Battery Revolution Clubhouse Recording - Battery Education

0:00Transcript

0:00Okay. I think we are now to work. One second. Yeah. I think we're all good. Catherine, you want to kick off today's session? Yeah, great. So welcome everyone back to our 26th Battery Revolution session. We're very happy today to have actually our very own Simon to share about, you know, his experience on battery education. I had a few weeks ago or probably months now share about what we do on battery thermal management system. So I thought, you know, it's prime time for Simon to also share a little bit more about what he does. And for everyone in the audience with us to also join us on stage to, you know, share and discuss about this topic if you're interested. So feel free to raise your hands at any one point in time. Just a quick reminder that this session lasts for one and a half hours. So typically we do have a lot of people joining us towards the end. So I would really encourage everyone to try and join us as early as possible.

1:14And I do see some hand raises here right now. I'm going to let you up on stage. So just a quick reminder to everyone who's new to Clubhouse. I don't see any party hats here, but just a quick reminder to everyone here that some housekeeping rules. If you're on stage, we really value giving everyone the opportunity to have a chance to speak. So we'll go in order that we see. But if you're on stage and you wish to, you know, respond to a comment or just share your thoughts on an idea, please tap your mic twice like that. And if you're applauding to someone, something that someone said, just go to your mic. Yeah, so with that, and without further ado, I'll pass on to Simon to kickstart the session. Thanks so much, Catherine. Yeah, you know, a big welcome also from my side. You know, very excited that we have been running these battery evolution sessions for 26 times now. And it's been a really, really fun time.

2:22And I'm very excited today also to share something maybe from my side as well. So, yeah, today's topic, as you can see, is battery education. And I can maybe give you a bit of a background, what got me interested in this subject, what we're doing about this right now, and maybe where I see, you know, some future opportunities and where things might could go in the future. So maybe a bit of a background. So myself, Simon, I'm based in Munich, Germany at the moment. Previously, I was originally from Berlin. And I studied in the Netherlands in Maastricht and then in the U.S. at UC Berkeley. And then I went to Cambridge for my master's and PhD. And I always really loved teaching. This has been maybe one of my personal passions. I really like to, you know, to help my friends in school, but then also, you know, share my insights. And I found, like, teaching a great way to learn myself, you know, to really understand topics properly.

3:12And that's really got me into this path. And that's also really what got me. In Cambridge, I took a master's there, as I mentioned. And essentially, I took over the teaching of the battery modules there and kind of extended them, developed them further, and then also kind of coordinated other people teaching these courses. And so this has been really, like, a fun experience I had there, you know, from an educational standpoint. And I really liked it. So now I'm running an organization called the Battery Associates, where we do a bunch of things. So we have three kind of main pillars. One is more on the consultancy side. So we're advising companies and governments. We also have a battery lab, which is really for innovation. So we're developing, like, open source hardware and software, such as an open source battery cycle and others. And then the third thing we have is on the education. So that's our education arm. And here's something we started called the BatteryMBA.

4:03And I'm very fortunate, as Catherine mentioned, Catherine is one of our lecturers. She gave a fantastic presentation there. If you could bring us back on thermal management of batteries, which was really exciting. And I'm also really excited to see some participants. So like Christopher, for example, in audience, or there's been a speaker in the past. There's a fantastic participant there. But also Crystal, in audience as well, who was a participant from the last cohort. And the bit of rationale behind this kind of training program or this BatteryMBA program was that I realized, you know, there's – I mean, on one hand, there's a lot of big demand, right, for people to be in the battery field. On the other hand, the existing kind of, you know, tools or existing trainings out there seemed either be outdated or not existing or also too slow. And to give you a few examples of that. So one is, for example, I worked for another company quickly before.

4:52And here we had, for example, an educational budget, you know, per year, a few thousand dollars or so. And I realized that, you know, none of my colleagues really had, you know, like, you know, suitable programs they've been taking. So I think there's some which are also fun. I took some of myself in Kursava, et cetera, some other programs. But they were, you know, I think quite limited what you could kind of learn from them. And then also it's quite passive, right? Like you do it all yourself and kind of really lacks this interaction standpoint. You can ask each other questions, et cetera. So this was one of the observations which also kind of contributed to the start, like our program, such as Metro MBA. Another thing was I really felt it would be very helpful to have, you know, insights from other, you know, people, from other industry players, especially if you come from, you know, from your PhD or your studies, et cetera.

5:41It's quite tough sometimes to understand what's actually happening in industry. And, you know, you're kind of in a little academic bubble. And I felt it would be quite nice to have actually a program which kind of bridges the gap between these different kind of backgrounds. Another thing I thought, you know, as an industry, there's so much other things happening, you know, either at other organizations, other companies, but also at research institutions, et cetera. So I felt like, you know, really just learning from each other could be quite powerful. And that's really why we kind of came up with this BatteryMBA program. And we started this in this year, actually, you know, officially January was our first cohort which started. And something which also I was really passionate about is actually to bring in more diversity into the sector. So one thing we started was to, inside Battery Societies, we have this, you know, internal quota rule that we have at least 25% women. And so I want to have the same thing in the BatteryMBA, like in this education program.

6:34And that's actually something which has been quite challenging, to be honest, because we only had male applicants in the beginning. And this really kind of got me into this thinking, you know, should we, what can we do about it? So in the beginning, we just had a really long waiting list and didn't accept most people. And this was kind of, you know, a bit frustrating, which is one of the reasons why we came up then with a scholarship program, which kind of, you know, was meant to bring in more women, but also later on bring in more diversity in general. And here I was quite excited that we actually had some incredible applicants, some of them are in the audience, but also, yeah. If you see on LinkedIn, all of them have been absolutely remarkable, the ones we accepted. And yeah, that's how we ended up with 50% women from the first cohort, which I think was really remarkable. Now, overall, we had 40%. One thing also I learned there was, you know, I kind of knew a bit about it, but I didn't know the extent is that we had quite a few participants, you know, who are the only women at the entire engineering company and their own divisions.

7:33And this was also quite a kind of, yeah, kind of, you know, kind of sad in some way, you know, to see that this is still the case. You know, I mean, I had some idea, but I didn't know the extent of it. And that's really got us also on this journey, you know, how we can, you know, increase diversity overall in the sector. And I think, you know, we're also currently working on some other courses, you know, some other on-demand courses, which are also then maybe more affordable for people who cannot afford other programs. And also have, yeah, so, you know, here, for example, one of the twists here I would like to have is, for example, all the lectures to be all women to also maybe inspire some young women to join the field as well. So these are just some of the things, you know, we have been doing and maybe also some of the rationale. Why is this so important? I think right now, one kind of organization I like to cite on this one is called EBA 2050.

8:23So that's the European Battery Academy. And some of their prediction, for example, is that by 2025, they expect that there has to be three to four million direct indirect jobs created in the space and across the battery, European battery value chain. So that's quite an amazing number. And I think among them, they say it's estimated 800,000 direct workers will be needed to be trained, upskilled or reskilled by 2025 to serve the needs of the European battery industry. This amounts to an average of 160,000 to be trained every year. That's a sheer volume we have never seen before. And I think this just gives me the sense, you know, of the numbers of people we want to train. And kind of one of kind of like, you know, my personal kind of thinking about this at the moment is on the one hand, you know, we really have to train the leaders. You know, we have to train the people, you know, going to be in charge, you know, of all of the transitions.

