Lithium-ion battery

The European Commission (EC) and the Batteries European Partnership Association (BEPA) have announced a memorandum of understanding to research and develop battery technologies for production in Europe. The co-programmed partnership is being called BATT4EU, and it’s aimed at bringing value and competitiveness to the EU’s battery chain.

This video tells the story of cobalt and its importance to batteries and electric cars.

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

• NanoGraf claims it has enabled the highest-energy density 18650 cylindrical lithium-ion cell in the world.
• The US clean energy transition could create up to 600,000 jobs for American workers by 2030.
• 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.

The Biden administration is keen to boost battery manufacturing on home soil as soon as possible. But in case you didn’t notice, the Democrats and Republicans are at loggerheads in Congress on Biden’s huge infrastructure plan. So here are four steps the Department of Energy is going to take right now to boost EV and clean energy storage battery production in the US.

Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia have figured out how to extract lithium, an essential part of electric vehicle batteries, from seawater in a more cost-effective way.

Researchers at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) have developed a lithium-metal, solid-state battery they claim can hold significantly more energy within the same volume of traditional lithium-ion batteries while charging in a fraction of the time. While this is welcomed news around a potentially world-changing technology, questions surrounding cost effective scalability remain uncertain.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.
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In July it was announced that LG Chem was working on a potential new billion-dollar US battery cell factory for electric cars. Today in a security filing in South Korea, LG Chem confirmed that investment, and that GM will invest another billion.

Reuters reports that the location is expected to be in the area of Lordstown, Ohio, where GM (pictured in Detroit) recently sold its factory to an EV startup affiliated with Workhorse. This follows news earlier this week that Piedmont Lithium received an important federal permit to proceed with its lithium mine in Gaston County, North Carolina — the second in North America. Looks like Interstate 77 will be America’s hot new lithium corridor.

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Volvo Cars announced today that it would become the first carmaker to implement global traceability of cobalt by applying blockchain technology. The Swedish carmaker said that it reached an agreement with its two global battery suppliers, CATL of China and LG Chem of South Korea, to trace cobalt supplies starting this year.

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

• Chemistry Nobel Prize win for lithium-ion batteries is a win for green energy.
• US interior secretary criticized Green New Deal at a New Mexico oil and gas conference.
• PG&E is cutting electricity to around 800,000 homes and businesses in Northern California to prevent wildfires.
• Five great green jobs on the rise according to BLS projections to 2026.

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John B Goodenough of the University of Texas at Austin, M. Stanley Whittingham of SUNY Binghamton University, and Akira Yoshino of Meijo University have won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm today for the development of lithium-ion batteries.

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Range and recharge times are perhaps the two biggest issues currently facing electric vehicles. But StoreDot is ready to solve at least one of those. The company just showed off its fast charging batteries by topping up an empty electric scooter battery in just 5 minutes.

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