Compiled by/Yong Yan
Few people can compare with the rise of electric vehicles“ Tesla The think tank behind "- JB Straubel - has a more thorough understanding.
In 2003, the words of the engineer Straubert at lunch made Elon Musk believe that the cause of electric vehicles is promising. Later, he served as the chief technology officer of Tesla for 15 years, designed the first batch of batteries of Tesla, managed the construction of charging station network, and led the construction of the super factory in Nevada. In 2019, Straubert left Tesla. Ashlee Vance, the biographer of Musk, said that Tesla had lost not only one founder, but also "part of its soul".
With his reputation and excellent strength in the industry, Straubert could almost pick jobs in Silicon Valley, but he did not. Straubert stayed in his ranch in Carson, Nevada, where he could see no trees. It is said that the famous writer Mark Twain lived here. Mark Twain once described it as "a desert surrounded by barren snow mountains."
In 2017, Straubert founded Redwood Materials here, which is engaged in the mysterious and complex business like alchemy: decomposing waste batteries, reconstituting them into metal materials needed for new electric vehicles, and then putting them back into the supply chain.
"Urban mining", turning waste into treasure
Straubert's goal is to solve the most prominent problems in the electric vehicle industry. Although electric vehicles can achieve "zero emissions" when driving, with the gradual rise of electric vehicles, the process of battery raw material mining, manufacturing and processing has hidden an environmental crisis.
Straubert said: "The current electric vehicles are not sustainable at all, and I can't even see the relevant short-term plans. When I was at Tesla, I could not stand it; after the former company became bigger and stronger, I could not stand it."
Redwood's warehouse is the best annotation of "Your honey is your arsenic". Every working day, two or three heavy trucks bring about 60 tons of waste smart phones, electric tools and scooter batteries. 130 employees of Straubert's relevant team will separate various metals, such as nickel, cobalt and lithium, from these wastes, crush them, and use chemicals to treat them into new lithium battery raw materials, which will be put back into the supply chain.
The metal used in the battery is generally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Australia, Chile and other countries, which is excavated from open-pit mines or evaporated from desert ponds. But Straubert believes that there is a "huge, undeveloped" source right around people: the garages of ordinary Americans. He also estimated that there were about 1 billion waste batteries in old mobile phones and laptops in American families, from which valuable metal materials could be recycled.
The process of decomposing and reusing these batteries is called "urban mining". Gene Berdichevsky, CEO of the battery materials startup Sila Nano, said that large-scale "urban mining" is an arduous task: the amount of battery materials in a high-end electric vehicle is about 10000 times that of a smart phone. However, he added that the amount of cobalt in a car battery is only about one thirtieth of that in a mobile phone battery per kilowatt hour. Bodychevsky added, "Therefore, for every 300 smartphones recycled, cobalt can be used to produce batteries for one electric vehicle."
Redwood is also building its own network of industrial partners, Amazon , electric bus manufacturer Protera and electric bicycle manufacturer Specialized are included to recycle their waste products. Redwood has started Panasonic The company receives electronic waste and sends recyclable materials back to Panasonic, which produces battery cells in the Tesla super factory 50 miles north of Redwood.
"Zero emission" is just a concept
Straubert gambled on some of the wealth earned by Tesla and thought Redwood could play an important role in the rise of "circular economy". The so-called circular economy is an idea born in the 1960s. Its core is to change the way of design, manufacturing and recycling of goods. Some large enterprises around the world are accepting this concept, including Apple The company's CEO Tim Cook set the goal of "not having to mine anything from the earth to produce new iPhones", which is part of the company's commitment to achieve carbon balance by 2030.
When circular economy becomes popular, our current practice must be very stupid in the eyes of future generations. At present, cobalt is mainly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa, which is usually mined in large industrial mines, and some are manually excavated with basic tools. The cobalt mined may be transported to Finland, where Europe's largest cobalt refinery is located, to China, where most cathodes and batteries are produced in the world, and then to the United States and Europe. Battery cells are assembled into battery packs in European and American countries, and then transported to the production line of electric vehicles.
Before an electric vehicle was labeled as "zero emission", cobalt would have to travel 20000 miles (about 32000 kilometers) from the mining site to the automobile manufacturer, which is not "zero emission".