9:16And that's something, you know, why we're developing this BatteryMBA and why we're growing this and why we're really excited about it. Because, you know, I mean, literally everyone we accept, we really believe they're going to have a leading role either in a short or longer term. That's one thing. And also here it's quite important for us to have like, you know, like a diverse leadership. So how can we really bring in, you know, these backgrounds maybe who are less represented? I mentioned we have about 40% women now overall, but another thing is also we have people from over 20 countries represented, which is I think also quite, quite, quite awesome and quite amazing because we have now, you know, participants from all around the world, Philippines, Indonesia, India, US, Europe, all around really now, Australia, China, et cetera. On the other hand, we also need lots of people, you know, who are going to join the workforce. I think also from different sectors to give you some ideas.

10:03We have now people joining us from oil and gas. I know quite a few people at Tesla as well who have been in oil and gas before and they have the perfect, perfect skill sets to actually join in a company like Tesla because all these engineering challenges and these tools they've been using, a lot of these things that can actually be cycled and be used. And that's, has been quite, quite effective. And I know that Tesla has been hiring really strongly in the beginning, especially from oil and gas, because they knew that that's where they get the skills that they needed, especially production, manufacturing, et cetera. Another thing is, you know, you have industries such as paper and steel, packaging, all these kind of things where there's a lot of, you know, really valuable, like, you know, skills people develop, they can use for, for, yeah, for the battery industry. So this is just something personally I'm quite passionate about, you know, how can we help people to make these transitions.

10:48So right now we're actually, you know, in the process to support the Union on this one. You know, I mentioned this academy, so that's something we are discussing at the moment. How can we help them to make it, you know, to really scale? Because, yeah, as I mentioned, these numbers are 800,000 people by 2025, 160,000 people per year. That's something not, you know, one organization I think can really do by themselves. We need, like, everyone, you know, playing together. So, yeah, so those are maybe just some of my thoughts on this topic. Very happy, of course, to answer any questions, any further thinking. Yeah, but I'm very excited to have a discussion on better education. What are your thoughts? You know, what do you have seen? Any programs you enjoy, et cetera. Thanks so much for sharing, Simon. Yeah, it's also great to maybe hear more from the EPA perspective on, you know, because of the jobs created, what are some of the changes that may need to be made in terms of education to really help upscale or retrain some of these professionals.

11:51But before we go into that, I would like to give Milo's and Jessica the mic, since they've joined us on stage. Milo's, what are your thoughts to this? What are my thoughts? The education is obviously important. The battery is the, I would say, most difficult subject in the world. Because battery is over 220 years of the existence of the battery. We have batteries so complex, some complex electrochemical machine in the very small scale. So we have plenty of things to learn and how to explore the science of the battery. And battery is becoming the most important technology for this decade period. More important than AI, robotics, or fusion, or whatever. They may be important for the next decade, but this decade, most important technology is battery. Thank you so much, Milo's. Jessica, do you have any thoughts to this? Yes. Thank you so much for bringing me here. I just have to pre-clog. I might have to jump away real quick because I'm at the vet because I have a little emergency with my service animals.

13:26So in case I have to leave, I'm definitely going to be watching the recording on, I believe, YouTube. So just in case for that. But I do want to say I love what everybody's doing. It's so incredibly important, especially now. Anybody on stage, I'd love to work with, even in the audience. Because, you know, Simon, I love that you're working with lithium. And I can't really get too much into the projects that I'm in, but one of them is with, you know, ocean mining to also help with climate change, but then also with lithium. And then also another thing is with the battery. It's so important because, like, for example, I'm working with the XPRIZE rainforests and in Ecuador. Most of them don't even have electricity. So, you know, that's why a battery is such an important component to it. So, you know, unfortunately, I can't, I can't, probably can't stay that long, but I would love to talk to everybody more. And, yes, that is my bit.

14:24And thank you so much for having me up here. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks so much for joining us, Jessica. If you're interested in any of our past recordings or this session, please be able to check out Battery Insights on Spotify. We talked about recycling, second life, different types of battery materials. Yeah. I would love to, you know, connect with you after the session as well. Definitely. Thank you. Can you say that one more time? Battery something on Spotify? Oh, sorry. Battery Insights on Spotify. Okay. Wonderful. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that, Catherine. I'd love to talk to you more and everybody else more afterwards. Thank you so much. Thanks, Jessica. Stefan. Thanks for joining us. Catherine, thank you. Thank you for having me on stage. I have a question for all of you. As an investor, it's clear lithium-ion has a lead because of the cost curve that comes from the massive rollout of the technology in the car battery space.

15:31But when you think about utility size batteries, which is going to be required for storage of, obviously, all the renewable power, wind especially, but also solar, in order to have not just the variability, but to have more like baseload power. How do you think about the different technologies? Using aluminum as melting plus a sterling engine, for example, it seems to be somewhat efficient. Do you have any thoughts on what the market shares could be and what might be the winning technology? Maybe flow batteries are, for example, more reliable, or give you a lot more days of storage than lithium-ion. So, any thoughts on that? Can I answer the question? I think, no, I think, I know. The lithium-ion battery has not lead but dominance and not only because of the cost of the battery. It's about also quality of the battery. There are a lot of factors in the quality and also because of the scalability of the battery. So, lithium-ion battery is dominant technology for this decade.

17:24So, if we will take into consideration all the other technologies, including hydrogen and everything else, if some breakthrough technology will happen, means some solid-state or some silicon anode or some other technologies, if they will happen, they can capture, like, in the end of the decade, like 5% of the market share. So, in the worst case scenario for the lithium-ion battery, it will be, like, 95% of the market share. And in the most probable scenario, it will be 99% of the market share. So, taking into consideration all the other batteries, including the flow batteries, including hydrogen, hydrogen, they cannot catch up because this decade we are still continuing in the evolution of lithium-ion battery. Not revolution, but evolution. But evolution means that we still will make them much cheaper, we still will make them much better, and we still make them in a bigger scale. Thank you so much, Milo. Simon, do you have any thoughts to what Stefan was saying? Yeah, no, I think it's a fantastic question, and it's one which, of course, keeps us quite busy as well.

18:54I think if you think about the next 10 years, right? I mean, personally, what we can see, I think the biggest driver is going to be the electrification of transport. So, I think that's really where the volume goes into, and I think then also later on as well, you know, grid, et cetera, is a big wall as well. And I think, you know, if you look at, you know, transportation, I think lithium-ion really has, you know, the edge there just from the energy density things and also the, you know, the projection of cost through scale. And these are just, you know, some really big drivers on this one. You mentioned, like, a few other different technologies, you know, such as aluminum, which we also had discussed here before, which, you know, I think it's, yeah, I think from energy density and all these kind of things, it's not really, and like, you know, the usability, et cetera, it hasn't been really, you know, seen as a competitor.

