John B Goodenough: Nobel at the age of 97

The father of lithium batteries, John Goodenough, who has been awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2019 along with two others is still very active in research at the age of 97.  

John Goodenough of the University of Texas at Austin won Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2019 along with two others—Stanley Whittingham of Binghamton University, New York and Akira Yoshinoof Meijo University—for his work on rechargeable lithium-ion  battery that today powers everything from cell phones to laptops and electric vehicles.

Goodenough, aged 97, is the oldest ever winner of a Nobel Prize. It was in the ’80s that Prof. Goodenough, who, on moving to Oxford from the US as professor, picked up the work that Prof. Whittingham carried out to develop lithium batteries as a scientist at Exxon in the US in the early 1970s but discontinued the same in the early ’80s as the oil company cut back its expenditure on research.  

Prof. Goodenough, predicting that a cathode made of metal oxide than a sulphide would have greater potential, had improved the battery’s performance by introducing new materials—cobalt oxide— for its electrodes. The Nobel committee has considered this has a “decisive step towards the wireless revolution”.

Prof. Akira Yoshinoof and his colleagues at Asahi Kasei, the Japanese chemicals company, picking up Goodenough’s cathode as a basis and using petroleum coke—a carbon material—in the anode, developed the first commercially viable lithium-ion battery in 1985. 

Thus came into market a lightweight hardwearing battery that could be charged hundreds of times before its performance deteriorated. Their introduction in 1991 had revolutionized our lives. To quote Akira, “the way [these] batteries store electricity makes them very suitable for a sustainable society.”

So, rewarding such a work with a fitting prize is, no doubt, a good news. But to my mind, what struck as a real big news is: Prof. Goodenough is actively pursuing his research interests—“studying relationships between the chemical, structural and electrical properties of solids, addressing fundamental solid-state problems in order to design new materials that can enable an engineering function”—as Virginia H. Cockrell Chair in Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, USA, at the age of 97 and even publishing research papers. 

This 97-year-old professor, believing that “We have to … make a transition from our dependence on fossil fuels to a dependence on clean energy” and saying, “So that’s what I’m currently trying to do before I die”, comes to his lab every morning before 8 a.m. and with a small flock of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers works on designing a new battery to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

In line with this ambition, he along with a colleague, Maria H Barga, a senior research fellow, published a paper in Energy & Environmental Science in December 2016 about a glass battery—a type of solid state battery with a glass electrolyte and lithium or sodium metal electrodes, that indeed generated controversies, because they have also claimed that its storage capacity increases with age. 

Controversies because: thermodynamics perhaps maintains that a battery only deteriorates over many charge-discharge cycles. Of course, Goodenough and Barga have an explanation for the controversy raised. According to them, their glass electrolyte is of ferroelectric material. Its polarization switches back and forth in the presence of an outside field.  As a result, the charge-discharge cycles are indeed jiggling the electrolyte back and forth and over a period, this is perhaps leading to emergence of an ideal configuration of each electromagnetic dipole. 

Controversies apart, what is worth noting here is the active engagement of Prof. Goodenough in research even at the age of 97 and his craving to develop and offer a product that is good for the world. His desire to do good for the society well echoes in his comments on science and its utility, which indeed merits everyone’s attention: “Technology is morally neutral—you can use it for good and for evil. You can use it to explode bombs under somebody’s vehicle. You can use it to steal a bank account. As scientists, we do the best we can to provide something for society. But if society cannot make the moral decisions that are necessary, they only use it to destroy themselves.”  

Above all, there is another statement that he made after receiving the Nobel Prize that calls for our deep reflection: “They don’t make you retire at the University of Texas at a certain age, so I’ve had an extra 33 years and I’m still working every day.”

This makes me wonder, why our Universities are not encouraging such possibilities in our campuses. …. Secondly, whatever little of such possibilities that we hear from here and there, say for instance one such facility offered to retired professors by JNU, they are all steeped in murky controversies. Now the disturbing question that a layman on street on listening such episodes from abroad faces is: Are we not capable of cultivating and nursing such a healthy work culture in our universities?