Nevertheless, independent researchers said that the environmental damage caused by electric vehicles is still less than that caused by traditional internal combustion engine vehicles. However, there is still much room for improvement in this industry. Straubert believes that if the batteries of electric vehicles can be continuously recycled, the carbon emissions in the manufacturing process of electric vehicles can be reduced by more than half.
In July, Redwood accelerated its development, raised more than 700 million dollars from investors, and was able to recruit more than 500 new employees and expand its business scope. According to the current valuation of US $3.7 billion, this company has become the most valuable battery recycling enterprise in North America. Redwood is expected to process 20000 tons of waste this year, and the recycled materials are enough to produce 45000 battery packs for electric vehicles.
Supporters of circular economy say that this kind of economy can make the earth more sustainable and reduce the mountain of waste. In 2019, the World Economic Forum estimated that by 2030, the "recycling battery value chain" could account for 30% of the emissions reductions required to achieve the goals set by the Paris Agreement, and create 10 million safe and sustainable jobs worldwide.
Christina Church, director of sustainable solutions at Lombard Odier Investment Manager, said that transportation is the "core" of creating a circular economy. It not only accounts for one sixth of global carbon dioxide emissions, but also is intertwined with mining and energy networks.
Kunal Sinha, the head of copper and electronic components cycle in Glencore, a mining enterprise, said: "If the world wants to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, resource efficiency, electric vehicles and clean energy are far from enough. This gap can be bridged by promoting the circular economy, changing consumption patterns, reusing things, and recycling." He added: "The role of recycling should not be underestimated. Recycling is equivalent to providing an 'extra' supply, filling the demand gap on the one hand, and helping to alleviate the pressure on emissions on the other hand."
Tight supply should not be underestimated
Although "urban mining" is still relatively small, electric vehicles have won wide political support, and relevant policies have been introduced to deal with climate change. Urban mining will become the mainstream before 2030. Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of the US Department of Energy, called on the government to make a commitment to establish a lithium battery supply chain in the US.
This is also one of the goals of the Biden administration. The current US government plans to achieve 100% clean electricity by 2035 and net zero emissions by 2050. Granholm said that by the end of 2030, the value of the global clean energy technology market will reach 23 million dollars. Granholm also mentioned that as China and other countries increase their investment efforts, the United States is unwilling to lag behind.
European regulators are also emphasizing the contradiction between environmental and social issues. For example, if automobile manufacturers stop producing fuel vehicles, Germany will face a serious threat of unemployment.
According to McKinsey's data, the Chinese government is subsidizing the industry to increase the sales of electric vehicles by 24% annually by 2030.
However, strong support for electric vehicles may bring unexpected consequences.
This year's global semiconductor shortage exposed the vulnerability of just in time (JIT) automobile supply chain. The shortage of chips is just a omen, which may mean that more damage is coming. Since all automobile manufacturers want to electrify their products, the supply of key materials for electric vehicle batteries, such as nickel, cobalt and lithium, is likely to encounter supply bottlenecks in the future.
According to the data released by Bloomberg NEF, the sales of electric vehicles this year accounted for only 4% of the global total sales. However, it is expected that by 2030, this proportion will increase significantly to 34%, and further increase to 70% by 2040.
Paul Anderson, a professor at the University of Birmingham, UK, said: "There will be a large-scale competition for raw materials in the future. Everyone is eager to bring technology to the market, but there is not enough consideration for recycling."
Monica Varman, a clean energy investor at G2 Venture Partners, estimates that the demand for battery metal will exceed the supply in two to three years. As the market reacts to the practice of redesigning batteries with sustainable materials, there will be a "supply crunch" lasting for about five years. Recycled materials can help alleviate supply problems, but analysts believe that it can only meet 20% of demand at most in the next 10 years.
At present, there are few start-ups like Redwood whose main business is recycling and reusing waste materials. One of them is Li Cycle, which is located in Toronto, Canada. Li Cycle was founded in 2016. Earlier this year, it raised more than 600 million dollars in the merger with a special purpose acquisition company, and its current valuation is 1.7 billion dollars. Li Cycle has established partnerships with 14 automotive and battery companies, including general motors Ultium, a joint venture with LG Chem.