19:44Another thing is, you know, sodium-ion, for example, which is also interesting, you know, I spoke to some company there recently as well. I know that I have quite some good friends who think, you know, this could really help from a long-term cost perspective, so really reduce the cost from the material standpoint. But, yeah, I think there's a bunch of future things. One other thing I'm currently thinking about is lead acid, for example, right? I mean, we have been, lead acid is still really, like, a dominant technology in quite a few areas, you know, like India, et cetera, has been used quite widely for stationary, but now also gets, you know, I think replaced by lithium-ion through, you know, a life cycle, right, you know, safety and these kind of things. But what's interesting as well is, you know, again, like, you know, the reduction of price over time. So I think, you know, over the last decade or so, a bit longer, you know, you've seen like a price reduction of, you know, 90% or so from lithium-ion.

20:35And I think the latest numbers that we have seen from Bloomberg and others is that there might be going to be another reduction of 50% or so coming, you know, in mid-decade or something. I mean, the exact numbers always depend on, of course, what quality you have, et cetera. But I think just the price reduction through lithium-ion really enables lots of these new applications and really enables the scale. And through the scale, we can really reduce costs as well. So, you know, vanadium redox flow, I think, is really interesting and has, you know, I think there's some potential opportunities there and, you know, there are applications. But, you know, I think as Milo said, I think lithium-ion is really going to be the dominant one for the nearer future just because of scale. Like, you know, it can be durability, you know, it can be used quite widely and, yeah, energy density as well. So that's some of my thoughts about it. Thank you for that.

21:28I guess if you had to guess, Simon and Milos and Catherine, would it be like 90-10, you know, 90% lithium-ion? And I know, for example, lithium-ion is not just lithium-ion. There's different – there's obviously the lithium-ion batteries that basically are very good for storing. And then there's obviously companies, some of them in Germany, like Varda, they're working on basically perfecting the energy density of the standard 21700 battery, where you are able to have a higher density. And those batteries are perfect for quick charge and quick discharge. So, you know, good for, you know, quick acceleration, basically, for either, you know, plug-in hybrids or two-wheelers or whatnot. So, clearly, there is – there's technological advancements that are happening in lithium-ion. But, you know, flow batteries, specifically Vanadium flow batteries, seem to be like they already are, you know, testing utility size at the moment, you know, one company. So it's kind of a race. I wonder whether lithium-ion can really, you know, be the battery for utility size projects because it requires such big scale, whereas flow batteries might be, you know, again, somewhat higher than you would think, market share.

23:02I'm just, you know, kind of struggling myself to figure it out. Yeah. I will point out that your own words, the flow battery may be the lithium-ion battery it is. It means that we are using already lithium-ion batteries now in the grid storage of the batteries. Flow batteries, they make breakthrough, but they are not yet. So, basically, they are not yet commercialized. So, and that's happening with everything in the battery for over 220 years. So we had many breakthrough technologies, which they never materialized because batteries are so complex subject and so complex science. So I'm basing my estimation on the realistic expectations that breakthroughs are happening very rarely in the battery space. I can count them on one hand over the last 220 years. But evolution of the batteries is happening. And when I said about quality of the battery, I mean all the parameters of the lithium-ion battery. It means energy density, power density, cycles, safety, and so on. And maybe to add one quick thing without doing too much of a plug, because I mean this question, you know, your race is not, you know you're not the only one, right, thinking about this.

24:46So to give you an example, I know for the next BatteryMBA, for example, starting September, on the 13th of September, we have a lecturer there. She's the head of innovation, or not really head of innovation, but more like looking at the investment side. So she works at Ibadrola, which is like a big utility company in Spain, which really does a massive transformation right now from a very, you know, fossil fuel-based utility to trying to be one very strong in the renewable energy space. And they, for example, right, as a utility, they, of course, do a lot of assessment from all the energy technologies available. So she spends a lot of time literally, you know, spending, yeah. They have like a massive team on this one, just looking at every technology and thinking like, when will this be applicable? Where should we invest in? You know, what should we use, et cetera. So she's actually going to give a lecture on this in the next BatteryMBA, literally just walking through all the assessments of all these different technologies they've been looking at.

25:38And then from their utility standpoint, how they see it at the moment, well, do, you know, present and kind of do an assessment on it for the participants. So, yeah, maybe just as a little plug here, that there are definitely people thinking about that. That's fantastic. That's a great speaker you're going to have. You know, I harp a little bit on the flow battery because I saw a company called Invinity basically sign a deal with Siemens Gamesa. And Siemens Gamesa, as many of you may know, is by far the world's largest offshore wind company. So they're trying to solve what is likely to be, you know, a very big problem is that's the storage of the offshore wind. And offshore wind is going to be way bigger than onshore wind over time. So, you know, my ears perk up when I see kind of a big company, you know, look at the technology of a small company and basically kind of take it under its wing.

26:40But, you know, obviously, you know, the next 10 years will be very exciting in the battery space. And I agree with you that basically, Nilos, it will be by far the dominant technology. But I think it won't be like – it might not actually be 90%. It might be more like 70%. And then there's 30% that's going to go somewhere else, other technologies that could also scale. So in what I do, basically, I look at – I'm a small mid-cap investor for growth in Europe. And we have a climate fund as well as basically have our core European fund, which we've been running for about 25 years. The sort of specialization is Europe growth mid-caps. And we find companies that are, you know, relatively early and undiscovered in their life cycles and try to understand the technologies and, you know, talk to experts like yourselves to sort of, you know, see, you know, what technologies actually, you know, do play out and, you know, what ultimately could be the market shares and the growth.

27:46And obviously, the growth of the market itself is huge, as we all know. And, you know, the big picture for our fund is that when you think about the energy transition, you know, it's estimated by various experts to be somewhere between $50 trillion, and that's with a T, not a B, so $50 trillion and $120 trillion. Those estimates, you know, range from Goldman Sachs to UBS to other industry sources. That is over, you know, now until 2050. So this energy transition is massive. And I think all of us, the biggest thing, the biggest sort of transition we've ever experienced in our lives has been the digital transition. And if you think about it, from 1990 to today is about, you know, software, digital, cloud, apps, et cetera. But ironically, all that, if you were to combine it, has been less than $20 trillion that's been spent on that. So to put it in context, you know, this energy transition is going to require much more money than we've ever seen spent.

28:54So as long as the politicians basically stay on track with their desires and sort of trends that they're pushing, basically, this is going to be very big. So anyway, that's it for me. Thank you for having me on stage. I don't want to go to energy transition because I would occupy all the time what we have here. But that's my subject. So, yes, you are right. It will be in the trillion. It will be largest disruption ever. But back to your 70%, you are basing it on the assumption that some of the breakthrough technology will happen. And there are many of them which may happen. But my estimation is I am still standing on the 95% to 99% of the lithium-ion batteries because my expectations that the breakthrough technologies in the battery space happens very, very, very rarely. Thanks so much, Melos and Stefan. Ingo, I see that you have raised your mic a little bit. Yeah, I will chime in on Stefan. He posed good questions about flow batteries.

