EVAN MEACHAM, Kennewick

I'm intrigued about the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory getting $15 million to study battery technology. I know the Navy has studied battery technology for almost 100 years. The old O-boat lead/acid battery drawings were quite detailed.

The lead/acid on board the submarine I served on 40 years ago were much more robust than previous classes. I remember working as an undergraduate research assistant/technician in the chemical engineering department at Brigham Young University about 30 years ago studying new battery technology with the doctoral candidates. One of the projects had to do with a lithium/lithium perchlorate interface high energy battery. The explosions in the inert-atmosphere containment box were very energetic.

It seems to me that battery technology has really been studied to death. I wonder if we are just dumping more tax dollars down another rat hole.