Tim Johnston, chairman of Li Cycle, said that the company planned to build facilities across North America to collect old batteries and convert them into lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite in powder form. Li Cycle will also establish a larger production center to reprocess more than 95% of materials into battery grade materials.
Johnston feared that without large-scale urban mining, the coming shortage of battery raw materials would have the same consequences as the Arab oil embargo in 1973. At that time, the price of gasoline in the United States quadrupled in four months. The American government described the incident as "a structural challenge to the economic stability of the whole country".
Johnston said: "The oil supply can be recovered relatively quickly. After all, it does not take too long to develop an oil well and start pumping oil. But the mining of lithium, cobalt or nickel ores starts in five years. Therefore, the shortage of battery raw materials may not only cause the same severe impact as the oil embargo, but even more far-reaching long-term impact."
Scale recovery? Start with product design
In addition to relieving the pressure on the supply chain and protecting the environment, "urban mining" can also bring cheaper raw materials. A 2018 study on the recovery of gold and copper from China's discarded television sets showed that the economy of the recovery process was 13 times that of the original mining.
Straubert pointed out that there are much more high-value materials that can be extracted from existing batteries than those mined. He said: "The concentration of these key materials in rocks, ores and brine is very low, but the concentration of materials in recycled batteries is very high. We extract the right materials in the right place, so the concentration of materials is much higher than that in the traditional mining industry."
Johnston of Li Cycle said that the highest grade lithium ore found in the mining area currently only contains 2% to 2.5% lithium oxide, while in "urban mining", its concentration is 4 to 5 times this number.
However, because many products are not designed with material recycling in mind, the process of extracting valuable materials from waste products is very complex. computer business Dell Ed Boyd, the experience design director of, said: "The current product design is all about assembly time, cost, quality and other factors. Some products take 20-30 minutes to disassemble and decompose, so it is not practical to quickly disassemble them when recycling."
Johnston's team is currently studying how to significantly reduce the amount of materials used and complete product disassembly within one minute. He said: "In fact, it is not difficult to do this, but the difficulty of disassembly has not been taken as a design standard before."
True and formal modeling of circular economy: a long way to go
Although few people categorically deny the role of circular economy, many people doubt whether these processes can rapidly expand to meet the exponential demand for clean energy in the next 10 years. Anglo Pacific, a mining enterprise
CEO Julian Treger said: "The idea of waste material recycling sounds attractive, but in the end it is like smelting and refining. It is a value-added processing link and generally does not bring huge profits."
TechMet in South Africa is an enterprise investing in metal mining, processing and recycling. Its founder, Brian Menell, called circular economy a "arduous task". He said: "In 10 years, an optimized lithium ion battery recycling industry may meet 25% of the battery metal demand of the electric vehicle industry. So it can only be a contributing factor, not a solution."
When the industry starts to recycle more electric vehicle batteries, the circular economy is really modeled. The average life of electric vehicle batteries is 15 years, so the first wave of batteries will not reach the service life in a short time and will be recycled. This longer timeline is enough to allow technology to continue to evolve, but at the same time, time also brings risks. Warman of G2 Ventures said that recycling technology is now vigorously developed, but if chemicals develop rapidly, the batteries made of current chemicals may be obsolete by the time.
Hans Eric Melin, the founder of the consulting company Circular Energy Storage, said that how to continuously obtain abandoned car batteries may also be a challenge, because old cars in developed countries are often exported to developing countries for reuse.
Merlin found that by the end of 2018, Nissan There are about 400000 LEAF electric vehicles, nearly one fifth of which have been registered in Ukraine, Russia, Jordan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and other countries. In these countries, it is more difficult to recycle batteries from used vehicles.
Bodichevski of Sila Nano said that the goal is to produce electric vehicle batteries with a service life of 30 years. If successful, the demand for recycling will be reduced in the future, and the cost of the whole vehicle will also be reduced, which is conducive to lowering the threshold for the popularization of electric vehicles. He said: "I am confident that we will change cars in the future, but not batteries. In terms of extending the service life of batteries and recycling, we have not even touched the surface of the battery era."
