Why did the U.S. give revolutionary battery tech to China?

[Grouse]

Ten years ago under Obama, a group of American engineers working in a federal government lab in Washington state developed revolutionary and promising new technology known as a vanadium redox flow battery. The new tech promised to be the next big step in batteries. They were the size of a refrigerator, could store enough energy to power a house, and could be used for 30 years without losing their storage capacity. Rather than an American company getting the license from the U.S. government to use this new technology to manufacture batteries, however, it went to China. American taxpayers paid $15 million for the research, and U.S. government officials effectively gave it away to a Chinese-based company despite licensing rules that should have prevented this loss of American-developed technology. Obviously, China has taken the lead in manufacturing and further developing this breakthrough battery technology. Florida Republican Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott sent letters to the U.S. Department of Energy seeking more information as to how this failure to protect vital American technology was allowed to occur and, worse, benefit our nation's biggest geopolitical foe.