Batteries are finding their way into everything – from cars to heavy equipment to the electric grid.
But scaling up production to meet the demands of a net-zero economy is complicated and contentious. In this 5-episode season, we’re digging into the ways batteries are made and asking: what gets mined, traded, and consumed on the road to decarbonization?
Season 4 of The Big Switch drops Feb 28th. Listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
So far over this season we've traced the global lithium-ion battery supply chain from mining to processing to manufacturing. And we've put it all into a geopolitical and economic context.
China has been the world's biggest battery manufacturer for over a decade. By 2022, according to the IEA, China manufactured 76% of the world's batteries. But that's changing.
Batteries can replace gasoline in our cars, or diesel in our generators with electricity. But batteries and petroleum-based fuels share something in common: they both rely on energy-intensive processes to turn extracted materials into something useful.
To produce enough batteries to reach global net-zero goals, the International Energy Agency says we'll need to increase production of critical minerals by six fold by 2040. It's a monumental task.
Electric vehicle (EV) batteries are a major source of critical mineral (CM) demand. Reducing the CM intensity of electric mobility (e-mobility) is crucial for easing supply chain pressure,...
In December, the US Treasury Department released a proposed rule for the Advanced Manufacturing Production Tax Credit, part of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Better known as 45X,...
CGEP convened a roundtable during Climate Week NYC to discuss challenges of expanding lithium supply for the energy transition.