30:13I think we have different use cases. If you have a mobile application like a car or a truck or maybe in the future an airplane, it's very much about energy density. And there, the lithium-ion is three or four times more dense with energy per kilogram than flow batteries are at the moment and will be in the future. So, on mobile applications, you won't see flow batteries. You ask about storage and mid-term storage or something like that. Yeah, I think that is a real valuable use case for flow batteries. I think in Japan, they have already a few years of flow batteries in charge here. But you are in Wester. You have to look on the cost per kilowatt to charge in and discharge from the battery. That's the value you must look at and what it will cost to build up such a system and how often you charge and discharge such a system. Yeah. So, make your investments based on the cost trajectory. You can see from the suppliers here, what they see will be the cost per kilowatt in one technology and in the other technology.

31:21And then, based on that, make your decision for your investments. Start-up companies are coming up again to whom to invest to. So, I would see flow batteries is valuable. They are quite easy technology, lower energy density. So, not for mobiles, but for mid-term storage. That's real value. Thank you for that. That's great. Thanks, Stefan. Christopher, thanks for joining us on stage. Yeah, thanks, Catherine. It's just basically, obviously, I agree with what Milo has been saying, you know, and obviously, the question posed by Stefan, a very good question. And it's, you know, we need to remember that these technologies, as Milo says, is a breakthrough technologies, you know, and yes, there's lots of excitement on them, you know, and some will make it through. And as Milo's pointed out, there's those of them that will not make it through. However, we need to remember that, and again, as Milo's pointed out, the lithium battery is here now, you know. So, whilst there's a lot of excitement around these technologies, we need to remember that in the background, there'll be lots of R&D going on into sort of current lithium-ion batteries to make them better.

32:46So, it's not a case of the technologies that are breaking through, reaching sort of today's standards, the need to be looking at tomorrow's standards on those. And one, obviously, one last bit, obviously, it was on battery education originally. Being a participant in the BatteryMBA, I am going to put a shout out here, Simon. So, you know, a lot of the questions that we see getting asked, a lot of them are covered within sort of the BatteryMBA. From my point of view, my scope was mainly to sort of manufacturing and sort of EV batteries, but you get a lot bigger scope and a bigger picture look into it. And it's not just the quality of the lectures that comes in and sort of understand it, it's also the quality of the participants that's in it as well, you know, and there's a lot of knowledge shared from that. Thank you, Chris. One more information, Simon. In this R&D, we were focused or we are still focused more on R, and we need to be more focused on the D.

34:05It means that the deployment of this development and deployment of those technologies. And you need to remember that this decade, we need to focus on the building supply value chain. Once we will build supply value chain, which we are in the process already for the last 10 years, so once we will build the supply value chain for the lithium-ion batteries, it's very difficult to start to build a new supply value chain for the new battery. Absolutely. I very much agree, Madous. And Chris, thanks so much for the shout-out. Maybe also one thing just to kind of mention on this one, because one thing we didn't talk about, you mentioned like the other participants, etc. I think there's also like, you know, so much about like, you know, sharing, you know, bringing the right people together and share with each other. So one thing, for example, we started doing with the BatteryMBA for this cohort, which you're a part of, Christopher, of course, is that actually every participant gives like, you know, like a small talk or like a small mini lecture.

35:08So to each other, so like the other courts and office hours. And that's something also which, you know, really, I really appreciate, you know, I think the way you really can see, you know, how much knowledge there is with each participant and how much you can learn from each other. And I think, as you also mentioned, I think Milo's, but also Christopher, you know, is about these different sectors, especially if you go into development, right? I think it's quite useful actually to know kind of how your work might affect some others work or how other work might affect yours, you know, be it from a, you know, hardware development, software, cycling, second use, all these kind of things, raw material, etc. I mean, they're all kind of really nicely, you know, intertwined in the battery space. And I think, you know, if you take them only in isolation, actually it can become an issue. One other thing is also, think about where I think we're going.

35:59One thing we also decided right from the beginning from the battery was to say it's really continuous learning, meaning that every participant who joins us, you know, in the beginning will have access to all the future lecture recordings as well to really build up, you know, like a continuous library of insights which are always up to date. Because one thing also, you know, I experienced myself when I was in Cambridge, but also I heard of many friends, you know, that you get maybe like the latest snapshot, like, you know, the latest education. But then the moment your education kind of ends, you know, you're often in knowledge seems already outdated. So kind of our thinking was how can we actually develop something which keeps growing, which keeps getting better, which always stays relevant. That's something why we decided to, you know, make all the future lecture recordings available as well, which is something personally I really enjoy because I think it can be, you know, it's also a good way for us, of course, to stay in touch with people.

36:51I'm really excited to see, you know, people getting new job opportunities. I mean, we can see this, we're tracking this as well a bit and to see, you know, how people are doing, you know, amazing in their careers, but also developing further and things like that and really, you know, see how we can keep supporting them. And that's also something probably we're going to change, though, a little bit in the future where right now we say, you know, everyone who takes it right now gets unlimited future lectures, but we're getting a bit inspired by Tesla, you know, when you think about supercharging in the beginning, where if you would get an early Tesla, you would have unlimited supercharging. But of course, it's not anymore like this today. Now you get like a limited amount and then you can extend it. So that's something we also have in mind that, you know, at some point we're probably going to do more of a subscription model for future lectures.

37:32But at least at this point, we really, you know, do the open-end version to say, you know, people can keep learning and keep growing over time. And I'm curious, I don't know if you know, if any, I mean, if anybody knows of any good programs, always really interested, you know, to learn. I mean, we are trying to, of course, to, you know, to see what's out there and we are trying, you know, to make sure we are seeing all the nice programs out there. But if you have any suggestions, anything you have taken in the past, any training in the battery space, always love to hear from it because, yeah, you know, we will write an article soon about it to kind of summarize all the ones we found. But we're always looking for other interesting programs, which are like, you know, complimentary or which we can recommend as well out there. See, there's another one who raised their hand. Let's get them on. Yes, thank you for inviting me up, Simon.

38:26I'll be very brief and I'll leave the stage thereafter. But I was wondering if someone could help me understand one aspect of the electric revolution that I don't see get enough, I think, thorough treatment in the technical literature. And I didn't know if this was the format for that. If it is, I'd be glad to ask a question. Feel free to bring it up. Let's brief, yeah. So, and I just extend the results that continue to pop up in the literature about the impact of cell phones on the interaction with the head area of the users. Is there any sense that the electromagnetic field in the batteries that are used industrial, it's just to keep it simple in automobiles, would have adverse impact, chronic adverse impact on the drivers or the passengers and cars over time to chronic exposure at a scale that we're not anticipating? And the harsh question, the one that would be, I think, hopefully something we've learned from the cigarette and tobacco industry, do they have information that they're sitting on and waiting to disprove it like the tobacco industry?

