<
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-04-18/redwood-material-s-nevada-ev-battery-recycling-facility-attempts-to-rival-china?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTcxMzQ0NzU3MiwiZXhwIjoxNzE0MDUyMzcyLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTQzRYODZUMVVNMFcwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJFNUE4M0NCRjYwQjE0NzEwOTU5QkQ0NjYyQzU0REI0NCJ9.3onK_Uz8Hp-DGxgYRELgg0s5-FmmUDwej4FzgYL6MB4&sref=B9VwE2e5>
"In the scrublands of western Nevada, Tesla co-founder JB Straubel stood on a
bluff overlooking several acres of neatly stacked packs of used-up lithium-ion
batteries, out of place against the puffs of sagebrush dotting the undulating
hills. As if on cue, a giant tumbleweed rolled by. It was the last Friday of
March, and Straubel had just struck black gold.
Earlier that day, his battery-recycling company, Redwood Materials, flipped the
switch on its first commercial-scale line producing a fine black powder
essential to electric vehicle batteries. Known as cathode active material, it’s
responsible for a third of the cost of a battery. Redwood plans to manufacture
enough of the stuff to build more than 1.3 million EVs a year by 2028, in
addition to other battery components that have never been made in the US
before.
It’s a turning point for a US battery supply chain that’s currently beholden to
China. The world’s second-biggest economy controls 70% of the planet’s lithium
refining capacity and as much as 95% of production for other crucial materials
needed to make EVs, according to
BloombergNEF. Redwood is attempting to break
that stranglehold by creating a domestic loop using recycled critical metals.
“The responsibility weighs on me,” Straubel said. “I remember feeling it in the
early days at Tesla, when the other manufacturers hadn’t done crap yet, and we
had a very palpable sense of holding the flag and running out into the field
and saying ‘EVs are the future!’ We felt that if we failed, well, nobody’s
going to follow. This is a little déjà vu.”
Redwood’s engineering hub sits atop a 300-acre slope of buildings in various
states of completion. The vibe is closer to a military command outpost than an
industrial processing plant. Operations are set up in a giant windowless tent,
recalling the structures Elon Musk deployed for building Model 3 electric
vehicles and Starship rockets. Long clusters of computer desks sit out in the
open with a few small cubicles erected haphazardly in the middle of the
hangar-like space for semi-private meetings.
The tent operations were about to relocate to a massive new office complex
that’s just been completed further down the hill. The locational hop-scotch is
typical of the constant state of flux at Redwood, where an executive team
plucked from Austin-based Tesla Inc.’s top engineering ranks has been
reinventing the battery-recycling process for speed and environmental
efficiency — even as it expands at industrial scale."
Via
Fix the News:
<
https://fixthenews.com/good-news-on-marriage-equality-in-thailand-conservation-in-romania-and-reforestation-in-the-mediterranean/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
