The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 93
An up to 18-million-pound (US$24 million) investment by global critical metals firm TechMet Ltd. is allowing Cornish Lithium Ltd. to accelerate its mission to provide domestic supplies of lithium and other battery metals from its projects in the United Kingdom's historic Cornwall mining region. "Cornish Lithium has reached an inflexion point in the company's development where larger scale investment is required," said Cornish Lithium CEO Jeremy Wrathall. "This funding...
In what can be considered the single largest purchase of electric vehicles in the world, Hertz Corp. has put in an initial order for 100,000 Tesla EVs by the end of 2022, along with investing in new charging infrastructure across the car rental company's global operations. In addition, Hertz has teamed up with seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady to showcase how it is making EV rentals fast, seamless, and more accessible as the company accelerates its commitment to leading...
With its sights set on putting around 10 million fully electric vehicles on global highways over the next decade, the BMW Group is investing in an innovative process to sustainably and efficiently produce the lithium that will go into the batteries powering the BMWs, Mini Coopers, and Rolls-Royces rolling off its assembly lines in the coming years. To help support environmentally sound and resource-efficient extraction of lithium, BMW Group's venture capital fund, BMW i...
BHP Group has produced the first nickel sulfate crystals at its Nickel West plant in Western Australia, a milestone that is good news for electric vehicle and lithium-ion manufacturers, especially Tesla Inc. Once running at full capacity, this nickel sulfate plant south of Perth is slated to produce 100,000 metric tons of the 99.99% pure nickel sulfate needed for lithium-ion batteries each year. "BHP's nickel sulphate plant is the first of its kind in Australia and will...
Toyota Motor Corp. and Panasonic Corp. are the latest electric vehicle and lithium-ion battery manufacturers to sign an agreement to acquire nickel sulfate from the new production plant at BHP's Nickel West operation in Western Australia. Just last week, BHP announced that it has produced the first nickel sulfate crystals at a new plant slated to yield 100,000 metric tons of the 99.99% pure nickel sulfate needed for lithium-ion batteries each year. Further details on this...
In a move that will shape the future of batteries powering electric Volkswagens, the German automaker has opened one of the most modern laboratories for cell research and development in Europe. This laboratory in Salzgitter, Germany, will help develop Volkswagen Group's unified cell, a format adaptable to various mixes of battery chemistries, and is compatible with all major upcoming product and production process innovations. This lithium battery, which is expected to...
Working in partnership with Austria-based Enerox GmbH, US Vanadium Holding Company LLC is expanding its capacity to produce ultra-high-purity vanadium electrolyte at its facility in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Enerox recently entered into a contract to purchase 580,000 liters of the ultra-high-purity electrolyte produced by US Vanadium for vanadium redox flow batteries the European manufacturer sells under the brand name CellCube. US Vanadium says this contract is believed to be...
Idaho-focused mining company Perpetua Resources Corp. and Ambri Inc., a battery technology company born from research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have forged a partnership that will help advance the antimony-based liquid-metal battery technology that can provide the large-scale energy storage needed to decarbonize electrical grids in the United States and around the world. "This agreement is a meaningful step in support of the current administration's goal...
Ambri Inc., which is advancing antimony-based liquid-metal battery technology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has secured a $144 million financing to commercialize and grow its daily cycling, long-duration battery technology, and to build a domestic manufacturing facility. This latest round of financing announced by the company on Aug. 9 was led by strategic investors Reliance New Energy Solar Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd.,...
Niobium, a metal best known for its ability to strengthen steel, may also be the secret ingredient that allows lithium-ion batteries to live up to their full potential. One problem with the lithium-ion batteries powering electric vehicles, smartphones, laptops, power tools, and thousands of other applications is they lose nearly a fifth of their storage capacity the first time they are charged up. The reason for this loss is the formation of impurities on the nickel-rich...
With the goal of producing 58,000 metric tons of the lithium carbonate needed for the batteries powering electric vehicles and storing renewable energy each year, global miner Rio Tinto has committed US$2.4 billion to the development of Jadar in Serbia, one of the world's largest greenfield lithium projects. "Serbia and Rio Tinto will be well-positioned to capture the opportunity offered by rising demand for lithium, driven by the global energy transition and the project will...
In a move to help secure the lithium-ion battery metals required to achieve its aspiration of getting "Everybody in" an electric vehicle, General Motors has forged a strategic partnership with Controlled Thermal Resources Ltd. to source low-cost and environmentally responsible lithium from the Hell's Kitchen project at the Salton Sea Geothermal Field in Southern California. "Lithium is critical to battery production today and will only become more important as consumer...