39:50So, those are the two key questions outside of the vertically integrated sustainability of the industry that I was trying to work out as I think about it. Thank you for my time. I can answer you one question. The battery site. Battery site has zero effect on the head. No effect on the head. Scientifically. I'm also not aware of anything which would be otherwise. Maybe one thing is, right, I mean, on the other hand, you mentioned tobacco, right? I mean, there's some discussion, right, that oil and et cetera becomes the new tobacco. Also from the media strategy, et cetera, I mean, there's definitely, you know, health implications to pollution from, you know, from fossil fuel cars. So, yeah, that's the only thing I would know that there's definitely health impacts from that. But, yeah, I wouldn't know for it. Well, I mean, I've seen human nature over the course of the last 50 years rush to preliminary and emotional judgments that oftentimes produce downstream problems that are not recognized or not exposed that could have been given the amount of information generated on the wave that generated the initial excitement.

41:14So, I'm not here to compare and contrast the industries, and I'm not even here to be a devil's advocate. I am in the energy business, and I have a working familiarity with how technologies are developed over 30 years. And what I just want to know is, and thank you, Milo, for bringing that up. I just want to know if there's an understanding or a recognition of these larger-scale industrial batteries producing electromagnetic fields that may be either recognized or unrecognized as a problem for health. Maybe I could add, just ask a question. Is anybody aware of something that could be, I mean, there's easy to sort of protect yourself from EMF fields. Has anybody worked on, you know, maybe aligning around the batteries, lithium-ion batteries? You wouldn't have a worry. If basically you could keep the EMF fields away from bodily parts, basically, is that someone in the auto industry, for example, has ever worked on? It's not a big issue. You have batteries, and the current is flowing in DC, so you don't have big magnetic fields.

42:31This will be in the electromotor, and you have the commuters and alternate currency, but it's quite well protected. You look at that for sure, but if you go in an MRT with your doctors or in the hospital, you have much, much, much stronger magnetic fields you're exposed to, and that's not really an issue. If it would be, we are looking on that, and a lot of engineers are looking on electromagnetic fields from networks like 3G, 4G, 5G, some. Oh, I'm not disputing your observations. That is an acute exposure, whereas if you were to own a car and drive 100,000 miles, and have, you know, and I think the thing that we have to, and I don't want to put this out here to be provocative, but remember, you're sitting on it, basically, and there's a lot of important parts in the human anatomy that is more directly exposed to it that would create, I think, a multiplying effect on the concern if anything ever became thought as a concern around it.

43:40So I'm not disputing your point about acute exposure versus chronic exposure. I just want to know, because the industry has attracted a large amount of intellectual and technical talent that I just can't imagine someone's not thinking about it. Again, there is no electromagnetic field in the battery. There is electrochemical field, and they are moving ions and electrons, but not electromagnetic field. So the answer is, from a battery point of view, zero effect on your head. Thank you, Charles and Milo and Maingo and everyone jumped in. Edwin, would you maybe like to ask another question? I have another thought. Yes. Thank you, Simon. And I was wondering if you could tell me where the development in Europe is taking place concerning batteries and also in the education. We have this, in the EU, we have the Horizon 2020 project. But for me, that's a little bit unclear what the exact scope is. And, well, Simon, you are based in Munich. And one of the reasons might be that there are Siemens.

45:12And Munich is also one of the high-tech areas in Europe. And I know that in Eindhoven in the Netherlands, recently they started Battery Valley to become a sort of a computer center around knowledge, circularity, and the development of solid-state batteries. I also know that Belgium and Dutch E&O are doing great work if it concerns solid-state batteries. But I really don't know where the rest in Europe is happening. Can you maybe tell me a bit on that? Sure. I'm happy to. Yeah. First of all, I want to say thanks for bringing up this Battery Valley in Eindhoven. I haven't heard of this before. I studied not far in the Netherlands, in Maastricht. But I'm just having it open on my computer. It looks interesting. Yeah. I mean, to be honest, I think there's quite little compared to what kind of the need is in some ways. So I think, one, of course, you have traditional study programs, something like what I took in Cambridge as well, which wasn't only batteries.

46:17It was more graphene at the time, but I focused on batteries in it. So you have traditional study programs. And one thing, I honestly, personally, also wasn't really aware of how long it takes usually to develop such a long, like a bachelor or something, like an undergraduate program or something on this. It's supposed to take many years. I mean, when I took a study in the Netherlands, they did a really good job of setting up something rather quick. But I think traditional education can be quite slow. That's a big issue. On the other hand, it also takes, of course, a long time to take a program like this, right? To take an undergraduate program, a master's, if you want to have talent, you know, quickly. If you want to have talent by 2025 and you start with like a five-year educational program, that might be, you know, quite slow and maybe not efficient. So that's why kind of, you know, we can see now these developments, you know, what I mentioned earlier, like this European Battery Academy.

47:11And that's something, you know, I'm quite familiar with by now, which is kind of, it comes from the EIT Inner Energy, which is, you know, a player in quite a few of these topics. And they have been kind of hosting educational programs, battery programs for some time online. So that's all, you know, it's self-taught mostly. And I think you have like a day or two days or so at the end. And they're now kind of working on a platform where all of the different levels, what we are doing, could kind of plug in. So that's something they want to kind of become, you know, like a database or like a platform for all these other programs, like on the ground. Because one thing, of course, is, you know, you can learn something online that has importance. But of course, there's also some technical skills. If you want to train people, right, like how to be, you know, better researcher in a lab or like in a factory or how to be a recycler or something.

48:01Of course, there's many other skills which are kind of needing more hands-on components. So the idea what they have is to kind of connect to all of these other institutes, such as in Spain and not Italy, but I think France were the two last ones they announced. So here they announced, for example, they got now this memorandum of understanding and more use in place to train about 150,000 or so in these places. I think it's now starting as a trial or so. But that's happening now, right? I mean, we are talking to them, support them. And that's kind of where they try to, you know, train a few hundred thousand people or so in these countries. And then, as you say, I think there's now lots of like, you know, smaller kind of like, you know, universities starting trainings, companies starting trainings. So there's a lot kind of going on. But I personally still think it's going to be still in the early stages. And especially, for example, right, like something like what we have also in mind is this battery cycle we're developing, right, to have some like, you know, it's a small battery cycle or so we could ship to people.

49:05And then they can do hands-on, you know, experiments at their place. And they can learn about it. They can learn about testing. They can understand about chemistries and these kind of things. So that's something we're definitely working on. And we think there's quite a bit of potential to actually, you know, bring the tools to the people. So that's, of course, not really possible, you know, like with a massive factory or so. But we're also looking into like VR, things like that, you know, where there's like, you know, factory visits and things like that and develop some courses based on it. So, yeah. So I think there's a lot of opportunities. But the things I'm aware of, again, is this. You can look it up. You can Google it. European Battery Academy. So they have quite some information on what they work on right now. Yeah. And then you mentioned this kind of battery valley, Eindhoven, et cetera. I'm sure there's quite a few more like this in the works.

