Scottish battery factory goes bust in fresh blow to UK’s net zero industry
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
Eventually they might work out that you cannot create jobs by government diktat!
AMTE Power, a high-performance battery developer, has called in administrators in a fresh blow to Britain’s net zero industry.
The company warned in the summer that it was in financial trouble and had days to find a new backer or help from existing shareholders.
An investor pulled the plug on fresh funding after plans to build a new plant in Dundee were scrapped.
AMTE said in a stock market notice: “The board has no other options to secure finance in the time available and has therefore concluded that the company has insufficient funds to continue trading.”
It said it appointed FRP Advisory as administrator to find a buyer and trading of its shares are suspended.
The company, which is based in Oxfordshire but has its main operations in Thurso, planned a 0.5GWh half-gigafactory in Dundee to make batteries for potential clients such as BMW and Cosworth.
AMTE had a long history in developing lithium cells, making some of the first examples in the 1990s. Recently, AMTE said it tested cells that can be charged fully in six minutes in a breakthrough for charging technology.
However, it has been making a loss. It did not get the firm orders it needed from carmakers and other potential customers, or a patient investor that could fuel an expansion in production.
AMTE’s fate mirrors that of Britishvolt, another would-be independent UK gigafactory.
Britishvolt was the brainchild of former investment banker Orral Nadjari, who saw the looming demand for batteries from carmakers in the UK and a gap in the market for an independent producer, planning a £3.8bn factory in Blyth, Northumberland.
But it ran out of funding after borrowing became more expensive. At the time of its demise in January, the company had signed initial deals with carmakers such as Aston Martin, but it had secured no firm orders.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Probably because there’s far too many of these projects and the UK simply far too expensive a place to invest – high energy costs, high taxes, high regulatory costs. And everything points to all of that getting worse. Combine that with lowered forecasts for EV sales and why would anyone invest?
And to help investment in Scotlandgrad, a new Tartan Tax to hit higher incomes has just been announced to fill the gap in the budget caused by the SNP incompetence.
That’s how you attract talented people willing to work and invest in a place…
Oh dear, what a shame, never mlnd.
UK costs are too high, electricity and gas, tax as well, however I am a little concerned that the Government is showering money on start ups (Lithium mining and processing, Carbon capture, Hydrogen) that have little chance of success, yet will not bail out what was a going concern until the interest rates went up.
Wait till Labour get in!
Yep. It’ll get a lot worse.
Trouble is, no matter how bad it will suddenly be like everything is wonderful thanks to the unique way certain media hold politicians to account. Has Miliband Jr. ever been properly tasked with what he comes out with?
Goodoh! MIssed that on the radio news this morning ? … maybe wasn’t worthy of a report … ( BTW Did you all hear about the Worthys from Aberdeen who drove an electric car all the way from N to S Pole, this year ? Had to laugh at the Snow covered Solar panels … really? did that do the job? )
So this battery company, could it not pay the high wages ( high Incometax) of the cost of the buildings ( infrastructure ) and materials ( Tax tax tax ) and this is a free economy Tory economy ? More like what we were told “generations ago” about the Communist states. …..
Uhhh! I meant to add, … NET ZERO economy in practice, indeed.
I’ve looked at their web site and their claim to have traced their history all the way back to the early development of Li cells in the 1990s is bogus. The developers, in fact, were a branch of the AEA which spun out into a private company ABSL (for whom I worked), who sold them the Thurso cell manufacturing plant for reasons of scale. Another grandiose claim to add to all the others eh?
Hmm, I’m thinking ( as we say ) .. Thurso ? Aye maybe did hear about it quite some time ago as for recent news ? Anyroad, probably just another ANOTHER ! company falling by the wayside after receiving ££££s from HIE/ or as we colloquially call it the HIDB ( the DEVELOPMENT Board ). Everything they touch has to be in Mega millions nowadays – and it goes bust – eventually . NO Help for the real wee local working / struggling guy ( unless you’re in to Artznfartz ) Always the Cart before the horse. reporters see a Trailer and call it a Tractor ! – but their Bairns get toy tractors / pedal tractors for Xmas ( But if I heard right t’other night, it’s now Krimbo ( Cringe ! ) ) I see a Reporter, I turn on the Dungspreader ! 16GW wind this now & little SOlar ( Coal being kept for hogmanay )
“AMTE Power, a high-performance battery developer …”
Sorry, I meant to say ‘AMTE Power, a developer of high-performance batteries …’
Western EVs are being powered by Chinese Coal!
Whether it’s producing the materials for the car or battery, or manufacturing the EVs themselves, or, when the Sun is out, the solar panels to recharge the battery, it’s Chinese Coal: and, of course, Chinese jobs!
It’s so inevitable, and all our politicians can manufacture is bureaucracy, and the red tape to go with it.
They have no understanding of what Manufacturing, or any type of Wealth Creation, needs to succeed: for them, the Chemical and Oil Industries are just a black box where they shout out what they want, immediately, and order it from abroad.
“you cannot create jobs by government diktat!”
Too true.
But, credit where it is due, they are good at creating sinecures for their relatives and chums!
In that, they can claim to be “Experts”™
‘It did not get the firm orders it needed from carmakers and other potential customers’
‘but it had secured no firm orders’
Firm? Their orders were “All lies and jest?”
‘All lies & jest’ – lovely phrase, GC, from Simon & Garfunkel, one of my all-time favourite singer/songwriters. Cheered me up no end – thanks.
Thurso, not the old Norfrost place by any chance?
A fool and his money are soon parted. Here in the Great Lakes region of the U.S., two planned CCP joint-venture EV battery plants have been killed in the crib, so to speak. After spending greatly to construct new pylons and transmission lines to the proposed sites, the powers that be have “cancelled” these proposed plants, as the kids would say. There may be hope that the EV madness has run its course. Keep a good thought.
‘AMTE said it tested cells that can be charged fully in six minutes in a breakthrough for charging technology.’
Is this another one of the laboratory things that are either not scaleable or are uneconomic?
Being energy intensive it would always be too expensive for production in the UK unless like the last remaining aluminium plant you have your own generating plant. And not a good industry to be in as battery cars sales are in decline.
‘Cells that can be charged fully in six minutes’! Ohms law would tell us this would need cables the size of ships hawsers to supply the neccessary current!!
Indeed.
Six minute charge time – possible true of an individual CELL, but NOT likely of a BATTERY of several thousand needed at car scale.
They don’t have to pay to charge them. I assume thry just supply them to say the Grid uncharged.
Meanwhile, in sunny California,
“Green Energy Company That Received Millions From Biden Regime Failing”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/12/california-based-green-energy-company-that-received-millions/
Battery factory companies’ expertise is in selling stock.
Another unicorn.
But not in the sense of a private company with a $1bn valuation.
From today’s Press and Journal
Battery storage system near Elgin given the green light
However, concerns were raised that the lack of a blast wall may cause problems for future developments on neighbouring sites.
By Hazel Lawson, Local Democracy Reporter
December 20 2023, 3.10pm
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/moray/6300363/battery-storage-elgin-lossiemouth-apatura/
Did they fold in fear of JustStopOil turning up on their doorstep complaining about the plastic tablecloths on their canteen tables.
Off target. Nature notes in the telegraph yesterday reported that the ponderosa pine, expected to favour warm weather, suffered detrimental effects from the warming climate of the past few decades. Hmm… that suggests the hokey stick graph, based on pine tree rings, has even less basis in reality.
https://news.arizona.edu/story/scientists-might-be-using-flawed-strategy-predict-how-species-will-fare-under-climate-change
This is interesting, but co-author Margaret Evans goes overly far in speculation of the rate of warming (“Climate Change”™) and species going extinct.
“Unfortunately, the trees find themselves in a situation where change is happening faster than the trees can adapt, which is really putting them at risk of going extinct.”
A more nuanced interpretation would be welcome — without ClimateChange™.
The geographic range of this plant (2 varieties) is extensive and amazing.
https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/misc/ag_654/volume_1/pinus/ponderosa.htm
I live on the eastern-edge of the central Washington State forests — merging with shrub-steppe (an ecotone). I have both old and young pines and other needle leaf trees. The pines are native and have experienced temperatures above 110°F {43°C} for hundreds of years. I’ve introduced other trees that struggle here.
Thanks for the refs. The DT article was very brief, your ref says more but the explanations proposed are unconvincing. To my mind the growing conditions of any tree are likely to be hugely more variable than a very marginal variation in climate temperature, especially for a species with such a wide distribution. I have no special expertise in tree rings although I did major in botany and zoology (many years ago).
The point is if the tree rings cannot show the recent recorded temperature change what possible reason can there be to believe the reported past (absence of) temperature change based on tree rings? Of course it just might be that the recent recorded temperature increase is a whole lot more exaggerated than most of us believe…
Tree rings are bad proxies for temperature, anyway. Several factors affect tree growth. Available moisture can have a bigger impact than temperature.
“The Folly of Climate Leadership – Net zero and Britain’s DISASTROUS ENERGY POLICIES” Rupert Darwall Dec 2023
Click to access 2320_realclear-report-rupertfarwall-v7.pdf
The green deindustrialisation project moves on apace.
Build Batteries Better
If stupid governments want to encourage stupid projects, they need to get really stupid and guarantee for the project against any loss.
Thurso? today, ThursDAY they are talking about DUNDEE closure …… It’s probably in the Northfrost wind last night …. Christmas is coming, the EV tyres are flat, put a battry in the old Car’s pad