Instead of the batteries becoming the next great American success story, the warehouse is now shuttered and empty. All the employees who worked there were laid off. And more than 5,200 miles away, a Chinese company is hard at work making the batteries in Dalian, China.

The Chinese company didn't steal this technology. It was given to them — by the U.S. Department of Energy. First in 2017, as part of a sublicense, and later, in 2021, as part of a license transfer. An investigation by NPR and the Northwest News Network found the federal agency allowed the technology and jobs to move overseas, violating its own licensing rules while failing to intervene on behalf of U.S. workers in multiple instances. //

Department of Energy officials declined NPR's request for an interview to explain how the technology that cost U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars ended up in China. After NPR sent department officials written questions outlining the timeline of events, the federal agency terminated the license with the Chinese company, Dalian Rongke Power Co. Ltd. //

Forever Energy, a Bellevue, Wash., based company, is one of several U.S. companies that have been trying to get a license from the Department of Energy to make the batteries. Joanne Skievaski, Forever Energy's chief financial officer, has been trying to get hold of a license for more than a year and called the department's decision to allow foreign manufacturing "mind boggling." //

The idea for this vanadium redox battery began in the basement of a government lab, three hours southeast of Seattle, called Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. It was 2006, and more than two dozen scientists began to suspect that a special mix of acid and electrolyte could hold unusual amounts of energy without degrading. They turned out to be right.

It took six years and more than 15 million taxpayer dollars for the scientists to uncover what they believed was the perfect vanadium battery recipe. Others had made similar batteries with vanadium, but this mix was twice as powerful and did not appear to degrade the way cellphone batteries or even car batteries do. The researchers found the batteries capable of charging and recharging for as long as 30 years.