Rethinking Mining Critical for EVs to Progress
Extraction Critical If World Is To Meet Electrification Goals
Co-founder and managing partner at Nomadic Venture Partners, Tem Tumurbat, recently penned an article alerting his colleagues in the industry that the energy hinges on the metals and mining sector, which is a great place to start as we dive into another installment of insights from discussions held during TDK Ventures’ Energy Week 2022 last November.
Tumurbat and the other participants on the Future of Mining and Battery Supply Chain panel discussed the factors that hamstring the development of domestic and international lithium mines and salars and the emerging technologies that may alleviate supply constraints as the world moves toward electric mobility and seeks the benefits of reduced dependence on oil and coal. They were unanimous in their agreement with Tumurbat’s assessment that metals hold the key to the electric vehicle industry and overall electrification.
“We need these metals to be successful in transitioning from fossil fuels. If we don’t get them, the game is over,” said Emilie Bodoin, founder & CEO of Pure Lithium Corporation. “We need to educate people about mining to get around the aversion to it. We’re not going to make progress if everyone is fighting against miners. Everything we touch is either mined or grown; there’s no other option.”
Session host and TDK Ventures Investment Director Anil Achyuta pointed out that the EV industry requires not only lithium, but also vast supplies of other metals and rare earth elements like neodymium and dysprosium.
Novalith Technologies’ founder and CEO Steven Vassiloudis picked up the thread.
“Working our way out from the battery, you obviously have lithium, nickel, and cobalt, depending on your cathode chemistries, as well as on the anode side with graphite, silica, etc.,” he explained. “Most of those things come from natural resources, i.e., the ground and aquifers, in the case of brine lithium. Then, your EV needs a motor, which relies on the rare earths. And you have to get electrons from wherever they come from — ideally, in a green future, it will be renewable sources such as solar. Getting that resource into your car requires a conduit made of copper.”
To ensure adequate supply, he said, the private sector must bolster the supply chain and governments must “decriminalize” mining. He noted that the first push for electrification will come on the back of mining. Once there is sufficient supply, the world can leverage recycling and material recovery to create a circular economy and reduce the amount of virgin critical materials required.
“But until then, it’s a pipe dream to assume we can rely on what’s already there to meet the current demand,” Vassiloudis said.
The big picture for reducing the world’s carbon footprint also calls for development of lithium and other resources closer to where they will be refined and used to build EV batteries and other electric mobility infrastructure. That need addresses geopolitical issues, as well, with China currently dominating EV battery production and securing rights to many of the planet’s most productive and promising lithium sources.
“We are all prisoners of geography,” said Haixia Deng, vice president of cathode at Ascend Elements. “There is no such thing as equal access to all the resources. The lithium-ion battery is no exception to this. In 2021, almost 90 percent of the precursor for NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt) was produced in Asia. Nine of the top 10 battery companies were in Asia. Politics plays a big role.
She reminded the audience that the Chinese government has been aggressively funding the country’s battery industry for a decade, helping large manufacturers to a commanding lead and battery production maturity. She said there is hope for the West to catch up, however, thanks to the flattening of learning curves and transfer of best practices.
“Globalization has been important for success of the lithium-ion battery in the last 30 years,” Deng said. “Knowledge has no boundaries.”
The ability for battery makers and others striving to electrify the world to adapt technologies and processes developed in other regions to their own manufacturing facilities, will prove critical, according to Bodoin.
“Today, more than ever, vertical integration is hugely important. If we’re going to fight climate change, we need to think about batteries in different geographic locations that use materials there that make sense,” she said. “In these situations, where we can rethink supply chain availability, we really have a chance to make a big dent in climate change. If we keep doing things as we do now, there’s no hope.”
Vassiloudis said he believes recent events have driven home the importance of diversifying, strengthening, and securing the battery supply chain.
“If you look at the supply chain from mine to EV, all roads lead to China and then back out to the rest of the world,” he said. “One thing that Covid has taught us is that reliance on one place for the supplies, materials, or equipment you need may not be the best strategy. Getting Australia, the U.S. and Europe to be more self-sufficient would not be a bad thing.”
Tumurbat said the much of the world and especially the United States has lost its appetite for mining, owing in part to the industry’s legacy of waste and environmental disregard. Complicating the issue the fact that “almost all of the battery metals and resources located in the U.S. are within 35 miles of a Native American reservation,” he said. “Cobalt, nickel, lithium, and graphite are found in sensitive areas that people don’t want to develop.”
The mining industry is diverse, sophisticated and experienced, he said. And just because “many of the technologies in use today are the best innovations we’ve seen developed over the last couple of decades doesn’t mean they can’t be sustainable.”
