Battery Insiders Reflection - Battery Supply Chains

0:00Transcript

0:00Welcome to Battery Insiders, your podcast providing you insights in the fascinating world of batteries. Hosted by Bhavya Jha and Simon Engelke. And welcome back to Battery Insiders. How are you doing today, Bhavya? Enjoying my Saturday. How about you, Simon? Same here, yeah. It's a bit of a mixed weather situation. But yeah, I guess we're just coming from a really fascinating session again from Clubhouse on supply chains. Do you have any thoughts on this topic or on this session? Well, it's funny. The first thing that came to my mind was Cobalt. But that was brought up significantly later in our conversation today. The reason I even got into batteries, actually, a bit of a personal note, was when I first started to learn more about Cobalt and the Congo and conflict minerals, conflict regions. That really spoke to me as far as my international politics background goes. And everybody today was focused on lithium. How is, you know, where is the lithium coming from? How are we going to keep sourcing it? Is there enough of it?

1:14And these are some questions I definitely tackled more while doing some research with the team in the UK, where our conversations were focused on circular economies. So Cobalt and circular economies were the two lenses that I brought to the conversation today. And they were touched upon, but the focus was mostly on lithium. And, you know, another thing that I thought of was I once met with someone from the Australian embassy, and they have huge lithium projects going on. And I heard about this two to three years into my battery, I guess, battery journey. And I just found it fascinating that they have some of the largest lithium mines that are untapped. And so it'll be interesting to see how players like Australia kind of up and come in this field, in this growing landscape, and what implications that has for, like, import and export costs of lithium in these growing industries. But, yeah, that was a bit of what I was thinking about. What about you?

2:26What hit you during the conversation? Yeah, I think it's interesting that you say that because I had the same, right? I think when I, you know, when we thought about the topic of supply chain, at the same thought, right? Like Cobalt and Nickel and all those materials. But I really actually enjoy today. And I think that's the power, right? When you bring many different people in one room, and you have these discussions from different lenses. I think it was quite interesting also to see, you know, when one was the material side, another one was also the chemistry side, right? Like, you know, having all the electrolytes and all those materials, like organics, and where they're coming from. And actually quite fascinating. I think, you know, the Firestarter, Andrew, shared some really interesting, you know, perspectives there on, you know, what the different processes are, also from the oil and gas industry, where these materials are coming from, or like, you know, these components essentially of the battery.

3:10And another thing also I find quite fascinating is, you know, I think also another thing, supply chain is actually even availability of batteries, right? I mean, I talk to quite a few companies, and especially, you know, any of these companies now want to use batteries for either, you know, their electric vehicles or stationary, etc. Their major concern right now is actually just getting their hands on good suppliers, like getting good supply of batteries, which is a very different lens again, right? I mean, some people think about supply chain of just the materials, components. But there's also this other thing of, you know, that you also need that, you know, even just getting your hands on batteries, there's a supply chain of batteries. We have seen this, right, like for the automotive industry, it was quite recent, right, for the last few days and weeks, where there's this big shortage of ships, right? Like chips, like, you know, controllers, etc. And similar, there's already today a shortage of batteries for some of them, right?

3:58So I think this just kind of seems to get worse and worse. So at least, you know, till there's the capacity ramped up. So I think it was really a fascinating conversation and having these different angles, which I think was quite important to look at. Yeah, I think that this is, you know, really a side note, but as we talk about supply chains and current economies, you know, we've been, we're coming up, I think we would be remiss to not acknowledge that we're coming up on one year of an interesting time in this world. And, you know, a very unfortunate, sad one with given the COVID-19 pandemic. And just one aspect of the many ways that it's hit society is the economy. And I sometimes wonder, as we talk about supply chains, and during conversations like today's, what will this, what will this time, how will this time impact this, you know, electric vehicle transition, rather, more broadly, the sustainable transit transition that, you know, we had a lot of momentum for, but, and of course, many have kept a focus on, but with difficulty during a very hard time.

5:07So, and supply chains across the world have experienced effects of this. So I can only imagine how many automotive makers are having difficulty, you know, getting hands on good batteries. I think that it'll be interesting to see how like, the demand in this market changes, as we learn more about what makes a good battery, and what makes, you know, an, like, actually sustainable battery. I don't think that, I don't think that we've necessarily set the standard for what like a sustainable battery, or like the gold star ideal type of battery is, if that makes sense. So I'm interested to see what, which materials kind of come and go, you know, cobalt, cobalt had been the thing one to two years ago. And now, you know, people have been actively trying to take it out of their batteries, given the reputation that it has and the concerns around it. So I don't know, I think it's, it's a dynamic, it's a dynamic industry for sure. No, I think absolutely.

6:11And I think also what you mentioned, it's quite interesting, you know, I think the, the impact of COVID, and I think, you know, I think one thing also for just, you know, as you mentioned, like, if you just think a year back or two years back or so, I feel what is quite a strong trend now about localization of supply, right? I think, you know, we have this, you know, great, you know, I think movement essentially, let's get the most complicated supply chain possible. It felt like sometimes, right? Where let's produce everything, you know, in these places and these places, and we just ship it all around. I mean, you know, like the battery material would go once around the world, you know, like you mine it somewhere that's like, so I'm in the Congo, then you would bring it somewhere, let's say to Germany, they saw some materials out of it, and other places, you know, and then they assemble it in China, or like all these things, right?

