This is the third episode of a five-part series exploring the lithium-ion battery supply chain. If you haven’t listened to the first two episodes, we recommend you start there.
Batteries can replace gasoline in our cars, or diesel in our generators with electricity. But batteries and petroleum-based fuels share something in common: they both rely on energy-intensive processes to turn extracted materials into something useful.
The middle stage of the lithium-ion supply chain is called processing – and it’s a critical one. To make lots of affordable batteries, we have to process a lot of materials. It’s a big, lucrative business with real impacts to local communities and the environment.
In this episode, we dig into step two of the supply chain: processing all those minerals into usable ingredients for batteries.
Why are countries so keen on building giant processing facilities? And can we process all the minerals we need to fight climate change in a responsible way?
So far over this season we've traced the global lithium-ion battery supply chain from mining to processing to manufacturing. And we've put it all into a geopolitical and economic context.
China has been the world's biggest battery manufacturer for over a decade. By 2022, according to the IEA, China manufactured 76% of the world's batteries. But that's changing.
To produce enough batteries to reach global net-zero goals, the International Energy Agency says we'll need to increase production of critical minerals by six fold by 2040. It's a monumental task.
Season 4, Episode 1 Batteries are at the center of the clean energy economy. Will they shape geopolitics in similar ways to oil? We need to electrify much...
Electric vehicle (EV) batteries are a major source of critical mineral (CM) demand. Reducing the CM intensity of electric mobility (e-mobility) is crucial for easing supply chain pressure,...
In December, the US Treasury Department released a proposed rule for the Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit, part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Better known as 45X,...
CGEP convened a roundtable during Climate Week NYC to discuss challenges of expanding lithium supply for the energy transition.
Recently CGEP, in partnership with Columbia Global Centers | Santiago and the Center on Business and Society at the Business School - Universidad Adolfo Ibañez in Chile, hosted a private roundtable.