Author Archives: Nanthakumar Victor Emmanuel, P.Eng

#India’s #Tata Group signs $1.6 billion EV battery plant deal

June 2, 202310:48 AM EDTUpdated 2 days ago

A Tata Motors logo is pictured outside the company showroom in Mumbai

AHMEDABAD, June 2 (Reuters) – India’s Tata Group signed an outline deal on Friday on building a lithium-ion cell factory, based on investment of about 130 billion rupees ($1.58 billion), as part of the nation’s efforts to create its own electric vehicle supply chain.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/indias-tata-group-signs-16-bln-ev-battery-plant-deal-2023-06-02/

#SaudiArabia expands #Lithium processing to supply #BMW

Saudi Arabia is planning a second lithium processing facility, as it steps up efforts to work with western partners to develop its battery supply chain. The facility, which will use feedstock mined in Austria to produce refined lithium hydroxide for BMW, is a sign of how supply chains to process the metal are slowly developing outside China.

Read more at: https://www.ft.com/content/89b26197-87e9-4aa6-adde-797131af3d8a

#Canada, #Quebec to provide about C$300 mln for #GM-#POSCO battery materials facility

OTTAWA, May 29 (Reuters) – Canada’s federal government and the Quebec province will each provide about C$150 million ($112 million) for a General Motors-POSCO Chemical battery materials facility that is expected create about 200 jobs in the country, the Canadian industry ministry said on Monday.

The U.S. carmaker and South Korea’s POSCO outlined their plan last year to build the facility in Becancour, Quebec, to produce cathode active material (CAM) for electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/markets/canada-quebec-provide-about-c300-mln-gm-posco-battery-materials-facility-2023-05-29/

#Australia Sees ‘Enormous Market’ for Its Battery Metals in #US.

(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden’s signature climate policy is helping drive a “golden age of mineral exploration” in Australia, as the US rushes to catch up with China on clean energy technologies, the Australian trade minister said.

Deals between Australian miners and US carmakers had already spurred increased investment in exploration and refining of battery metals, and the Inflation Reduction Act is accelerating that, Trade Minister Don Farrell said in an interview while visiting Detroit over the weekend.

The IRA pledges almost $400 billion in incentives and tax credits on clean technologies from electric vehicles to hydrogen manufacturing. Credits on EVs are only granted if a large portion of the minerals they use are extracted or processed either in the US or a country with a US free trade agreement. “That’s Australia,” said Farrell.

Read more at: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/australia-sees-enormous-market-battery-030205091.html

#Tesla: This is the future of sustainability

In 2022, the Tesla community avoided emitting approximately 13.4 million metric tons of CO2e into the Earth’s atmosphere—that’s equal to over 33 billion miles of pollution from driving an ICE vehicle.

Emerging #Lithium supplier #Argentina says it’s close to #US deal under IRA

The world’s fastest-growing lithium producer says it could soon gain access to the US market.

Argentina has been lobbying to get in on President Joe Biden’s electric-vehicle drive. Landmark climate legislation, called the Inflation Reduction Act, features tax credits for vehicles that have a portion of their battery metals sourced in the US or a free-trade-agreement country. Australia and Chile, the top two lithium suppliers, have FTAs with the US. Argentina doesn’t.

Officials in Buenos Aires have been working on the issue with US diplomats and believe they are close to getting Argentina an exemption, Fernanda Avila, the federal mining undersecretary, and Franco Mignacco, president of top industry group Caem, said Tuesday on the sidelines of an event in the Argentine capital.

Argentina’s push comes amid a global tug of war for key EV minerals between the US and China.

The country’s only two producers as of now, Livent Corp. and Allkem Ltd., are set to merge to become the world’s third-biggest lithium company focused on supplying the US.

Rare earth deal with #US a magnet for #Australia’s refineries

The US and Australia announced on Saturday at the G7 meeting in Japan that they would partner to manage vulnerable critical mineral supply chains, with President Joe Biden saying he would ask Congress to define Australia as a domestic source for materials critical to defence and clean energy.

The Biden administration’s big-ticket funding package in the US – the $US369 billion ($584 billion) Inflation Reduction Act – is supercharging its clean energy economy and corralling the critical minerals needed to power its energy transition.

