Another green energy company goes bankrupt- Aquion Energy, a salt water battery manufacturer goes belly up even after massive government and investor subsidies. The article sources are online publications listed below.

*Aquion Energy, a rising star among manufacturers of large-scale energy storage systems, announced on Wednesday it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization amid struggles with fundraising from investors.

* company said it is in search of a buyer and hopes to emerge from bankruptcy “in the coming weeks.” It has laid off about 80 percent of its personnel, keeping only a core research and development team. The company has halted its factory operations in Westmoreland County and paused marketing and sales efforts,

I have seen these types of Startup Technologies succeed and fail over my 30 years working in industry. The script is a worn path starting with an idea for an emerging energy market followed by hyped expectation to satisfy a hyped up crises married with a political force. Some of these never make it off the ground and die a sudden death due to poor salesmanship and questionable merits for market value. But some, like this salt water battery, get some wind behind its back because of its apparent simplicity and material commonality. With 70% of the planet containing salt water, what’s not to like about an energy storage technology that uses salt water.

The electrical chemistry is basic and fundamental (2Cl- => Cl2 + 2e- ). The sodium in salt water conducts electrons produced from the reaction with the anode to the cathode of the battery.  But you need a high volume of salt water to produce enough electrons for practical load application, ~1kw.

The problem is pointed out in these articles:

**David Snydacker, a battery expert at Dosima Research, tells GTM: "Aquion's size/weight per kilowatt-hour was approximately 15-times greater than lithium-ion. Like other competitors to lithium-ion, Aquion tried to emphasize that size/weight doesn't matter for grid storage. But all that extra material has an associated cost. The bankruptcy was probably foretold by the bill of materials."

Dozens more startups are aiming for utility-scale energy storage working with compressed air, mechanical systems, flow batteries, and other electrochemical means.

Quite simply, salt water batteries don’t compete with the other technologies size/weight per KW-Hour capabilities. That means you just can’t go down to your local discount hardware store and replace these babies. They would never have got this far into the market place if it wasn’t for the “green energy planet saving political initiative”; another words, the energy storage market didn’t ask for it.

**After spending $190 million and making bold promises, outgoing CEO Scott Pearson had this to say: "Creating a new electrochemistry and an associated battery platform at commercial scale is extremely complex, time-consuming, and very capital-intensive. Despite our best efforts to fund the company and continue to fuel our growth, the Company has been unable to raise the growth capital needed to continue operating as a going concern." *But he said the financial challenges of surviving in this market are “not for the faint-hearted,” requiring “huge amounts of capital” to scale up and stay relevant.

Do you think Scott Pearson was given a heads up by Wall Street analysts or maybe his only employees that this was a “pipe dream” which was not ready for prime time before burning through $190 million? But with all the hype and government money for the taking, just ride this out and cross your fingers. It’s living on a credit card; sooner or later the bills must be paid. That is why the market place is the predictor of which technologies succeed or fail. If non-political investors are willing to invest in an emerging technology, it must have some inkling of promise. When technological obstacles appear that are insurmountable, the money usually dries up and invested elsewhere. This is the free market forces in action.

So for now, salt water batteries are better left for science experiments then a green energy solution.

*http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/companies/2017/03/02/Hare-Krisnhas-and-Rover-contractor-reach-agreement-on-pipeline-s-path-in-West-Virginia-Moundsville/stories/201703020222

**https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Aquion-the-Bill-Gates-and-Kleiner-Perkins-Funded-Advanced-Battery-Startup

***http://triblive.com/business/technology/12042624-74/company-aquion-batteries