, was extremely useful in providing administrative support and guidance from the likes of David Wilson, Michael Mayer, Maura McDermott and, somewhat later, Allan Cooper. There was also intense participation by the members in the form of frequent Technical Committee meetings to shape and discuss the programme.

However, early on there were signs of problems. I recall a meeting in Venice in the fall of 1992 where we had something of a “showdown” on the open sharing of all research results, a core principle of ALABC but something that was resisted by some of the European members. I left the meeting feeling that there was only a 50:50 possibility of things working out in Europe. Fortunately, Geoffrey May gave me a “therapeutic” ride to Milan and things worked out in the end. However, later in 1992, several of the European lead producers backed off from their commitments to provide funding at US$1/metric ton, with the total reduction being close to US$250 000/year, a substantial amount.

At the same time, the European Group was seeking participation in the Brite-Euram EC research programme and, at first, this seemed to conflict with their participation in ALABC, particularly because there were several major ALABC research programmes being carried out at this time. Once again, disaster was averted when MetalEurope obtained a decision from the EC that there could be open sharing of research results with ALABC if all members of the European Group approved; fortunately, they did- I suspect with some internal arm twisting.

At the end of the day, I believe the Brite-Euram programme was a large positive factor for ALABC, as it was a significant revenue source, it raised our visibility and it also created a link to the European automotive company group, the JRC. However, on the down-side it created the appearance of separation within ALABC, as a requirement of the EU was that as a part of the Brite-Euram programme the group had to set up a separate administrative arm called the European Economic Interest Group, EEIG. Another thorny issue was how to handle the member contributions and programme funding for the European battery companies in ALABC; fortunately, this was amicably resolved by negotiations between ILZRO and LDA. 

As a result of all this, the European ALABC, EALABC, has had a separate identity, but due to the skillful guidance of Allan Cooper, other LDA personnel and Geoffrey May, the disruption to ALABC has been minimal and open channels of contact between the EEIG and ALABC have remained in effect. In addition, I believe the independence of the European Group has strengthened ALABC as it has demonstrated that we could accommodate administrative and philosophical differences without fracturing the organisation. Much of the credit goes to Allan Cooper, whose tireless efforts shepherded through the Brite-Euram programme and led to much more later work in ALABC’s history.

Premature Capacity Loss Resolution.

It may seem like ancient history now, but in 1992 the so-called “antimony-free effect”, or premature capacity loss, PCL, was a severe defect in lead-acid technology that limited cycle life to a great degree. As such, it was a primary focus of the ALABC research programme and so at the beginning two large projects were launched, one at CSIRO in Australia and the other in Europe pairing Varta and Pavlov’s group at CLEPS in Bulgaria. At the same time, workshops were organised, first in conjunction with 3ELBC in Munich by LDA in October, 1992 and later at LABAT ’93 in Bulgaria, put on by ALABC in June of l993. 

In both cases, a number of alternate mechanisms and causes were put forward, but at the time it was the consensus of all attending that more work and a clearer picture was needed and it needed to be done in a more private environment with few distractions. Consequently, ALABC sponsored a second PCL Workshop in Lower Beeding in Sussex, UK at a small country hotel; arrangements were handled by Michael Mayer of LDA and it couldn’t have been a better choice! Roughly two dozen industry experts were invited from all parts of the world and most attended. It was a two-day, intensive meeting that had the primary focus of defining what PCL was, to be followed by further meetings to come up with solutions to the problem(s). The primary outcome of this first meeting was the identification of two types of PCL, PCL1 being a grid/active material interface problem and PCL2 being a failure to maintain connectivity in the positive active material, the PAM. After everyone had left, I remember sitting in the garden thinking that we had accomplished very little and, on balance, the meeting had been a failure. Fortunately, as it turned out, I was wrong, but at the time I was too close to what had happened and I hadn’t yet had time to organise the notes. 

The first workshop was followed by another one just prior to the Geneva ELBC meeting, held in Montreaux, Switzerland in September of 1994. Here, the definitions were sharpened and solutions for both types of PCL were put forward. Time would show that these workshops were instrumental in minimising or eliminating PCL1 and PCL2 from the lead-acid lexicon.

I include this as an example of the power of a large industry-wide consortium like ALABC to address and attack key problems and be able to keep at it until they are solved. Several other more recent examples have come out of the ALABC programmes that have spanned the last 20 years.

Looking Back.

For me, personally, organising and managing ALABC was a 3-year long “wild ride” comprised of large ups and downs with no guarantees of success. I am particularly grateful to Jerry Cole for ably handling the money side and the lead producers and allowing me the resources and freedom to roam the world by air, looking for new members, bringing existing ones up to date on our progress and trying to have some modicum of control over a world-wide programme for an industry not used to such a thing. As I said earlier, I’m sure that we wouldn’t have had the success we did without the tireless efforts of Dave Prengaman, who is still the “heart and soul” of ALABC after 20 years of hard work – thanks Brother. I’ll never forget all of the discussions we had over a cup of coffee or glass of wine at some obscure airport or hotel somewhere in the world. I also am obliged (and willingly) to note the role played by LDA in arranging meetings, providing administrative help and, mostly, ensuring that lines of communication stayed open between ALABC and EALABC/EEIG.

I left ALABC after only 3 years, but I was confident that the Consortium would go from strength to strength in the future because we had laid a good foundation. In July of 1994, we had 51 members, including Honda R&D and Arizona Public Service. Also, 250 000 flight miles and 210 days a year on the road was putting a bit of a strain on my marriage! I also knew myself well enough to realise that I had played my role and it was time to hand it over to others who were better at administration than I. So read on, gentle reader; the story gets better after a somewhat messy start as ALABC turns 20 years old – and counting!