Tax Rate Cuts: Will It Change Growth Curve

In a bold move, Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman has surprised the markets by announcing mega cuts in corporate taxes on September 20 in the hope of fanning animal spirits of the economy: reduced the tax rate for all companies that do not avail any exemption from the present 30% to 22%, and inclusive of Cess and surcharge, the effective tax rate for such firms stands reduced from 34.94% to 25.17%. Secondly, tax for companies getting incorporated on or after October 1 this year and commencing production by March 31, 2023 stands reduced to 15% from the present 25% and inclusive of Cess and surcharge the tax rate comes to 17%. Thirdly, the minimum alternate tax paid by zero tax companies has been reduced from the current 25% to 15%. There were also some less significant changes such as removal of surcharge on capital gains on buying and selling of equities and changes made in applicable tax on share buyback program of companies.

According to a Crisil report, these tax cuts are likely to enable around 1,000 companies to save about Rs 37,000 cr. These cuts are however likely to benefit large companies such as Reliance, Tata, Vedanta and Adani more than the mid-sized firms. It is also felt that firms from the consumer segment will benefit more by these cuts, for their current effective tax rates are a little over 30%, while exports-linked sectors such as IT and Pharma would benefit the least for they are already enjoying low effective tax rates. The benefits are thus not uniform across the board.

On the down side, the government has to forgo revenues worth Rs 1.45 lakh cr during the current fiscal itself. Nevertheless, it is gung-ho about the cuts, for it believes it is an all-cure pill for the current ailments of the economy. Even the industry Moghuls appear to be superb-excited about the cuts, for in one stroke these changes have made our tax-structure comparable with the best of the lot. No doubt it will boost Corporate India’s confidence as it makes their production more competitive in the global markets. And all this cumulatively well reflected when the investors from the Dalal Street—perhaps, treating the tax-breaks as a Diwali-gift—simply lifted the benchmark indices with a historic one day rise of 5.32%.

Now the big question is: Will the tax-cuts translate into higher consumer incomes thereby giving boost to domestic demand, the much desired fuel for lifting the growth? An honest answer is, perhaps: ‘No’ (in the short run), but ‘Yes’ in the long run. For, although the tax cuts are certain to swell the profits of companies and make them more bullish than before, it may not drive companies go for fresh investments, unless demand picks up. And demand for consumption would not grow unless greater purchasing power is put in the hands of the less privileged of the society—who unfortunately constitutes about 60% of the population—through public spending.

That aside, even if corporates come forward to invest in new projects, banks, being shy of taking fresh exposure to business groups with whom they are still litigating about recovering bad loans, may not be enthusiastic enough to lend fresh credit. Secondly, banks’ balance sheets are not that strong enough to go all out to increase their credit portfolio. Thus, it is evident that the rate cuts cannot by themselves change the near-term growth prospects.

Nevertheless, the big talking point from these cuts is 15% tax on new companies setting up new manufacturing units. This certainly makes India an attractive destination for a host of foreign firms, particularly those who are moving out of China in search of greener pastures. Even here again, all this happens with a lag effect.

But what is certain to happen immediately is: rise in fiscal deficit unless, investments intensify and growth picks up and the resulting tax-buoyancy reduces this figure. The tax rate cuts along with exports- and housing-incentives announced earlier put together are estimated to come to 0.5% of GDP. Of which having got 86,000 cr from the RBI in excess of what it has budgeted, the government is likely to end up with a hole of 59,000 cr and thus be able to contain the fiscal deficit at around 3.4 to 3.8% of GDP—a tad higher than what was budgeted for.

That said, one must hail the government for making big bets to give a boost to the economy, albeit in the long run. Now that the government has pulled the fiscal and monetary levers simultaneously, let us hope that Corporates catch up government’s expectation and nudge GDP to grow if not in the near-term, at least in the long run.

China’s MIC 2025 Plan: Implications for India

In the recent past, growing China’s engagement in the Indian sub-continent in particular and its growing footprint in global affairs in general categorically reveals its overarching strategy to expand its global influence. The main force behind this move is, of course, its remarkable economic growth that it has accomplished in the last three decades.