6:52It was very complex. And I think now what I've been observing also, like, you know, talking to most startups and others is, you know, I think there's now, you know, there's an approach of let's mine, you know, lithium in the Nevada desert, let's mine, let's get lithium out of the water in Germany, you know, like, you know, the, like, you know, terminal water. There's like all these things now, which I think, you know, didn't really seem like, you know, that, that, like, you know, at least like, you know, as like ongoing or like such, so much importance on kind of trying to find, you know, local supplies. And then maybe also to the second point, which I personally think, and I think, you know, we spoke about those in the past is, you know, how to create like an ethical battery, right? What even is an ethical batteries? You know, I mean, with battery associates, as you know, we work on a project on kind of creating a rating for an ethical battery rating, right?

7:41And really trying, you know, to take into account, like, you know, emissions, CO2, which also was mentioned today, take ethical and governments, right? Like really into account and like, you know, try to, you know, let's, let's really try to make it right, right? Like, let's not just think about, you know, okay, we get now something which is better than ICEs, but like, you know, how much better can we be? And I think especially, you know, through circular economy, you know, there's reports on the world economic foremost on this, which really show you can dramatically, drastically, you know, reduce emissions from batteries. Also, if you do it, like, you know, if you do it sort of circular approach and if you use smart technologies in between, which also I mentioned today during the session. Yeah. So I think it's a fascinating one. Yeah. Do you have any thoughts on this? You know, I mean, what is that maybe you're thinking, you know, I mean, do you have any thoughts on like where it could go?

8:33I mean, I know you're also an expert in recycling these technologies, right? And I think you have, you know, probably seen quite a few, you know, different approaches, but do you have any feeling where, you know, if we, if we now said again, again, like, you know, in a year or so, what could have happened? Like, you know, where this could go? Do you have any, any hopes maybe also where it could go? Any improvements you could, would like to see? I think there are a few key players that still use cobalt and in decreasing amounts. So I'm looking forward to that being phased out. But as I say that, I'm also concerned for what happens to those economies where cobalt is part of, you know, the livelihood. So I don't say that without thinking about that as well. And then of course, in talking about ethical batteries, I am, you know, we talked about one aspect of it today, of course, right? The supply chain, but then it's also how is it manufactured?

9:29How is it managed? The whole life cycle management, I think, needs to be standardized. It's kind of been my motto or mission rather, if you will, on this journey. And I would like to see that in one year, you know, I think someone mentioned today that the EU has really forward looking policies and it does. But, you know, even they, I think, have many miles to go. It's a work in progress, of course. But I'd like to see maybe one continent or one region have some more robust standards around battery life cycle management. And I think that will ultimately make for more ethical batteries, because as much as we globalized and got all complex and now have localized, we can't, I don't think we'll ever fully go localized again. And so I think by doing, by taking the step to, you know, really create at least one robust framework, we can, it's a trickle effect or rather a ripple effect when other countries, when one country doesn't, many countries have to, you know, bandwagon.

10:28And I think that can really drive some change globally as far as creating more ethical batteries goes. What about you? No, I absolutely agree. And I think for me personally, also, I think, well, what I would really like to see is more transparency, right? I think that, you know, like it's always the muddy waters, you know, where, you know, if you mix lots of different materials together, you know, you don't know where things are coming from. I think this has been a big issue. And I think, you know, I really hope there's more transparency coming up. Also through technologies, right? You can easily, it gets easier to track materials, you know, and be a blockchain or anything else. Right. I think that's, that's very interesting. And also vertical integration, I think you can now see, you know, some players, which are usually, you know, just like, you know, just a consumer and now actually go also more into the, you know, production side itself or, you know, and I think like integrating kind of, you know, these, like have some of these vertical integrations can also help for, you know, the knowledge to kind of like, you know, be transferred, I guess, across the different stages.

11:24Yeah. And that's, I think my personal hope, transparency and maybe also I can say quickly, right? It was Barry Societ's will also work on a battery map to kind of bring together, right? Like, like visualize essentially, and also show all these different stakeholders, you know, from, from the mining, but also production, consumer, consumer, et cetera. And I think, you know, knowledge is key. And I guess that's also one of the reasons why we're doing this podcast and these sessions, you know, to, to make, you know, these things more known and have these dialogues. So yeah, personally, I really hope, you know, that, you know, there will be more knowledge and more transparency. I think that implementing something like the global battery passport, that's an initiative of the world's economic forum has the potential to start that. So there's another high up. Absolutely. I agree. I think there's some really cool initiatives out there and now it's just time, you know, to, to make them, get them implemented, get them adopted, which is a big one as well.

12:18And yeah, let's, you know, let's hope in a year we can say, wow, you know, this has been a year also in good terms for, you know, for the supply chains. Absolutely. Brilliant. Without, with that, you know, we can let the listeners now dig into, if they want to, the one half hour session, which is a very long session on a much longer session on supply chains. And otherwise we're going to see each other again next week with another exciting battery topic. Yep. See you next week. See you. Bye-bye.