It’s clear that, in order to mitigate the impacts of climate change, and to safeguard the planet for future generations, we have to transition away from fossil fuel usage, particularly in the transport and energy industries.
Because the key to the transition away from fossil fuels resides not only in the energy source, but how that energy can be stored. In the transport sector, batteries have enabled electric car sales to surge from 3 million in 2020 to almost 14 million in 2023, with further strong growth expected in the coming years.
And, the rapid expansion of batteries will be crucial to meet climate and energy security goals set at COP28.
Growth in batteries outpaced almost all other clean energy technologies in 2023 as falling costs, advancing innovation and supportive industrial policies helped drive up demand. In less than 15 years, battery costs have fallenby more than 90%, one of the fastest declines ever seen in clean energy technologies. To scale up batteries globally, a recent report from the IEA found that those costs need to come down further without compromising quality and technology.
Ensuring energy security also requires greater diversity in supply chains, including for extracting and processing the critical minerals used in batteries – and for manufacturing the batteries themselves.
EV battery chemistry varies from model to model and supplier to supplier, but the basic recipe for a lithium-ion pack includes a few important metals. There's lithium, of course, and most also use some cobalt and nickel.
These days, the majority of lithium comes from brine under salt beds. Extraction involves drilling for the brine and pumping it to the surface into evaporation ponds, where it sits for months to years until it reaches the desired lithium concentration. The liquid is then pumped to a processing facility where it's filtered and chemically treated to create the final product, which in the case of an EV battery is lithium carbonate. Lithium is relatively abundant on Earth. Current commercial supply comes from Australia, Chile, China, and Argentina, among other places. The U.S. has only one operating mine: the Albemarle Silver Peak Mine in Nevada. The Salton Sea, a high-salinity lake in Southern California, is a potential future source that could provide 40% of global lithium needs. There are plans to open up more mines in Nevada, California, Arkansas, and North Carolina, which will help reach the previously-stated goal of supplying lithium domestically and via strategic partners by 2030.
Companies collect cobalt as a byproduct of nickel mining. Cobalt is most abundant in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is the source of the majority of the world's supply. Major nickel producers include Indonesia, the Philippines, and Canada.
In terms of energy use, mining for and building an EV battery can be offset by the energy saved over the vehicle's lifetime. A recent study conducted by the University of Michigan with funding from Ford suggests that the pollution penalty of producing an electric vehicle is paid back within two years (in comparison with the average life cycle of internal-combustion vehicles).
Certain battery makers are looking to eliminate cobalt from the equation. Using iron is also an option. More efficient extraction methods are being developed, and companies are exploring the use of clean energy, such as geothermal water, to power processing activities.
Complete battery recycling can reduce our need to mine more minerals, but this isn't likely in the foreseeable future. The latest advances in battery recycling, including by leading US battery recycler Redwood Materials, are shrinking EVs’ footprint. Though still in its infancy, EV recycling is already profitable and capable of recovering more than 95% of the key minerals. The world is already on track to recycle twice as much lithium-ion battery supply in 2024 as it manufactured in 2014. When considering the environmental toll of an EV, it’s increasingly important to measure the footprint of the materials going in and how it shrinks when some inevitably get a second life.
The search for cheaper and more environmentally friendly ways to produce batteries is becoming increasingly urgentas electric vehicle demand cools. A number of companies, initially Tesla, have been exploring a dry-coating technology, a process that aims to replace the energy-intensive wet process for making cathode and anode electrodes — a key component of electric car batteries. Korean company, LG, estimates the dry method can lower battery manufacturing costs between 17% to 30%.