The ongoing decline in the role of the US as a global super power has only afforded China an opportunity to present itself as a reliable alternative model with its own set of values—its “core national interests” namely, territorial integrity, China policy, and the Chinese party-state governance model. Leveraging on its fiscal strength it has simultaneously funded infrastructure projects in smaller countries located in Africa and the Asian sub-continent, which incidentally minimizes its suffering from any trade disputes—should they arise at a later date—while maximizing its ability to inflict serious economic damage on the host countries.

This strategy has indeed helped China’s political system to fan the nationalist sentiment domestically. And this in turn helped its political leadership to consolidate its party-state governance model that facilitated the leadership to get away with no democratic accountability which incidentally bestowed on its leadership additional strategic options such as faster and quieter mobilization of resources—both men and material with ease unlike in the democratic countries.

Its place in the United Nations Security Council as its permanent member has bestowed on it significant clout which it is using to advance its geo-political interests very shrewdly. Additionally, it is also building up new institutions with a hope to ultimately act as their head. And this cumulative strength is being used by it to offer opportunistic support or to deny it as it suits its strategic options—as for instance offering support to Pakistan on Kashmir issue and blocking a proposal much sought by India at the United Nations to designate Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist four times.

President Xi Jinping has made “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation” as his objective and this well reflects in its military build-up, and expansive territorial claims. Against this backdrop, though China claims its initiatives such as Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, ‘Brics Bank’, ‘Belt and Road’ project, etc., as ‘win-win’ meant for “common destiny of mankind”, its neighboring countries perceive them as “self-serving and expansionist”.

In its march towards its goal of national revitalization, China is now spending huge sums to “doubling down on indigenous innovation and developing core technologies” and transform itself from a state of ‘technology seeker’ to a state of ‘technology generator’. According to its MIC 2025 plan, huge investments ranging between $100-150 bn through public and private funds are envisaged in the frontier fields of IT, machine learning, quantum computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Within these sectors, China is according highest priority to develop its capabilities under AI with an objective to become world leader in AI and associated technologies by 2030. Its spending on R&D that has gone up from $13 bn in 1991 to $376 bn by 2015 is in itself an indicator of how committed China is to acquire self-sufficiency in “core technologies” within the prioritized industries. This urge to acquire mastery over core technologies implicitly reveals China’s ambition to surpass and even displace advanced economies as manufacturing super power worldwide.

This intense pursuit of its ambitions under MIC 2025 has obviously caused the US anxieties over China’s emergence as a rival for American leadership. As a result, it initiated a range of technology denial measures against China. It is also pressuring its allies to follow the line. But containing China, that is today strongly embedded in a densely interconnected global economy, besides being an active member of several critical supply chains, is not that easy. Over it, for the last two-three decades, China has been making systematic effort to acquire, adopt and assimilate advanced technologies from the US and other western countries. Since launching liberalization policy in 1978, China has been sending thousands of its young students to study at top American Universities and upon returning they constituted its bedrock of knowledge that not only sustained its economic growth but has also built technologically sophisticated military power. It is also known to have used cyber capabilities to gain access through hacking to cutting edge military technologies developed by the US firms. It was even accused of influencing US citizens of Chinese origin working in sensitive facilities to clandestinely transfer confidential plans and blue prints to Chinese entities.

Such acquisition of technology has also enabled China to pursue “civil-military fusion” and thereby achieve ‘jointedness’ among its land, sea, and air forces. They have even started developing asymmetric warfare capabilities. Their military strategists are even talking about “intelligentized warfare” using AI in weapons development and military tactics. They are also talking about “algorithmic competition” in battlefield. Driven by the logic that when the US could have as many as 800 overseas bases in as many as 80 countries, there is nothing wrong in China trying for the same, they are also planning to establish foreign military bases with an ultimate strategy of developing global footprint to rival the US.

Technology is thus becoming the power of China today and it certainly poses many challenges to India’s security. So, what is needed for India is: to assess these threats comprehensively and draft a strategy and move towards mastering the emerging technologies to counter the threats posed by China’s might. Unlike in the past, India must now involve private industry to harness technologies and speed up building asymmetrical warfare capabilities soon. And private entrepreneurs too need to respond speedily and innovatively. Given that, it would only be apt to say multipronged approach alone could enable India to counter the challenges likely to be posed by China in the days ahead.