Join every day information updates from CleanTechnica on e mail. Or comply with us on Google Information!
Tariffs, and tariffs, and tariffs, oh my! The Nice and Highly effective Oz spoke once more of tariffs final night time, aiming to upstage a colleague who’s credited with tanking a vital bipartisan price range invoice earlier this week. Whereas the 2 frenemies duke it out for consideration, US battery makers are left questioning what new tariffs will imply for graphite, a key component within the EV battery provide chain. To not fear. The US will quickly get its personal home provide of artificial graphite, as soon as two new factories in Tennessee are up and working.
Tennessee To Rescue EV Battery Provide Chain
Sustainably talking, the presence of artificial graphite within the EV battery provide chain isn’t all hearts and roses. The feedstock of desire for artificial graphite is needle coke, a type of the fossil fuel-derived substance petcoke. Producing artificial graphite can be a time consuming, power intensive, and costly endeavor.
The choice is pure graphite, however the US has no graphite mines in operation nowadays, leaving battery producers susceptible to the vagaries of the worldwide provide chain.
It wouldn’t be so dangerous if the worldwide graphite mining and refining business was concentrated amongst US allies, but it surely’s not. Citing an evaluation by the Worldwide Power Company final yr, the agency S&P international famous that China accounts for about 70% of pure graphite mining globally, and virtually 100% of graphite refining.
Tennessee Swoops In To Rescue The EV Battery Provide Chain
On the plus facet, some stakeholders within the artificial graphite discipline have been re-engineering the method to chop the timeline whereas saving power and prices, too. That brings us to the Australian agency NOVONIX, which has provide you with an power saving induction-based course of. The corporate has been organising store within the US by its Anode Supplies home subsidiary.
They aren’t letting the grass develop underneath their toes. With an allocation of $100 million in cost-sharing funds from the US Division of Power by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation, and a $103 million tax credit score, the corporate has been upscaling its Riverside facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee to launch as the primary giant scale artificial graphite manufacturing facility within the US. The manufacturing facility is predicted to be up and working someday subsequent yr, with an output of 20,000 tpa (tons each year).
That’s only for starters. On December sixteenth, NOVONIX introduced a conditional mortgage of as much as $754.8 million from the Power Division’s infamous Mortgage Packages Workplace for a second artificial graphite facility, additionally to be positioned in Chattanooga (see extra Mortgage Packages Workplace background right here).
“At full capability, the brand new facility is predicted to provide roughly 31,500 tonnes each year (“tpa”) of artificial graphite, which might help the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries for roughly 325,000 EVs every year,” NOVONIX acknowledged, noting that full capability is predicted in 2028. The corporate has additionally proposed to develop the capability to 75,000 tpa.
All collectively, NOVONIX expects to fabricate artificial graphite for the EV battery provide chain on the charge of 150,000 tpa by 2030.
Extra EV Battery Jobs For Purple State
The Power Division mortgage for the second manufacturing facility is conditional on an environmental evaluation and the satisfaction of key technical, monetary, and industrial components earlier than it’s finalized, which might take a number of months. Within the meantime, the Power Division is already counting its EV battery provide chain chickens.
In a weblog put up on December 16, the company famous that nearly all the artificial graphite within the US is at the moment imported from China.
“Artificial graphite will be manufactured at a better purity than pure graphite, resulting in enhancements in battery efficiency, reliability, and longevity,” the Power Division added.
The Power Division additionally anticipates that the brand new manufacturing facility will create 450 full time, everlasting jobs on prime of 500 development jobs. As for the way they’re going to search out sufficient folks to fill these everlasting jobs, NOVONIX has had a footprint in Chattanooga since 2017, and it expects to leverage its neighborhood relations to work with excessive colleges and faculties on coaching and job preparation applications.
“The borrower has fostered partnerships with Traditionally Black Schools and Universities, corresponding to Tennessee State College and different native faculties to create advantages in deprived communities,” the Power Division factors out, noting that the corporate already participates in job festivals and different applications of the Engineering Division at Tennessee State College.
“As a part of its continued dedication to native staff, NOVONIX will rent displaced fossil gasoline staff by its relationships with Phillips 66 Firm and Proper Administration,” the Power Division provides.
What Does Phillips 66 Have To Do With The EV Battery Provide Chain?
For those who caught that factor about Phillips 66, that’s a key consider NOVONIX’s plans for the home EV battery provide chain. Again in 2021 Phillips 66 acquired a 16% stake within the firm. The 2 corporations adopted up in 2022 with a expertise settlement.
“Phillips 66 is a number one international producer of specialty coke, a key precursor to the artificial graphite anode materials NOVONIX produces,” Phillips 66 defined in a press assertion. “The corporate is among the few downstream firms with an in-house analysis and improvement group.”
“Its Power Analysis & Innovation group works on growing lower-carbon applied sciences to help the power transition, together with next-generation batteries,” Phillips 66 additionally says of itself.
About These Tariffs…
The EV battery provide chain is only one sector susceptible to disruption if a commerce conflict erupts. In the meantime, it has already erupted. Final yr China imposed new laws on its graphite exports, in obvious preparation for additional motion.
On December 19, NOVONIX introduced that it’s taking part in a petition from the American Lively Anode Materials Producers earlier than the US Division of Commerce and the Worldwide Commerce Fee, calling for an investigation into China’s graphite export coverage.
“The submitting asserts China is harming the nascent home graphite business by exporting artificially low-cost battery-grade graphite into the U.S.,” NOVONIX defined, citing an estimated dumping margin of as much as 920%.
The US hasn’t produced any considerable quantity of pure graphite because the Nineteen Fifties, so the US State Division can be supporting various abroad provide chains corresponding to a graphite mine in Tanzania, which is underneath improvement by a deal between the Korean EV battery stakeholder POSCO and the Australian agency Black Rock Mining.
Work additionally continues apace on new EV battery formulation that get rid of graphite altogether, so control these new silicon batteries which are able to roll off the meeting line.
Observe me through LinkTree, or @tinamcasey on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
Picture (cropped): Tennessee will play a key position within the home EV battery provide chain, because the host of two new factories slated to provide artificial graphite in bulk (courtesy of US DOE).
Chip in just a few {dollars} a month to assist help unbiased cleantech protection that helps to speed up the cleantech revolution!
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Need to promote? Need to counsel a visitor for our CleanTech Speak podcast? Contact us right here.
Join our every day publication for 15 new cleantech tales a day. Or join our weekly one if every day is simply too frequent.
CleanTechnica makes use of affiliate hyperlinks. See our coverage right here.
CleanTechnica’s Remark Coverage
