The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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Considered by market experts to be the largest single fundraising in the history of lithium-ion battery supply chains, Sila Nanotechnologies raised US$590 million during a financing that closed on Jan. 26. "Raising way over half a billion dollars is an incredible achievement but is exactly the level of investment innovators in the battery supply chain should be receiving," said Benchmark Mineral Intelligence Managing Director Simon Moores. Aptly located in Silicon Valley,...
January 8, 2021 may go down in history as the inflection point for the transition from the fossil fuel powered vehicles that transported humanity through the 20th century to the electric vehicles that will carry us into the future. This tipping point for global transportation offers a spectrum of challenges and opportunities to sustainably mine, refine, and recycle the minerals and metals needed to build this electric mobility future. Entering 2021, Tesla Inc. was celebrating...
Mercedes-Benz says it will follow its supply chains all the way back to the mines, if that is what it takes to ensure that the lithium and cobalt going into its rapidly expanding line of electric vehicles is produced with high environmental and human rights standards. "Our aspiration is very clear – we want our products to contain only raw materials that have been mined and produced without human rights violations," said Renata Jungo Brüngger, a board member of both Me...
TechMet Ltd. continues to build strong financial support for its vision of building a portfolio of world-class projects that produce, process, and recycle technology metals critical to electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, and energy storage. "TechMet's mission is to build ethical, independent, and environmentally sound supply chains for the metals that are needed to ensure the success of this 21st-century clean energy and EV revolution," said TechMet Chairman and CEO...
Recovering scandium from its iron-titanium mine in Quebec, tellurium from the Kennecott copper mine in Utah, and now lithium from its Boron mine in California, Rio Tinto is leveraging its operations to produce the critical metals needed for 3D printing, solar energy, and lithium batteries. On April 7, the global miner announced that it has begun producing battery-grade lithium from waste rock at its Boron mine site at the western edge of the Mojave Desert. The mine is...
Toward its mission to "produce the greenest advanced graphite materials with a carbon-neutral footprint for a sustainable world," Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc., has laid out a plan that not only charts a path to a carbon-neutral future but also aims to offset all corporate emissions since the company was formed in 2012. "Nouveau Monde has committed to a zero-harm approach to producing advanced battery materials for decades to come. Carbon neutrality is an important part of this...
In another step toward its overarching goal to deliver battery grade cobalt into the North American electric vehicles market, First Cobalt Corp. has signed a flexible, long-term, offtake agreement with Stratton Metal Resources Ltd. for the sale of future cobalt sulfate production from the First Cobalt refinery in Ontario, Canada. "Stratton Metals are among the most knowledgeable cobalt traders in the world, with a network of relationships in every major market," said First...
As part of a strategy to significantly lower the cost, improve the performance, and minimize the environmental footprint of batteries going into its expanding line-up of electric vehicles in Europe, Volkswagen Group has placed a US$14 billion order with Sweden-based Northvolt. This massive deal between the European e-mobility partners announced on the eve of Volkswagen Power Day, a March 15 event that laid out the German automaker's roadmap to making the electric car...
After a decade of meticulous planning, Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. has received a Quebec government environmental decree to begin developing a mine at its Matawinie project that has been designed to offer lithium-ion battery manufacturers a carbon neutral source of graphite. "I founded Nouveau Monde 10 years ago, and today's decree is a huge milestone for us all," said Nouveau Monde Graphite President and CEO Eric Desaulniers. "With this green light to launch our Matawinie...
X-MAT recently announced a collaboration with the Battery Innovation Center, to determine further improvements of X-MAT's electrode fabrication technology, which dramatically increases the storage capacity of graphite recovered from recycled batteries With lithium-ion battery markets projected to increase by 25% annually, resulting in 14-fold growth by 2030, X-MAT has long prepared for the necessity of battery recycling and has sought to further refine its X-BATT technology....
Though Volkswagen does not expect any appreciable quantities of spent lithium-ion batteries for at least another decade, the German automaker has already constructed its first plant to recover more than 90% of the raw materials from these cells. Operated by Volkswagen Group Components, an independent entity formed by Volkswagen in 2019, this pilot plant that recently opened in Salzgitter, Germany aims to recycle more than 90% of the battery raw materials such as lithium, nicke...
5 is shaping up to be a watershed year for Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc.'s mission to be a carbon-neutral supplier of the graphite needed in the anodes of lithium-ion batteries. "This year will be an exciting year, as we produce our first anode materials and further the execution of our business strategy, which is set to build a company which is one of the world's largest high quality anode material producers," said Nouveau Monde Graphite President and CEO Eric Desaulniers....
VanadiumCorp Resource Inc. has acquired full rights to a unique, low-carbon emitting means of extracting vanadium, another key to its goal of unlocking the potential of vanadium redox flow batteries as a sustainable renewable energy storage solution. "We have achieved another critical step in our strategic plan to rapidly advance VanadiumCorp's sustainable assets," said VanadiumCorp Resource CEO Adriaan Bakker. These assets are found along the entire vanadium redox flow...
Syrah Resources Ltd. has taken another major step toward scaling up production of natural graphite anode material at its facility in Vidalia, Louisiana to help meet the demands of rapidly expanding lithium-ion battery production in the United States. In order to power electric vehicles and store renewable energy, annual lithium-ion battery production capacity in the U.S. is expected to climb to at least 226 gigawatt-hours by 2030. This production output, however, could top...
VanadiumCorp Resource Inc. has confirmed that its Lac Doré project in Quebec hosts one of the most significant undeveloped vanadium deposits on the planet, furthering the company's mission of developing exceptional vanadium resources and technology to reduce the cost and carbon footprint of energy storage. According to an updated calculation reported by the company on Oct. 29, Lac Doré hosts 214.93 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources with the potential to p...
Skeleton Technologies, a global leader in graphene-based ultracapacitor energy storage, Oct. 19 announced a deal with Northern Ireland-based Wrightbus to supply its next generation high-energy ultracapacitor modules to hydrogen fuel cell buses in the United Kingdom. "Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are of high strategic importance to lower CO2 emissions and fight against climate change, said Skeleton Technologies CEO Taavi Madiberk. "Skeleton's ultracapacitors are one of the key...
A week after President Donald Trump declared America's heavy reliance on adversarial nations for critical minerals a national emergency, U.S. International Development Finance Corporation invested US$25 million towards development of the Piauí nickel-cobalt mine project in northeastern Brazil. This investment is expected to fund further developments that will help create jobs in one of the poorest regions of Brazil while providing a new source of battery metals vital to...
Just a week after Tesla Battery Day 2020, where CEO Elon Musk unveiled the electric automaker's massive lithium-ion battery ambitions, the iconic electric automaker has cut a deal to buy some of the lithium it will require for this plan from a mine in North Carolina and has begun moving ahead with a Texas refinery to transform the raw lithium concentrates into the form needed for its batteries. These two moves will shorten Tesla's North American mines-to-electric vehicle...
Tesla Inc. has joined a growing effort to address artisanal cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, not by boycotting this much maligned source of the lithium-ion battery metal but by investing in it. The iconic electric automaker has joined the Fair Cobalt Alliance, an organization with a vision of making the small but often dangerous cobalt mines in DRC a better place to work for men and women who have few other livelihood options. Artisanal mining in DRC has...
Nobel Prize winning co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery John Goodenough is teaming up with a new generation of scientists and entrepreneurs at Energy Exploration Technologies, or EnergyX, to make the next world changing battery storage discovery – solid-state lithium-ion batteries. From untethering our phones, computers, and power tools, to ushering in the era of renewable energy and electric vehicles, the rechargeable batteries pioneered by Goodenough and his colleagues h...
Tesla wants low-carbon nickel from a future mine at Giga Metals' Turnagain nickel-cobalt deposit in northern British Columbia, Canada, according to Reuters. Citing three unnamed sources, the global news agency said Tesla is in discussion with the Canadian miner to advance development of a mine that would produce nickel and cobalt, both vital ingredients in the lithium-ion batteries that power its electric vehicles. These reports have not been confirmed by either company....
The ability to charge an electric vehicle in just 15 seconds would wipe out many of the barriers to EV ownership – slow charging times, battery degradation, and range anxiety. Skeleton Technologies, a global leader in graphene-based ultracapacitor energy storage, believes it is on the verge of such an ultra-fast charging battery breakthrough and has partnered with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany to complete the development of SuperBattery, a graphene b...
In its push to get "everybody in" on its transition to electric vehicles, General Motors is working closely with SolidEnergy Systems to accelerate the development of a next-generation Ultium battery to power safer, more affordable, and longer-range GM EVs. This coming iteration of the Ultium battery is expected to be lithium-metal, which promises to have twice the energy density, charge faster, and last longer than the state-of-the-art lithium-ion batteries currently powering...
The future of rechargeable batteries and the technologies they will power just got a lot more flexible, thanks to a recent breakthrough in screen-printable, high-capacity silver-zinc batteries by a research team from University of California, San Diego and ZPower, a California-based company formed in 1996 to build a better battery. Typical flexible batteries have a limited life cycle and low capacity, which limits their use to low-power, disposable electronics. These...
From mines to gigafactories, it is going to take a massive and coordinated effort to scale up the entire North American lithium-ion battery supply chain at a pace that meets the growing demands of the accelerating electric vehicle revolution. "To replace more of the gasoline cars that are on the road, to benefit from the promise of electrification across all vehicle types and all consumer classes, requires the supply chain to be built out in a bigger way and faster way than...
