In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):

• Battery materials and second-life battery recycling trailblazers just secured millions in VC funding.
• The Biden administration wants to replace fossil fuel subsidies with clean energy incentives.
• Community solar marketplace PowerMarket launches a redesigned website.
• UnderstandSolar is a free service that links you to top-rated solar installers in your region for personalized solar estimates. Tesla now offers price matching, so it’s important to shop for the best quotes. Click here to learn more and get your quotes. — *ad.

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California-headquartered green power solutions company Jackery is officially releasing the Explorer 1500 on April 5 – its largest solar generator yet. The company asked Electrek if we’d like to try it out, so Jackery sent me a review unit, and I happily put it to the test. Here’s what I found.

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Electric vehicle sales seem to be growing by the minute in the US. Although they still only have a tiny corner of the auto market cornered, astronomical valuations of industry leaders like Tesla offer a glimpse at the potential of a virtually nascent market. In order to bring costs down even further to entice consumers, the US has plans to amplify battery production on its home soil over the next decade. With global competitors miles ahead, does the US have the technology, or more importantly the resources, to gain ground in the EV battery market?

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Researchers from the Tokyo University of Science have taken another step in the ongoing quest to bring next-generation sodium-ion batteries to market. They have achieved a higher-energy density in sodium-ion batteries than in lithium-ion batteries.

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Michelin’s Movin’On Summit was held virtually last week, and five sustainable mobility companies won its Startup Challenge because they stood out as being able to move from “ambition to action.”

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SK Innovation, a South Korean battery supplier for Volkswagen and Ford, said on Tuesday it will spend $727 million to build a second EV battery plant in the United States. Construction is expected to begin in July, with battery production slated to start in 2023.

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John Goodenough, the co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019. But two years earlier, he announced that he made a breakthrough on a solid-state battery that could mean the end of internal-combustion cars. Goodenough, now 97, is self-isolating from the coronavirus and working on Nobel-related commitments. But the job of commercializing the potential breakthrough is being carried forward by the public utility Hydro-Québec.

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Researchers at the University of Michigan this week published a paper titled, “Strategies to Limit Degradation and Maximize Li-ion Battery Service Lifetime.” The goal was to examine the best strategies for extending battery life, including for EV batteries. In the project, which was conducted in cooperation with the Responsible Battery Coalition, an industry association, researchers compared the owner’s manuals for electric cars with academic research.

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In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):

• Qatar to build an 800 MW solar farm with Total and Marubeni.
• A Tokyo University of Science team are developing potassium-driven rechargeable batteries.
• Cleantech Group announces its Global Cleantech 100, the companies most likely to make an impact.

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Tesla is reportedly in talks with mining giant Glencore to secure a supply of cobalt, a controversial mineral used to produce Li-ion batteries used in most electric vehicles today. expand full story