49:52And not just in Europe, right? I think one thing I believe that has to happen globally. So that's why we are really proud with our over 20 countries representing the BatteryMBA. So I believe there will also be quite a need for training, be it in India, be it in the Philippines, Indonesia, all around, where we also see new battery developments coming. Does this answer your question or anything else? It's a very extensive answer. And I am grateful that you mentioned all this. I for sure will listen to it back on Spotify and look at what you named up on the internet. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the question. Anybody else? Any thoughts? Catherine? Oh, yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Eindhoven, for input on this. I just wanted to reset the room a little bit. We are past the halfway mark to this session. So we have about 25 minutes left in today's session. If you have any questions or thoughts about battery education and battery in general, please feel free to raise your hand and join us on stage.

51:09Can I point out something very important? This decade, we need to focus. The largest challenge in battery space is not research, it's not development, it's not deploying those new technologies. But the largest challenge, which we are already in the process of, is building supply value chain. So it's not only building the giga plants. We have 215 of them in pipeline right now. But building the mines, building the processing plants, building the active material manufacturing plants, and basically whole supply value chain building. Because we need to build, last 10 years, we built a 10 times bigger supply value chain than it was in 2010. And now, in this decade, we need to build 100 times bigger supply value chain. So all the efforts should go and will go to building supply value chain. 100 times bigger mines, 100 times bigger processing plants, and 100 times bigger active materials manufacturing. Yeah, Milo brings up an extraordinarily important point. That's my participation in the industry, as I've been, in the last three to four years, more actively involved in identifying raw materials supply for the projected demand.

52:40And it's probably the single most daunting challenge of all the natural resource extraction programs that the human race is going to put on the planet. And it's magnified by the fact that there's a large asymmetry in the available, at least the understanding by mankind, the available resource in the ground compared to other former resources, and even compared to things like water and wind. And the other challenge about it is it requires a complexity of raw materials that are uncommon for this type of energy source that require, if they're extracted from individual point sources, require coordination of multiple mines into a singular processing plant, which in and of itself is yet to be proven to be perfectly sustainable from an ESG point of view. So I want to commend Milo for bringing up what I think is the unspoken 600-pound gorilla in the room with respect to the entire effort. So you are right. I think we should focus our beautiful mines on that largest challenge, not on developing new technologies like solid-state, which make breakthrough or make not breakthrough or other technologies.

54:03But we should focus on this largest challenge of this decade, maybe the largest challenge in the history of the world. Basically scaling up. I don't know if the people realize what it means, 100 times bigger supply value chain in that 10 years. Well, I'll try to one time and then I'll shut up, Milo, and thank you for bringing up this point. When you, just to give you a comparison, the quality of the raw materials used to make the essential elements of these batteries is almost 10 times, if not 50 times less concentrated than an oil and gas well, a coal mine. I know those are dirty energy sources, but what we have psychologically trained ourselves to explore for as humans are deposits of natural materials that have at least 50% or more of that critical element in the rock or the material that's being mined and developed. When you look at the rare earths associated in other metals, not just rare earths, it's very uncommon for them to be even 10% of the ore.

55:27Typically, they're between 1% and 5%. So that's about a 10% to 20% times decrease in the amount of concentration of ore for an industry that expects to grow from its current nominal base 10% to 100% times, to Milo's point. So you're looking at relying on a relatively diminished concentration of a material that's been poorly explored for around the world to meet a growing demand of 10% to 100% times the size. So that type of scalability has not been encountered in any form of energy development in the history of mankind. And it's one of the things that people don't talk about publicly around the technology. Now, the good news is that some of the best technical minds around the world are working on it. And the history has been that people find solutions when necessity becomes the mother of innovation. They tend to find solutions. But the reality is we've never encountered this type of raw material and supply chain challenge ever in the energy business.

56:36Yes, I agree with you. And I also agree with you. Key is processing. There are three stages before the battery manufacturing, mining, processing, and active material manufacturing. So the processing is the key because it's not simple, the mined material process. It's more like the specialty chemical processing or more like the pharmaceutical processing. So basically, you can relate it like the pharmaceutical processing, which is complex and complicated. So that's what I'm saying, that we should focus on our beautiful minds, how to deliver, how to overcome this challenge. I see it like the opportunity, like you are saying. I don't see it like the impossible things. I'm not negative. I'm positive. I see it like the huge opportunity. Thank you. Just to maybe add one more thing, I guess what everybody else said on this. You know, rare metals or lithium, but actually even something as basic as copper. I don't know if people understand that the industry, the mining industry, severely underinvested over the last, let's call it seven, eight years.

58:06And so no massive capacities were put on as that industry suffered after a big downturn and they had to focus on cash flow generation. And so essentially, the energy transition is an electrification of our economy. And so by. As you need copper for cables, you need copper in EVs, everything is sort of related to copper. So if you look at the price of copper, there's a good reason why it's gone up. It's not just because China has been, you know, there's been, you know, a rebound in the Chinese demand. It's actually that might be tailing off. But really, there's a structural element of need for copper. And we've been very underinvested. So it might take three, four years to get back. Yeah, Stephan, I'm involved with the copper and gold mining industry pretty intensely. And I can add some color to your very important point. So from a natural resource point of view, there are suitable amounts of copper worldwide across. It's truly one of the most democratized natural resources in the world.

59:20But to your point, it's been the capital investment for any number of reasons that the typical economic cycles and then the fact that the environmental compliance component of sustainable copper mining is yet to be worked out has subdued the amount of capital investment for the electrical industry electrification of our energy supply. And the only good news around that is that there's an awful lot of money on the sidelines that would invite, once it becomes a recognized problem, you'll see, I think, in the copper industry, a large investment of private funding, much like we saw in the hydrofracking business, in the oil and gas business. So I'm less worried about the development of a natural resource more than the recognition that it needs to be done and how do we have the will to do it, as opposed to the exotic trace metals that are used to make the batteries. So thanks for bringing that up. But I think they remain separate problems, one more conquerable than the other.

1:00:28Thank you for your time. Yes, you are right. And we need to clearly divide those materials because we are mixing a lot rare earth materials, exotic materials, battery materials, materials like the copper, which is basic materials and things like that. So there are five critical materials for the batteries. Those are graphite, lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese. And then there are other, like I would say, 10 other materials, like including copper, including silicon, including the iron and phosphate and things like that. So rare earth are different materials. Battery materials are different materials and materials, basic materials like the copper, because copper, which is used also in other industries, obviously, it's different materials. And for transmission lines, I would just point out that a lot of high power transmission lines are already done with aluminum. And I see also in the residential area here in Germany, quite a lot of residential cables in the earth, and they are already done with aluminum. It's just a matter of price per kilogram and what year meter you need.

1:01:48Ingo, you know, the Germany is sort of a special thing. Germany law requires now special transmission lines be underground, completely underground, not, you know, so it's a lot more expensive. Can those be done with aluminum? They are already, yeah. They are. Sorry, the over… That means high voltage, really high voltage lines. Yeah, these two lines, they are with copper, you are right. Yeah, that's right. But the two big lines built it up here. But the over-the-ground lines, they are done with aluminum since many, many years already. And the other thing is, you know, investment from the north to the south, building three very big high transmission lines. And those are going to be all underground. And the idea is you have to bring basically the renewable offshore wind power to Bavaria, where basically a lot of the industry is and where there's a lot of consumption. So north-south is really critical, and Germany is funding that. And, you know, they're way ahead of maybe some of the other countries, which kind of have, as we know, France has 75%, 80% nuclear, and so they're not so worried about things.

1:03:06But Germany is in the forefront. So some kind of interesting fact. Yeah. But these underground transmission lines, these two big lines here from north to south, I think 30% are underground. The rest is still the traditional way. But it's a known technology. You know these high-voltage cables between Norway and Germany or Netherlands. And now they're building up these high-transmission cables also between UK and Norway. That's an expanding industry, and it's working quite good here. But still, as you said, it's a little bit more expensive. I think per kilometer, it's five- or six-fold the price than the traditional ones. Yeah. Fantastic. Edwin, did you have another point? Or... Yes, I have. I think there's also a world to gain if you look to the battery applications and scaling up new battery technologies. I can give you an example. For example, this week, there is this new electric car. It's called Lightyear 1. And it's cranked out 710 kilometers of range. That's about 440 miles on just a 60 kilowatt-hour battery.

1:04:36If you compare that to a Tesla Model 3, you would only have like half of that range. So, you can optimize the applications. And we should do that in looking to energy efficiency, but also maybe to other variables like aerodynamics of a car or whatever. And I think we need a lot of research in that area as well. Which car you said? Which electrical vehicle you said, Edwin? It's called Lightyear. Lightyear 1. Yeah. It's in development in the Netherlands. You can find it. Lightyear.1. That's the website. But how many of them we have produced last quarter? They are not in production yet. I mean, the first ones will be delivered later this year. But it's not compatible to Tesla. But it is just an example that you can achieve so much more in looking to add dynamics and energy efficiency and optimizing battery technologies. They all have done that. And you see, you can come up with a car which has double the range on the 60 kWh battery pack.

1:05:58Yes. You need to compare oranges with oranges, not apples with oranges. I can say that the efficiency of the motorcycle is much better than the efficiency of the electrical vehicle. You know? So, the electric vehicle, which is $4,000 in China, which they are selling a lot of them right now, I believe it has 25 kWh of the battery. So, it's not comparable to Tesla Model 3 or Tesla Model Y or Tesla Model X. You need to compare apples to apples. Does anyone know what the market share of electric cars in China is of the total amount of automobiles? I think it's low numbers. I mean… I would hazard a guess it's maybe like 2 million out of what might be a run rate of, I don't know, let's call it 25, 30 million. Is that 10 percent, 10, 15 percent maybe at most? Oh, so you think that high? No. No. No. We know that they basically produced at least 2 million. They were producing at least 2 million cars a year.

1:07:20No. Even pure EVs. So, they were the dominant until basically, I think, one or two years ago. Until last year, they were the dominant. They were 67 percent of the total EV market globally. No. Because Europe was so far behind. Obviously, ex-Tesla. No. But basically, there's like 100 EV producers in China. Yeah, but no. You are wrong. The total world production of the battery electrical vehicles were a little bit more than 2 million last year. Tesla produced 500,000 of them out of the 2 million vehicles, battery electric vehicles. There are a lot of confusing statistics because they are counting. In some statistics, they are counting plug-in hybrids like the battery electric vehicles, another one, and so on and so on. Total world production of the battery electric vehicles last year was 2 million, I think 100,000. So, then the rest was China. The rest, the 1.6 million was China, right? By definition. Ex-Tesla. Maybe I can quickly adjust some Googling. I know for sure the number because basically, there's a company in Switzerland called LEM, LEM Holding, that basically makes the transducers.

1:08:45And basically, they own 50% of the market for those EV transducers. And their major market is all those 100 or so EV producers in China. And I agree with you that basically not all of those would survive. But until really recently, until the Europeans got going, we've seen, for example, in Germany, 20% of new cars sold were EVs in the first quarter, which is pretty incredible, right? That is an incredible number. Until this year, it was not, you know, EVs were really China domination, the 500,000 you mentioned for Tesla, I agree. But basically, China does have a lead. It just doesn't have an ability to really export. People don't trust those cars yet like they trust the Tesla brand. That is an incredible number, 20%. That's more than I would have expected in demand growth. Even though I recognize people are anxious to get there, that's still a large number. Well, what's happening, I mean, in certain cities, you know, you've got politicians that talk about banning combustion engine cars, you know, in major European cities.

1:09:55And then, obviously, there's huge government incentives. They're pushing both to individuals but more so to the car fleets. Remember, in Europe, there's a lot of companies that basically company cars, right, that they give their employees a company car. And so, for ESG reasons, those corporates, those large corporates are basically buying EV cars. Yeah, they do. And a lot of companies, they have committed to zero-emissionless transportation as well. And you see, every day you see announcements of large corporations, even IKEA or the postal services of various countries, etc. They will go full electric before 2030. And in 2030, you will already see that some European countries, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium probably, and a few others, they will already ban the sale of ICE cars. That's it. And one thing, maybe just one quick thing to add to this one as well, because Norway, right, is one of my favorite numbers. Because in 2020, new electric cars accounted for about 75% of cars. So, I think – and then you offer Iceland and Sweden and Netherlands all above 25%.

1:11:19And then, yeah, in the world, it goes a bit lower. But maybe just one thing – I mean, we can also quickly wrap this up, but just looking at the time, I think we have about 15 minutes left. But one thing I would love to hear from everyone on the panel here would be that, you know, to hear how you learned about batteries, like, you know, where you got your knowledge from, you know, be it education, like what is in your studies or in your work, etc. And also, how are you, like, you're keeping informed about batteries today? I would just be curious if you maybe can go around the room and kind of, you know, hear from everyone kind of where you got your knowledge from, because it's something I'm quite interested in. If it's okay with everyone. Catherine, do you want to start, maybe? Or should I start? Yeah, I would love to hear how your experience is, and then I can start.

1:12:08Sure, I'll go really quick. So, I learned about batteries the first, probably my undergraduate, like, you know, from a scientific. Then I was in Berkeley, as I said. I did, like, a research, a student assistantship there. So, doing a head-on experience, which was really useful. And then my master's, again, my master's thesis was on batteries. My PhD was on batteries. And also, probably more insights from the world economic form, where I was a fellow for a few years. And now, I mean, one thing I learn a lot from is, you know, through my work, but also from the BatteryMBA, of course. You know, I mean, I'm also learning a lot from everyone there, but also the lecturers, etc. So, those are probably some of the things for me. How about you, Catherine? So, for me, I learned mostly from my startup. But obviously, in the past, my battery knowledge was mostly from high school science. And then, through working at my company, I realized that battery is a really interesting field, where there's a merge of chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers.

1:13:16It really needs to come together to build a battery pack. And all these different expertise need to kind of merge in its own way to be able to form a battery system. So, it's something that's really exciting to me. And I would love to see more of that interdisciplinary discussions as well in this space. Myles, what about you? So, I'm a geologist who configured a laser to ablate rocks in the 1980s as part of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars program. I got a federal grant to do that. And I was hooked up with a bunch of physicists who were smart. And I gave them some lithium rocks. And they first told me in the late 1980s that this was going to be the core of electrification. So, I've been following it as a hobby over 30 years in a career to understand the evolution of raw materials for this category of energy. These days, I just get inundated with stuff because people like me to do two things.

1:14:40Tell them where the raw material is and then bounce ideas off of them for beneficiation of the raw material. So, I have this percolating sort of diaspora of direct communication on the front end of the supply chain. I keep up with social networking. And then once a week, I read an article or two about the actual technology development. I'm never on point. And it sounds like every time I get into a room like this, I realize I'm not reading the right stuff. But from a raw materials point of view, I'm in it all the way up to my elbows. And I enjoy it because it's a new opportunity outside of the traditional life and fate of a geologist. Thanks, Charles. Milo, would you like to go next? Yes. How I'm gaining my knowledge? I am a very curious guy. So, most of my knowledge I'm gaining from other people. Obviously, from other people. But it's a lot of knowledge which I'm consuming. But I'm kind of sorting in my head what is real, what is not real.

1:16:03And what is wish, what is projections, what is science and things like that. You know? A lot of people are mixing, I believe, science with projections and wishful thinking with facts. Thanks, Marlos. Stefan, would you like to go next? Yeah, thank you. I'm a little self-taught in the sense that as an investor, primarily in the listed market, I'm more of a generalist. But basically, I always am looking for growth. So, you know, clearly, we're looking for trends, growth. This is going to be a very big space. So, we naturally have gravitated to it. And the one company that really opened my eyes to the whole battery space was what was a small company, a little company called Varda in basically Germany, which is the world leader in micro batteries. So, if you have an Apple headset or any of these wireless headsets, you're likely to have, you know, a Varda micro battery in there, coin-shaped micro battery. And that company over a period of like two years took over basically the world.

1:17:16It's the largest company doing that and learning from basically the top management of the company. And also from, you know, meeting other top managements of all these battery companies. Some are private. So, with every sort of interview that I do with them to assess how their businesses are going to, you know, progress and grow, I learned a little bit more and more knowledge. And hopefully, it makes me a better investor. But basically, Varda is a really great company because, again, it really pioneered the concept of improving energy density with every battery that they come out. Every time they come out with about 25%, 30% higher density, which is what you need, for example, to be able to accommodate all the different features that Apple is going to put into their next version of the headset, for example. So, anyway, that's for me. When I said that I'm learning from the other people, I'm learning most about battery from most what I consider them the best experts in the world.

1:18:25So, from the guys like John Goodenough, from Charlie Meng, from Jeff Dunn, from Al Rashid and things like that, the guys like that, who are the, I consider them the number one experts in the world. I mean scientists in the world. Thanks, Miles and Stefan. Ingo, would you like to connect? Yeah, thanks. So, I started studying electronic engineering 25 years ago and had a lecture also in batteries at that point in time. And then my hobby was about model planes. At that time, we had titanium batteries and then nickel and metal hydride batteries. And then came lithium-ion batteries and polymer batteries and so on. And two years ago, I started with an electric car. And so, looked into the internet, saw lectures from Jeff Dunn, also as Milo said, reading in Wikipedia, talking in panels like you do here, talk with some people with knowledge about that and exchange about that and just curious about the subject. And so, collecting info and digesting them.

1:19:47Thank you, Ingo. Christopher, would you like to connect? Yep. Yeah. So, I stumbled into the industry just over 10 years ago when I started working within battery manufacturing within the UK. Since then, I've been like a sponge, absorbing as much knowledge as I could regarding the processes, reading as much online as I can, learning from social networking. Again, I think Milo raises a good point, trying to understand what was real and what wasn't real. Lots from that goes connected with the battery associates, which was quite a number of articles. And then that led into the BatteryMBA. Just keeping myself open to learning and learning new things, I think is very important because there's lots happening, lots changing. There's lots of hype and just understanding what is hype, what isn't hype, where we go next. Fantastic. Thank you so much, Christopher. And then, Edwin, would you go next? Yes. Yes. I have been working for two and a half years on developing charging services for the electric drivers for a large oil major.

1:21:14And at a certain point, it got my interest that there is so difference in the energy efficiency if you look to electric cars. But to be honest, everything I learned from the chemical parts or the material parts, I learned from you. I just hopped into your show. I believe it was back in March. And that got me interested. And I learned a lot even from Milo, sorry, from the tech news around the world or your show you held two weeks ago about the materials. That's where I got my learnings. And I am reading a lot on the Internet about the topic. So it's more about self-interest. I'm just a curious guy. And I got my knowledge mainly from you guys. Thank you. I think in battery space, because it's over the last 200 years, a lot of exaggeration, lies, hype. So it's very important to be able to select the truth from the lies or from the wish, from exaggeration and hype. So that's a lot of misinformation in the battery space.

1:22:44Absolutely. And I think that's where these discussions come in really nice. I really enjoy them every time when we have people asking new things. And we always have a nice sounding board from experts from all kinds of different areas. So yeah, thank you so much for sharing that. I think it was really interesting. And yeah, it's fantastic that all these sessions also seem to be useful as well. And I agree that learning from each other is one of the best ways to do it, especially then when you can ask each other questions. Fantastic. Just looking at the time, I'm also happy to kind of have a bit of a – can also kind of wrap it up and kind of a bit of a thought about what we want to maybe do next week. I think mentioned for some before, I think last time people were recommending to have James from BloombergNEF with us. So he will be with us in August. So we're much looking forward to that.

1:23:42But yeah, also any other suggestions you might have for future sessions, we're always grateful. We're always trying to get these thought leaders. You mentioned Milo's, such as Jeff Dunn. I'm not sure if he's on Clubhouse yet. I should probably look into that. Charlie Mang, there's many other amazing ones. And we have any suggestions who we should try to bring on. Let us know. We will try our best to get them here and have them share their insights. Thanks so much, everyone. Also, I'd just like to say that if you're a participant and you've been following us for a while, and you think you have something interesting to share with everyone here, just feel free to also write to Simon or myself. Connect with us on LinkedIn. And we would love to hear what kind of topics that you would love to share with everyone here. So with that, maybe we can wrap up this session. Thank you, everyone, for your active participation this time around.

1:24:46And also, kudos to Simon for sharing on this topic on battery education. I think it's prime time for us to look into this method. And thank you very much for sharing more of your experience on this. Really appreciate that. Can I make one final point? Because I have some very important idea. What matters is quality of the knowledge, not quantity of the knowledge, especially in the battery space. Quality of the knowledge. Absolutely agree. Catherine, are you here? Would you like to wrap it up? Yep. Thanks for that. So once again, thank you so much, everyone, for participating. If you have any thoughts, feedback on how we can improve these sessions, please feel free to write to myself and Simon. And as mentioned earlier, these sessions can be found on Battery Insiders on Spotify. So feel free to check that out for our earlier sessions as well. And with that, for anyone who has not followed us on Clubhouse, please feel free to tap on the little icon on the top where it says Battery Revolution.

1:26:09And you can follow our club for future sessions as well. So thank you, everyone. We'll see you next Thursday. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.