Battery Insiders Reflection - Battery News and Updates

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 we're back, everybody. Thanks for joining us here on Battery Insiders. Simon, how's it going? Pretty good. It's a sunny day in Munich. It's lovely. How about yourself? It's a gloomy day here in New York. A bit chilly. We thought we were on the up and up with the weather, but we're definitely still getting some cold, cold wind chill here. So doing okay. It's the end of March almost, and we have had an interesting time in the battery world. On our most recent conversation, we talked about battery news and events. Lots was happening at the time. Lots has continued to happen in Battery Associates and around the world since. Any thoughts on that conversation we had? You know, there's definitely some updates in different regions. Ford, Northvolt came up. You know, different recycling projects are popping up. All good work. What did you think?

1:15Yeah, I think it was nice. As you said, we spoke about some of the news. Also, we summarized through the battery newsletter. I think it was a good kickoff, as you mentioned, you know, like talking about, you know, the infrastructure, I turned out full infrastructure from the U.S. part of transportation, 5 billion investment. We spoke about Volvo Cars, Northvolt, you know, so like the new R&D manufacturing plants. Then we talked about Ford, as you just said, you know, the $20 billion investment. And of course, also European Union drawing, you know, to create a European battery material supply chain initiative. And I think, yeah, I think, as you say, very exciting times. Also, from a policy perspective, right? We have the better regulation kind of going through it step by step. Just took another hurdle with the European Parliament. So, going now to the next step. So, yeah, just really interesting times, as you say. And really about all the, you know, from supply chain to manufacturing to recycling and policy as well.

2:10Yeah, it's definitely been interesting for me personally. You know, for those of you listening, you may or may not know, I'm also here in an energy focused program in New York at Columbia. And one of the things I've been looking into personally is different types of tax credit schemes related to like energy storage and battery project development. And so, for those of you listening, if you're interested in that, look into it. PTCs, production tax credits, as well as investment tax credits. Those are really, really important parts of the conversation. And in fact, probably merit their own conversation here in battery world. So, maybe that's a little bit of a hint for a future, potential future topic. But that plays a really big role in what's going on here in D.C. And I think that's a bit unique to the U.S. And so, definitely take time to look into that or read up or listen about PTCs and ITCs. It's definitely interesting and will impact the future viability of these projects here in the U.S. under the Biden administration.

3:18So, that's definitely something to keep an eye out for. That's fascinating. I think I would love to. Let's have a session at some point where we look at these different policy and different regulatory frameworks used in Europe, used in the U.S., also maybe in Asia. China, of course, has also done their own. And I think there's now a lot of looking at each other. I can see that a lot. We have lots of meetings where people are trying to figure out how maybe others are doing or other governments or other regulation bodies or companies, how they're all implementing these changes coming or what's going to come next. So, I think, yeah, it's definitely one of these times where I think there's a lot of looking, trying to understand it happening. I think that's also probably what our audience enjoys, trying to really get an understanding of these different developments and understand what this also might mean to them in whatever industry they're in. Absolutely. And I pulled you into this.

4:10I've definitely pulled in some Battery Associates folks here for the Columbia Energy Symposium. And that's really been an interesting way to tap into what's happening right now as well. I think when we talk about what's coming as far as innovation goes, as far as regional differences go, Simon, you and I talk about this all the time. And I think that is going to be pivotal. I think when we talk about battery news, it can almost be a bit overwhelming because there's so much happening around the world. And it's at different phases in different regions. And so, that's been the interesting thing to keep up with. And I think that in that regard, our conversation earlier this month over on Clubhouse was really helpful to get different perspectives from people who are in those different regions. Absolutely. And I think maybe also, you know, maybe two things also we spoke about was two events which took place. And now we're kind of recording this a bit after, so then we can already talk about one of them event because it already took place.