Governments and businesses around the world are scrambling to follow suit, but a deal between the US and Australia will rapidly expand mineral supplies to the US, potentially create more local refining capacity, and eventually underpin production of magnets and batteries in Australia.

Read more at: https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/rare-earth-deal-with-us-a-magnet-for-australia-s-refineries-20230522-p5dab3.html

Biden must embrace domestic mining. #MAMA

Americans are starting to see the results of the bipartisan infrastructure bill signed by President Joe Biden in 2021. Federal projects are upgrading America’s transit systems and power grids, including a proliferation of electric vehicles and charging stations. However, there’s a catch. All of these renewable technologies have spurred massive demand for key minerals and metals. But global supplies of these resources are dominated by the United States’ rivals.

The International Energy Agency estimates that demand for key minerals — such as lithium, cobalt and nickel — will grow 4,000% by 2040. However, the U.S. is falling woefully behind in the race to gather enough supplies. In fact, America’s reliance on imported minerals just hit another record, with China the largest supplier of these crucial building blocks.

The Biden administration knows it has a problem on its hands. Jake Sullivan — the Biden administration’s top national security adviser — recently said, “Clean energy supply chains are at risk of being weaponized in the same way as oil in the 1970s or natural gas in Europe in 2022.”

Sullivan says America’s dependence on China-dominated supply chains is unacceptable. And China’s use of forced labor, threats against Taiwan, and hoarding of mineral supplies as geopolitical leverage should be reason enough to take action.

Remarkably, though, the Biden administration has yet to use the best lever to address the problem. The administration is having the State Department fund mining overseas — including in Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. That’s particularly unfortunate because mining in the DRC is rife with child workers exposed to toxic dust.

Such disturbing practices contrast with much safer — and heavily regulated — mining in the United States. This matters because the U.S. possesses vast mineral supplies, including the resources needed for electric vehicle batteries.

#MAMA – Make America Mine Again – safer and environmentally benign methods.

MAKE AMERICA MINE AGAIN – #MAMA – NATIONALLY OR INTERNATIONALLY

Read more at: https://lasvegassun.com/news/2023/may/21/biden-must-embrace-domestic-mining/

#Birmingham to become #UK’s first centre for rare earth magnet recycling

Pioneering rare earth recycling company HyProMag, which was formed by researchers from the University of Birmingham’s School of Metallurgy and Materials, is to be acquired by Maginito Ltd, in a deal that aims to catalyse the further scale-up and international roll-out of technology first piloted at the University of Birmingham and forming the basis for the UK’s first full scale remanufacturing facility for rare earth magnets at Birmingham’s Tyseley Energy Park being developed later this year.

HyProMag’s core technology is the based upon the patented process – Hydrogen Processing of Magnet Scrap (HPMS), which was originally developed within the University’s Magnetic Materials Group (MMG) to extract rare earth magnets from scrap and redundant equipment and subsequently licensed to HyProMag.

The development of domestic sources of recycled rare earths in the UK, Germany, United States and other territories is a significant opportunity to fast-track the development of sustainable and competitive recycled rare earth magnet production.

Read more at: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2023/birmingham-to-become-uks-first-centre-for-rare-earth-magnet-recycling

Can the World Make an Electric Car Battery Without China?

It is one of the defining competitions of our age: The countries that can make batteries for electric cars will reap decades of economic and geopolitical advantages.

The only winner so far is China.

Despite billions in Western investment, China is so far ahead — mining rare minerals, training engineers and building huge factories — that the rest of the world may take decades to catch up.

Even by 2030, China will make more than twice as many batteries as every other country combined, according to estimates from Benchmark Minerals, a consulting group.

Here’s how China controls each step of lithium-ion battery production, from getting the raw materials out of the ground to making the cars, and why these advantages are likely to last.

China controls:41% of the world’s cobalt
28% of lithium
6% of the world’s nickel
78% of graphite
5% of manganese
REFINING:95% of manganese
73% of cobalt
70% of graphite
67% of lithium
63% of nickel
Components making:74% of separators
77% of cathodes
92% of anodes
Cathodes making:73% of NMC cathodes
99% of LFP cathodes
Battery Cells66% of the world’s battery cells

Read more at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/16/business/china-ev-battery.html

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