Putting its foot to the "electric pedal" in a race toward the all-electric mobility future it envisions, General Motors has bolstered its investments into electric and autonomous vehicles to $35 billion from 2020 through 2025, a 75% increase over the $20 billion commitment it made prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. "We are investing aggressively in a comprehensive and highly-integrated plan to make sure that GM leads in all aspects of the transformation to a more sustainable futu...
The mountains of material left behind from more than 275 years of mining kaolin, a mineral known as china clay due to its use in the fine white porcelain produced in China for thousands of years, in Cornwall could offer a new source of the lithium vital to the United Kingdom's transition to a zero-carbon economy. To investigate the potential of producing the increasingly important battery metal from the kaolin mined in the southern UK region, Cornish Lithium Ltd. is leading...
On a mission to develop innovative solutions to sustainably produce the enormous quantities of lithium needed for the batteries powering electric vehicles, Schlumberger New Energy is teaming up with Panasonic Energy of North America to validate and optimize the differentiated direct lithium extraction technology to be used at its NeoLith Energy pilot plant in Nevada. "Panasonic is a pioneer in electric vehicle battery technology, and we are excited to collaborate with them in...
Focused on environmentally sound production of lithium, Cornish Lithium Ltd. is testing new technologies to extract the battery metal from geothermal waters at its United Downs facility in Cornwall, a region emblematic of the storied mining history and promising future in the United Kingdom. Cornwall traces its mining roots back more than 4,000 years to mines that churned out Bronze Age tin and copper. Beginning late in the 19th century, however, the enduring and proud traditi...
While lithium-ion batteries have a major head start when it comes to the storage of renewable electricity, European analysts predict that flow batteries may overtake the stationary power storage market within a decade, and investments by the Biden administration could help make these forecasts a reality. Vanadium redox flow batteries – variably called flow batteries or vanadium redox batteries – are the most common and technologically advanced of the flow batteries. Tak...
A mine that produced the nickel and cobalt needed for the lithium-ion batteries powering zero-emission electric vehicles and offering the added benefit of locking up carbon dioxide in rocks for geological time periods would be considered an optimum solution in the battle against global warming. Recent tests carried out at the University of British Columbia indicate the potential that Giga Metals Corp.'s Turnagain project in Northern BC could be one such greenhouse gas-absorbin...
Glencore plc has teamed up with fellow miners China Molybdenum Co. Ltd. and Eurasian Resources Group, and battery material supplier Umicore to pilot a blockchain solution for end-to-end cobalt traceability. Earlier this year, Glencore joined the Global Battery Alliance, a World Economic Forum initiative to help establish and collaborate on a sustainable battery value chain. As of 20 May, a new pilot named Re|Source, headed by major metals and mining companies as well as...
Chains are only as strong as their weakest link, and two United States federal agencies have determined that cobalt is the weak link in North America's electric vehicle supply chain. First Cobalt Corp. is doing its part to strengthen this link by delivering the cobalt sulfate needed for the lithium-ion batteries that power EVs from its refinery in Ontario and exploring its cobalt-rich Iron Creek project in Idaho. With the First Cobalt refinery in Canada on pace to begin...
Does the United States' electric vehicle ambitions put the cart before the horse? Or, more precisely, place the EVs ahead of the raw material supply chains needed to build them? The Biden administration wants half of all vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric by 2030. This comes at a time when the European Union has called for a complete transition away from fossil-fuel-burning automobiles by 2035, and China is making its own massive push into the EV sector. This envisioned...
With the goal of delivering renewable energy to electrical grids by the end of 2023 and near-zero-carbon lithium for General Motors electric vehicles the following year, Controlled Thermal Resources has launched drilling at its Hell's Kitchen geothermal project in Southern California. "We are very pleased to kick start our drilling program and we are on schedule to deliver the project's first 50MW (megawatts) of baseload renewable power in late 2023 and an estimated 20,000 ton...
The ambitious 2035 target for a complete transition to electric vehicle sales set by most global automakers hinges on establishing reliable and responsible supply chains for the batteries that will power this envisioned electric mobility future. To help meet the burgeoning EV sector's battery material needs, First Cobalt Corp. is moving forward with an integrated battery refining, recycling, and manufacturing park in Ontario. "We see serious strains in the automotive supply...
Answering Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk's call for new supplies of nickel that are mined "efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way," Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Group has struck a deal to supply the electric automaker with this fundamental lithium-ion battery ingredient from its Nickel West operation in Western Australia. "We are delighted to sign this agreement with Tesla Inc., and to collaborate with them on ways to make the battery supply chain more sustainable...
As First Cobalt Corp. advances the only battery-grade cobalt sulfate refinery in North America toward a 2022 start, the company is beginning to investigate the potential of developing an integrated battery park in Ontario that refines and recycles cobalt and nickel, and then upgrades these metals into the anode materials for the lithium-ion batteries needed for the massive influx of electric vehicles expected in the coming years. First Cobalt envisions a battery park built...
