insane
whats insane is the government will give you a 40 year loan for it at 0%
Gotta keep your eyes on the prize.
I see this as another great opportunity in hemp production. Lithium batteries were actually on tops, introduction of a hemp assisted battery is going to change the status quo. Lets wait and see.
Is this real?
Good question - does anyone know much about this project?
Seems like PR fluff
PORTAGE | BATTERY COMPANY PLANS ARRIVAL
Portage could see hemp-based battery company, hundreds of jobs
- NICHOLAS WALCZAK
- Dec 27, 2023
A startup manufacturer is coming to Portage with plans to hire laid-off Energizer plant workers who are looking to once again make batteries — but this time out of hemp.
“This is going to be huge for the city of Portage,” Mayor Mitchel Craig said of the Wisconsin Battery Co.’s plans for a new plant. “The Energizer plant employed 225 people, and it is projected that within six years they will have 600 people working at this new facility.”
The Portage City Council voted unanimously on Dec. 7 to approve an option for the company to buy 17 acres in the Portage Industrial Park for construction of the 100,000-square-foot battery manufacturing plant.
The Wisconsin Battery Co. is a research, development and manufacturing company owned by the Sustainable Communities Corp., which is dedicated to advancing energy storage solutions that contribute to a more sustainable and clean future, company officials said.
CEO Jeff Greene said the Wisconsin Battery Co. will focus development on the production of hemp carbon batteries as a sustainable alternative to lithium-ion batteries as well as the production of industrial batteries, which make energy storage solutions for solar and wind power systems more efficient and reliable.
Hemp batteries work by processing the woody pulp of the plant into carbon nanosheets, which store electricity. The fibers have been found to store even more energy than graphene, a synthetic carbon material used in lithium-ion batteries.
Listed as a benefit corporation, Greene said the company is union-friendly and has directives that include positive impact on employees, the community, society at large and the environment, in addition to profit.
He said the company will be looking to hire workers who have been laid off after the city’s Energizer plant closed earlier this year, and aims to develop a better system of mass production with the input of experienced, knowledgeable employees from a planning and design standpoint.
“We are going to be probably sitting at around 60 or 70 employees right out of the gate,” said Greene. “And then we will ramp up to over 300 (employees) within the next three or four years.”
With plans of reaching 600 employees within the first six years of operation, the company plans to start where Energizer left off, creating batteries for hearing aids. But company officials said it will morph into producing the two innovative batteries that are to offer improved energy density, longer lifespans and reduced environmental impact.
The new building, which is to be solar-powered to the extent that is possible, is also to include a battery recycling facility and day care facility for workers with children.
A lobbyist by trade, Greene said the idea for a hemp carbon-based battery company technically began in 2016, when he was lobbying for a hemp company in Florida that directed him to find the top five ways in which the bast fiber obtained from the plant could be effectively used.
Though Greene said the idea was well received at the time, it didn’t gain any traction until about eight years later, when a business partner reached out to him asking what he knew about batteries after hearing two Energizer plants were to close just outside of Madison. The call ultimately led Greene to Portage, where he said that he is happy to start the new company.
“The people (in Portage) have been fantastic,” he said. “We have asked and received tremendous support from the people helping us. I am very blessed that the response has been so exciting.”
Greene said company officials have been meeting with various insurance, pension and employee benefit companies in order to deliver some of the best benefits not only in Wisconsin but in the country.
The company hopes to have a production presence in Fennimore, where another Energizer plant closed earlier this year, but those plans have not been finalized and more details may come at a later date, Greene said.
Related to this story
New battery company plans to begin plant construction in Portage this spring
Had a pop-up to pay to read so I just copied and pasted. Will clean up when I have time.
I hope this eases concerns of fantasy. Looks to be an attempt for Energizer to pick up the potential business in the future based on location.
Good. I always hear people yapping about all these amazing things you were supposed to be able to do with hemp and none of them ever seem to get commercialized.
Remember everyone used to say “oh, the paper industry lobbied ban weed because if it was legal they would get their asses kicked”?
If that’s the case how come these economy-uprooting grows for fiber I always heard about, haven’t manifested?
Phase 1: strip the medicines.
complete
Phase 2: purpose remaining material.
Heads in the sand waiting for someone to invent
You all are the keys to making the stripped materials, but toss out the rest of the $. Recycling and repurposing is still the biggest underestimated market. You all will give it away for free.
Or worse… Pay to remove it.
This is more than real. With the advent of nanotechnology, this is very feasible, hemp will be used to make carbon nano sheets, which are then going to be used as raw material in battery manufacturing. Carbon nano sheets made from hemp will be cheaper than graphene nano sheets.
Everything starts in a Research Laboratory, nanotechnology advancing in Science
This time its going to be a different game alltogether, watch the space
Similar to the petrochemical industry, prohibition of cannabis gave paper 80 years or so of a head start in building infrastructure.
Seems to me like the only thing they are making is carbon anodes and they are using hemp because it’s the buzzword of the day and they can make a bunch of money out of “smoke and mirrors”… At least from what I was reading.
I heard that they were using graphene nano tech in the COVID vaccines. Now I have to avoid normal lithium batteries too.
It’s a lobbyist as the ceo running the business. You could be 
I don’t wanna knock anyone’s hustle, but it’s like… How legit is this company if the CEO has a day job completely outside of the industry. My gut says that someone saw a government funding opportunity and created a company specifically to capitalize on it. Sort of similar to how some people tried to get investment to farm tens of thousands of acres of fiber/seed hemp just for the carbon credits, lol
