Company wants to make car batteries in Hardin Co.

By Ronnie Ellis

It might make Kentucky the “epicenter” of the next generation of automobile manufacturing. But it may all depend on the federal government to come through with a huge investment.

Gov. Steve Beshear announced Monday a consortium of 51 companies will build a $600 million facility in Hardin County to manufacture lithium-ion battery cells for its members. Beshear said it could do for Kentucky what Toyota did two decades ago when then Gov. Martha Layne Collins attracted the Japanese manufacturer to Georgetown – change the face of manufacturing in Kentucky. He said it will make Kentucky an international leader in making electrical power trains for automobiles.

It will be located on 1550 acres near Glendale in Hardin County, a site once considered by Hyundai Motors before it chose to locate in Alabama. Subsequently, the state bought the site and Jim Greenberger, a founding member of the consortium said the site is “essentially shovel ready” and the plant could be manufacturing battery cells within a year of re beginning construction.

It’s the second major economic development tied to the future of the automotive industry Beshear has made in two weeks. The first was the partnership of a federal research lab, the University of Chicago based Argonne Laboratory, with the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville to research and develop lithium-ion batteries to power automobiles.

“This will transform this state’s economy much like Toyota did,” Beshear said.

, directing his comments to Collins who was on hand for the announcement.

The consortium – the National Alliance for Advanced Transportation Batteries or NAATBatt – includes such companies as 3M, BASF, Conoco Phillips, Proctor and Gamble and Enersys of Richmond which makes batteries for such things as forklifts and mining equipment. It is modeled on a similar effort in the late 1980s by semi-computer chip companies, Sematech, to compete with Japanese companies.

Beshear said Kentucky won out over seven states vying for the project – Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Texas – and the plant will eventually employ up to 2,000. He said another 1,500 construction jobs will be created by the project and “untold” number of jobs in spinoff companies like the suppliers for Toyota, Ford, and General Motors facilities located in Kentucky.

But it might not happen if the consortium is not successful in obtaining a significant portion of the $2 billion in energy grants set for award by the Obama Administration as part of the federal stimulus plan.

Greenberger said the consortium is presently putting together its proposal and request to the federal government but he said it is likely to ask for an award “somewhere north of $500 to $600 million.” He said he expects the awards to be announced this summer, probably in July. Beshear said the “unique nature” of the proposal and the involvement of so many high-profile companies suggests a favorable response by the feds, but if the consortium doesn’t win an award, “we’d have to back up and start over.”

“We go to plan B,” Greenberger said if the NAATBatt doesn’t win an award from the federal Department of Energy. “Don’t ask me what plan B is – but it’s not as nice (as plan A).”

If the feds come through, the state will pitch in with $44 million for a new exchange on I-65; $10 million for additional infrastructure improvements; $10 million in worker training; and as much as $100 million to assist with construction.

Greenberger said the state’s central location, the fact that it’s already the third-largest auto manufacturing state, and research and development going on at the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville contributed to the decision to locate the plant in Kentucky. And the recent announcement that Argonne is coming to Kentucky helped, too..

Beshear called that a first step and Monday’s announcement a second step in what he hopes will be a series of announcements of similar projects.

RONNIE ELLIS writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.

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