Battery holds hope of light in darkness when world depletes fossil fuels

What kind of company can attract former United States congressman Lester Wolff to front its press conference in Hong Kong, claim to have a plaque from United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan hanging in its boardroom, pledge to double the value of industrial output in the city of Shenzhen within a few years and aspire to make the world a better place to live?

The company would be National New Energy, founded by chairman and chief engineer Chung Hing-ka.

It claims to have invented a new type of lithium ion battery which is safe and large enough to use in commercial applications previously thought impossible, such as powering environmentally-friendly cars.

Mr Chung, a self-taught engineer who originally trained to be a Chinese herbalist, said he invented the battery after years of experimentation. He believed fossil fuels would run out, creating a business opportunity for alternative energy.

'We've managed to invent a product that is quite spectacular and completely against conventional thinking in battery engineering,' he said, referring to the product developed by the firm's Zhong Xinjia.

Major battery manufacturers, the biggest of them being Sony, have invested as much as US$6 billion in trying to develop what he has already done and patented in 26 countries. And, while his competitors have not had much success, Mr Chung says his line of batteries already has sales of one million yuan (about HK$937,200) a day through a small Shenzhen firm, Thunder Sky Green Power Source (Shenzhen).

The chief benefit of lithium ion battery technology is a bigger charge in a smaller package, against nickel metal hydride batteries - the best power source for commercially available electric vehicles, such as General Motors' EV-1 - available to consumers in the United States.