Tumurbat is optimistic that the world will reconcile its need for mining with its desire to purchase Teslas and decarbonize the environment.
“How do you achieve the goal of having hundreds of millions of EVs on the road without having mines,” he asked.”
He said the unprecedented demand for battery metals has enticed Silicon Valley and venture capital to investigate novel mining technologies where even five years ago, they may not have taken an interest.
“I like what’s happening in the space now, with innovators coming in to disrupt classical mining with technologies like DLE (direct lithium extraction) to deliver different sources while all of us are working hard to reuse and recycle,” he said. “Unlike oil and gas, mining is a heterogenous industry. We’re talking about so many different commodities, each with unique chemical characteristics. That demands unique mining and extraction methods and technologies.”
His colleagues on the dais outlined their companies’ contributions to these technological developments and increasing the supply of lithium and other critical elements.
Deng noted that with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) constituting more than 40 percent of the cathode market, extracting the lithium from spend cathodes will help ease the supply constraints.
“As a recycling company, Ascend Elements is working on it, but throughout the whole industry, I don’t see that we have reached it yet,” she said. “For NMC batteries, we are slowly getting there. Currently, we can claim we get 80% battery-grade lithium recovery. For lithium iron phosphate, we try all kinds of methods including selective lithium leaching.”
Bodoin said Pure Lithium exists to develop technologies to circumvent the mining process because it takes so long.
“We’re on a mission to get lithium metal into a car as fast as possible,” she elaborated. “It’s challenging, so we have decided to go directly from oilfield brine — think about E3 in Canada — direct to metal, and then pair it with a vanadium (oxide) cathode or iron phosphate. We’re looking at making next-generation batteries come to market that simply don’t rely on the supply chain we have now. If you pair lithium metal and vanadium, you could have a North American-based supply chain.”
“There are new technologies looking into better ways of refining and purifying lithium to reach battery grade, and Novalith is investigating one of those, using carbon dioxide in direct lithium extraction,” Vassiloudis said. “We strip it out of the resource directly as a lithium carbonate. Because we’re not using strong acids, we get around a number of those environmental concerns,” such as sulfur sourcing and byproduct disposal.”
He said that strict battery specifications will exert downward pressure on the recovery of lithium and other battery metals, placing a short-term premium on extraction technologies.
“If you look at the sources, brines, micas, spodumenes, the innovative tech, there’s no one-size-fits-all chemistry set,” he said. “They rely on conventional tech with the incumbents. For innovation moving forward, there’s not that much out there, especially for the hard rocks that will get you straight to battery grade.”
“Old school” hydrometallurgy also continues to predominate on the recycling side, he said.
“So, finding technologies that are cleaner and greener for both mining and recycling would be great. Now that there’s this lithium wave that we’re all riding and with all investment and all the smart people working on this, there will be a lot of interesting solutions coming out in the next couple of years. Will we get there fast enough is the next question. We should also try to innovate the technologies we’re using to get there to make them as clean, green, cheap, and sustainable as possible. After you get the stuff out of the ground, and you have removed the lithium or whatever you want, that follow-on chemical process is pretty dirty. (It uses) old-fashioned hydrometallurgy using strong acids to strip out lithium sulphates and a number of additional processing steps to get your lithium chemical. Even if you can get mines up and running quickly enough, you’re going to have all this material to process. That’s two problems to solve before we can get to the third point of pumping out cheap, green EVs.”
Mining can be a major cog in the machine, Bodoin said.
“My biggest investor is a miner. I’ve learned from him the positive impact you can have on people all over the world when you build mines if you do it correctly,” she said. “It’s inspiring, and I would like to see him re-create some of the things he has done in the (Democratic Republic of Congo) here in America. He’s trying to do that and lead by example. Mining companies that approach me are interested in new technologies. I see mining companies starting to work with innovators. It’s exciting that we’re coming together.”
TDK Ventures’ second annual Energy Week assembled some of the greatest minds and brightest lights in the fields of renewable energy, materials science, mobility, storage, and more. Over the course of 13 sessions (all recorded here!) — fireside chats, panel discussions, spotlight interviews, and in-depth reports — TDK Ventures and the expert businesspeople, researchers, academics, and investors presented their opinions and field notes on the world’s progress in solving some of its most pressing problems. Energy Week 2022 fulfilled TDK Ventures’ mission to spotlight the best ideas and most promising technologies to inspire entrepreneurs, inventors, and investors to redouble their efforts to mitigating climate change, hasten electrification, and develop the solutions that will herald a greener, more equitable planet.
