Battery Insiders Reflection - Battery Cathode Production

0:00Transcript

0:00Welcome to Battery Insiders, your podcast providing you insights and the fascinating world of batteries. Hosted by Bhavya Jha and Simon Engelke. And we're back once again to discuss our conversation last time about battery cathode production. Here I have with me my partner in crime when it comes to all things batteries, Simon. And Simon has actually an exciting update for us today. He's not in Germany. He's not experiencing Northern European winter. Simon, where are you now? Yeah, currently actually in Mexico. Yeah, enjoying the sun over here. I mean, I will be back soon. I was here for a summit last week, which was great. And yeah, we'll be in the snow in a week's time. But I thought, you know, for once in a while, I can say I'm actually in one place. Very fine. How's it over there? How's it in New York? Well, it's a bit comparable to what you're used to. I think the East Coast is expecting some degree of rain and snow today.

1:10So we will see how that plays out. The first snow is, of course, lovely. But I can't say I'm not jealous of the vitamin D that I'm sure you're getting in Mexico. So I hope you are enjoying your travels. I am. But the work never stops. And the battery fund doesn't either. And we had a great conversation with Virginia just a few weeks ago. And yeah, do you want to do a quick recap? Tell us a little bit about their company, what they do, and what really stuck out to you in the conversation. Absolutely. And we can stay on the theme of weather. And we can talk about rain and water because this topic was also water-related because we're talking about cathodes. We're talking about water usage in cathodes. And we're talking about energy usage. And of course, we need energy not just from the sun, but we also have to heat up our cathodes. And we have to send them to get them to the place we want them.

2:09So I think it was a really fascinating conversation about cathode production, as you just mentioned, with Virginia Klausmeier from Silvertex and giving us, I think, a great rundown of kind of what's the current state of cathode manufacturing and what might is to come and also maybe some of the innovation we are about to see, of course, with new incentives such as the Inflation Reduction Act, which, of course, have also the motivation, but also the, I think, the cause to have more local supply chains. And I think cathode production, of course, is one part of that. And yeah, I mean, she walked us through, like, you know, how are cathodes produced at this point in time and what might be different to the approach they're taking. And I think we also had a really nice, engaged conversation afterwards, you know, maybe what are the challenges, what are the opportunities at this point to enter such an industry? Fantastic. How about yourself? That's awesome. Thanks for sharing.

3:03For those who, you know, are maybe listening to our conversation first, just wanted to point out some stats that Virginia mentioned. The cathode of the battery is about, I think, more than half of the battery's carbon emissions. So it's about, she said, maybe even like 70 or 80%. I think that's, like, worth keeping in mind. And yeah, I think the really interesting thing about what they're doing is that it is without water. And that, you know, at first is a bit, like, interesting. It's like, huh, what, like, oh, what are they doing differently? Or what does that change about the battery? And sometimes the answer is as easy as what she said. It's like, we have a better understanding now of what goes into these batteries and what that process could look like, should look like. We can now iterate on how, not only the battery itself, but how we make it. And I think that was a very interesting point, especially given the four, five, six, seven, eight, nine different emerging technologies that are emerging or scaling for the energy transition.

4:11It's really important to remember that they're going through a learning curve, that they will become, that there are people working on making it more cost efficient, energy efficient, and reducing negative externalities, such as, you know, the waste that would come initially from original back in the day. Now we can say that battery manufacturing. And in that way, I think they're really doing some, like, fantastic work. And, you know, Simon, you mentioned local supply chains. And it was definitely exciting to see or hear that Alameda, California, is being represented in that supply chain with the work that Virginia and her team are doing. Absolutely. And I think you definitely touched also on a point of cost. I think one thing also came up was that cathode makes, you know, north of 50% of the cost, and as you said, largest carbon factor. So it's a really important piece. And of course, we don't want to forget about anodes and, you know, separators and electrolytes, some of these other components and cases, et cetera, which are also very important.

5:10But yeah, as you said, I think, you know, it's a really interesting one. And one of these where I think, you know, if you look at the battery value chain and supply chain, I mean, it has been quite strongly dominated, right? I think also from China as well. And I think it's interesting to see now that there's, you know, new innovation coming up. And then, of course, always the question, like, how do you scale something like this, right? Like, how do you go from a place where they are, I think, you know, she was mentioning kilograms, and where do you go to the ton, you know, scale, right? And I think that's also be interesting to see how you can make this work. And of course, it's all about, you know, quality. And we talk about, you know, the quality required and, you know, how do you get something like this into an automotive, right? Because automotives tend to be a bit more risk averse for good reasons, because any small, you know, any risk factor is a big risk for that from the entire operation.

6:00Yeah, exactly. She hit the nail on the head when she's, you know, when there were questions around, why is it, like, how does this get to happen now? And when batteries first, when batteries became, when batteries were first, you know, innovated for automotive, it was about performance. And because that was probably going to be the biggest concern and challenge for adoption is if the car can't keep up with an ICE, then, you know, how do we, how can we make that a competitive product? And I think we're lucky. I think, you know, there are many things that we learned from Virginia. And one of them is that the, luckily the market is now at a place where it wants to think about producing batteries in a way that is environmentally also friendly, not just friendly, but safe. I always found it. I initially did find it ironic that, you know, how much the upfront cost, not only monet, like fiscally, but also environmentally is of creating a battery.

7:03And it's been, it's definitely, I'm excited to be on the sidelines of watching this innovation almost five years later since I started working on batteries. So that's been, that was actually very exciting to hear and a good point of reflection five years into my battery journey. Absolutely. No, no, I do agree. And I think in interest of time, I think, yeah, we can, you know, we say we're going to look out for the next podcast, which is going to be about a different technology. Also, of course, the cathode also playing a role there, but actually going to look at solid-state. So there's some, some, some interesting session we're going to have there. And hopefully, you know, this will be not just in solid-state, but also lithium metal, which of course is one of the anodes we can use in one of the, you know, the, the energy densest kind of form. We can go to for lithium ions. So very interesting to see what the progress is there.

7:53We have, you know, people with us from SES AI. So that should be interesting to hear their perspective on that as well. Awesome. Hope all of you join us next time. Thanks for listening. Thank you all. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.