5:12We spoke also about the battery mining dialogue, something we hosted with Battery Associates and partners with Company Chain. And I think this was a super interesting experience as well to like really bring together, you know, different stakeholders. So, one, we start off with looking at supply and demand of critical materials. So, we have the product manager of commodities as SGX, the chief financial officer of The Metals Company, who are trying to do, you know, subsea, like underwater sea mining, which there's a bunch of different companies I learned through that. I'm out there trying to do something like that. Technology or like a knowledge which has been there for a long time, but now it kind of surfaced because the idea, you know, can we get it from different sources which might have less issues. If it's over a ground, you have all these implications of people being against mining, et cetera, but it's under the water, the best idea. About to be seen. I think it's interesting to see these developments.

5:59We also have chief executive officer of CIU consulting, and this was a really interesting kickoff panel talking about these different approaches and also really the need, right? Like, you know, the need of transition. We're looking for new sources, et cetera. And then the second panel was on standards regulation for the battery and mining sectors. Also, it's interesting to have someone from TÜV there, as well as the head of standards assurances at Alliance for Responsible Mining, Kuali Zocke Lab Mobile Problem SYSTEMIQ, and then also the project director at RCS Global Group. And that's also, I think, was interesting. That's really what you just said, right, Bavia, about if we have to kind of uniform or like you're trying to really learn from each other. So we had somebody based in China, someone, I think, in Colombia and Europe. And I think that was also interesting to have these different perspectives. You know, similar topics probably come up, but just from different angles. Maybe just really quick, we also had some keynotes.

6:52And I think also one which really stood out to me was from Ken Hoffman. He's the co-hide of EV Battery Materials Research, group-based materials, senior expert at McKinsey and Company. And he also really was hinting at that, you know, manganese, it's actually one of these materials which will be more popular, like it will come up again and there will be more, you know, it wasn't really on the radar for many because manganese has this issue in the batteries of leaching and it's kind of, it hasn't been as stable. But if you just look at, I think, you know, Musk was mentioning yesterday, and I haven't read the full coverage, but I know he also mentioned manganese at his Berlin visit, this opening of the Gigafactory Berlin. So Tesla, he also announced that Tesla's also looking into that. We'll do some work on that, like different chemistries there. Evolution of LFP in some way. And then, yeah, we have the keynote address also from Doug from Sokola and Julia from Eventsis.

7:45Doug about traceability and Julia about talent. Then we just, we click, we also had really fascinating panels on traceability and blockchain technology. There's lots of exciting players from Resource, ERG, Circulor, Minehub, SAP, and RockTech, and also Stasimum Mining, which was actually one of my last many things to mention on this. Quite a highlight because it was an all-woman panel, which I think is quite special also, especially in the mining space. He's from Cornish Lithium, he's from Exeter, our own, of course, Amandine from Battery Associates and staff director of Irma Initiative for Social Mining Assurance and Project Manager of RCS Global Group. So I think, yeah, this was a really interesting event. And I get in touch if you're interested in that, but I think it's just so fascinating. I mean, I think we could do a deep dive in any single value step of the value chain. It all probably would require us on probably way longer discussions. But yeah, I think it was really fascinating.

8:43Maybe just one last quick thing. Battery Dev also spoke about that. Battery Data Competition is actually running right now, so maybe look out to the next podcast because we're going to talk more about that. Because there's kind of a link there. Who do we have next time, Fabia? And I think next time we've got the CTO over at QuantumScape, I believe his name is Tim, and we'll be hosting him next week, actually, on April 2nd. And so for those of you joining or who have joined us in the past, please join us again and spread the word. We'll be there on Clubhouse next Saturday, April 2nd. Absolutely. And also, because a nice link is that actually they or QuantumScape provided data for the Battery Dev Hackathon. So we can maybe only have a bit of a discussion about this as well, what he thinks, what came out of that, because they're also involved in the judging. So I think there might be a nice link between the two sessions.

9:38All the more reason to join. Well, and with that, I think we will wrap up today's conversation. If you're listening and you have thoughts on future ideas, other suggestions for Battery Associates, please do reach out. We look forward to hearing from you and definitely seeing you next week, April 2nd, on Clubhouse. Speak again. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye.