US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm, said that with technology being central to 21st Century life, lithium batteries are essential components for the clean energy transition, job creation, industrial competitiveness and the fight against climate change.
With the US targeting 100% clean electricity by 2035, the demand for clean energy technologies is growing and growing. The major concern is that China is currently the only country in the world which has control over every tier of the supply chain for critical materials — including lithium.
China has 80% of the world’s raw material refining capacity, the US has virtually none.
If the US remains reliant on imports, the country will be unable to compete in the global market for clean energy technologies, which Granholm said will be a market worth at least US$23 trillion by the end of the 2020s.
The US’ economic competitors are “gunning to corner that market” and if the US stands idly by, it will lose out on the potential to create millions of jobs, an opportunity that “hangs in the balance”.
The recently released Federal Consortium for Advanced Batteries (FCAB) ‘National blueprint for lithium batteries 2021-2030’ sets out a whole of government approach for shoring up domestic battery production. This includes strategies for building out the domestic supply chain and Granholm called for national effort in US policy, alongside “ingenuity and major investments” to start making batteries using US labour.
Each step of the value chain, from mining to processing, manufacturing to recycling, represents a new opportunity to create well-paid jobs across the US. The objectives along the way include discovering and developing alternatives to critical minerals like cobalt and nickel, building out materials processing capacity, investing in R&D and STEM education, workforce training and developing responsible mineral extraction processes and facilities.
Granholm announced that the DOE’s 17 National Laboratories and DOE partnerships will receive US$200 million funding over the next five years for EVs and batteries to complement US$62 million pledged in April to support vehicle electrification. Also on the table is a US$4 million prize through the Department’s geothermal office to support lithium extraction processes using geothermal industry assets.
The Biden Administration’s American Jobs Plan will also put millions behind lithium batteries, mineral extraction and more.
Granholm said that the challenge is “big and urgent” and the US needs all of the help it can get to succeed. She said a big private-partnership announcement on the lithium battery supply chain is imminent.
Congressman Mike Doyle has long championed the clean energy economy. He said that the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to bringing manufacturing to the US and ensuring the existence of supply chains is “not only commendable but something we absolutely have to do”.
The coronvirus pandemic revealed critical vulnerabilities in the US’ supply chains, with almost every sector of industry facing supply shortages over the past year. This weakness is not only a problem for the pandemic, but one of future economic competitiveness, Doyle said.
China has about 100 battery mega-factories built or planned, while the US has plans for about nine — the supply chain vulnerability leaves companies less competitive and the US foregoing good manufacturing jobs in the communities that need them.
China, Japan and Europe will outcompete a US that doesn’t have the ability to make its own critical infrastructure, while the federal government, together with industry, needs to put in the right level of strategic investment to create that capability.
Doyle noted that fixing these problems is a priority for the administration and that there are politicians on both the Democrat and Republican sides of the aisle dedicated to the task already, in the House of Representatives and in the Senate.
Along with the need for private investment, Doyle is pushing for the passing of the Energy Storage Tax Incentive and Deployment Act to incentivise deployment, while he also said that the mid-tier supply chain: battery materials processing and component manufacturing, should be invested in.
Areas of the US in industrial decline have factories and labour forces that can be retooled and retrained to work in new or repurposed factories and Doyle called for US$10 billion in grant funding for this.
With the help of the private sector, manufacturing can be brought back to the US, which would be great for the economy and great for workers.