Are There Enough Materials To Produce Needed EVs?

News: Global

2022-12-14

Are There Enough Materials To Produce Needed EVs?

The transition from ICE to electric vehicles (EVs) is necessary to decrease climate-changing emissions. As deployment increases, so will the demand for EV battery materials such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. These materials are primarily supplied through two sources: 1) newly mined or 2) recovered by recycling batteries.

Research shows there are enough explored or prospective reserves to electrify the global transportation sector using current technology if a high amount of battery recycling occurs. In this scenario, global demand for EVs in 2100 will amount to about 55% of cobalt reserves and 50% of lithium reserves. If recycling doesn’t ramp up, a shortage of lithium, nickel, or cobalt is likely, and it is estimated that demand would exceed what is economically accessible to extract.

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2022-11-16

JCB Unveils Mobile Hydrogen Refueler

Guy Youngs
Guy Youngs

JCB has unveiled a mobile hydrogen refueler which it says will allow on-site refueling of hydrogen powered machines in the same way that fuel bowsers are used for diesel powered equipment.

The mobile hydrogen refueller is designed to provide an easy way to refuel machines, the vast majority of which have fuel delivered to them while working on site, said the company. JCB said customers are already used to a transportable fuel system.

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Hydrogen Truck To Help Decarbonize Mining Industry

A new hydrogen fuel truck is being tested by the mining industry in hopes of helping to decarbonize activities that have been exceptionally challenging to mitigate. The mining industry contributes 7% of the world’s total carbon emissions per year, (according to McKinsey). This represents more than twice the carbon emissions from the global shipping industry, for example.

The hydrogen-powered vehicle is meant to replace typical mining haul vehicles, which pollute heavily.

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50-Ton Battery-Powered Electric Crane Introduced

The 653 E Electro Battery from Sennebogen is a new 50-ton battery-powered electric crane that was developed with Dutch dealer Van den Heuvel. “The new crane combines the benefits of battery technology with the proven advantages of the telescopic crawler crane design,” the company writes. “This means you work completely emission-free and retain maximum flexibility, thanks to the Dual Power Management system.”

With a 210 kWh battery, the crane is expected to be able to operate for up to 14 hours.

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World Needs To Mine 25X More Lithium

Guy Youngs
Guy Youngs

The de-carbonization of the transport industry is heavily dependent on the scaling up of electric vehicle production rapidly and massively, and this rests on scaling up battery mineral mining and refining. This means Lithium.

Benchmark Mineral Intelligence counts 40 lithium mines that have been in operation and producing lithium in 2022. But, by 2050, the company sees a need for 234 more lithium mines if there’s no battery recycling underway (which, of course, is completely unrealistic but is a place to start from for such an analysis).

“The long term path for lithium is set, yet the supply chain scaling challenge has just begun,” said Simon Moores, chief executive of Benchmark. “What this data shows is that we are at just the beginning of a generational challenge, not one that’s going to be solved in the 2020s.”

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US Increases EV Battery Recycling Capacity

A new EV battery recycling plant in Alabama from Li-Cycle has just come online. It can process up to 10,000 tons of battery waste per year, enough for about 20,000 EVs per year, and helps the US move toward a zero-emission economy.

Li-Cycle’s processing method is specifically designed as a two-part system recycling battery manufacturing scrap and turns end-of-life batteries into a black mass. The black mass is then processed and used to generate battery minerals such as nickel sulfate, lithium carbonate, and cobalt sulfate, three of the most critical factors for EV batteries. According to the battery recycling company, Li-Cycle believes its new method will enable up to a 95% efficiency rate compared to the industry average of 50%.

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Penn State Offers Smaller, Faster Charging Batteries

Researchers at Penn State say they have found a way to make batteries for electric cars that can be smaller and faster charging.

“The need for smaller, faster-charging batteries is greater than ever,” said Chao-Yang Wang, the lead author of the research study that was published in the October 12 issue of the journal Nature. “Our fast-charging technology works for most energy dense batteries and will open a new possibility to downsize electric vehicle batteries from 150 to 50 kWh without causing drivers to feel range anxiety,” said Wang.

Batteries operate most efficiently when they are hot, but not too hot. Keeping batteries consistently at just the right temperature has been a major challenge for battery engineers. Historically, they have relied on external, bulky heating and cooling systems to regulate battery temperature, but they respond slowly and waste a lot of energy. The team decided to regulate the temperature from inside the battery. The researchers developed a new battery structure that adds an ultrathin nickel foil as the fourth component besides the anode, electrolyte, and cathode. The nickel foil self-regulates the battery’s temperature and reactivity which allows for 10 minute fast charging on just about any EV battery.

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Liebherr Hydrogen Excavator Leads Bauma Innovators

iVT was a major winner at Bauma in Munich when it was recognized in the hotly contested Climate Protection category in the Bauma Innovation Awards. The hydrogen-combustion machine is the first ever Liebherr hydraulic excavator to be powered by a hydrogen engine

The machine’s prime power source is the H966 hydrogen combustion engine, which has six cylinders and uses port fuel injection (PFI), which Liebherr employs along with direct injection (DI) for its hydrogen engines

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Miners Cut CO2 Emissions Using EVs for Extracting Minerals

A new contract to supply battery electric vehicles to the Jansen potash project (potentially the world’s largest potash mine) expects to cut carbon emissions in half compared to its peers. BHP’s Jansen potash project is expected to be the largest of its kind, with initial capacity forecasts of 4.3 to 4.5 Mtpa. Potash is the most commonly used potassium fertilizer, but over 70% is based on conventional underground mining that uses heavy-duty equipment to extract it. Although underground mining releases half the CO2 emissions of open-pit mining, the company is reducing emissions further by introducing several battery electric vehicles.

Source: Electrek: Read The Article

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