Exide Technologies fka EXTC

[big-yank]

There is plenty of gel and absorbed electrolyte capacity in the industry so no takeover would be needed. There is also a ton (pun intended) of mined lead available, making smelted or reclaimed battery lead unnecessary except as a disposal issue, kind of like spent tire casings.

Under RECRA, if Vernon were shut down California would ask the EPA to declare it a Federal toxic waste site and there is no easy path by which Exide could run away from the clean-up cost as long as the company had any assets, at all. Eventually the tree-huggers would have to have a "reality moment" when someone recognizes that mountains of junk batteries are piling up somewhere because the secondary smelters were unpopular and "stinky". Even China and Mexico are unlikely to take the junk for recycling because lead is a by-product of silver production which Mexico produces copiously, and Russian mined lead is readily available in the Sino-Soviet region.