Energy Secretary Granholm holds roundtable with lithium battery industry

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm hosted a roundtable discussion with leaders from the lithium battery industry on how the federal government and private industry can work together to strengthen the domestic lithium battery supply chain.

Lithium-based batteries play an integral role in 21st-century technologies such as electric vehicles, stationary grid storage, and defense applications. Currently, the United States relies heavily on importing advanced battery components from abroad, which exposes the nation to supply chain vulnerabilities that threaten to disrupt the availability and cost of these technologies.

The seven leaders at the roundtable discussion were from different segments of the supply chain.

“America has a clear opportunity to build back our domestic supply chain and manufacturing sectors, so we can capture the full benefits of an emerging $23 trillion global clean energy economy,” Granholm said. “The American Jobs Plan will unlock massive opportunities for U.S. businesses as it spurs innovation and demand for technologies—like vehicle batteries and battery storage—creating clean energy jobs for all.”

Granholm was joined at the roundtable by U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA), who discussed the recommendations in the recently released National Blueprint for Lithium Batteries 2021-2030. This blueprint, developed by the Federal Consortium for Advanced Batteries (FCAB), lays out goals and actions to guide federal agency collaboration to accelerate and support a resilient domestic lithium battery supply chain. It underscores the need for strong collaboration across the federal government, U.S. academic institutions, national laboratories, industrial stakeholders, and international allies.

“The Administration’s commitment to bringing back manufacturing and supply chains we need here in America is not only commendable but essential. Our national security and economic prosperity depend on it,” Doyle said. “I believe that the battery manufacturing industry can be an example to others that with smart federal investments, the private sector can bring manufacturing to the United States. That would be great for our economy and great for our workers.”

The industry participants shared the challenges and opportunities they see in growing their operations in the United States.

“The goals for electrification are at risk to the limitations in the supply chain. We see an incredible opportunity in resource recovery, so we don’t lose resources already in the product supply chain and don’t export them in ways that don’t benefit our local competitiveness,” JB Straubel, co-founder and CEO of Redwood Materials, said. “We’re focused on inventing and scaling the technologies that most efficiently recover materials from lithium-ion batteries and reuse them with high utilization.”

Redwood Materials announced recently that it invested millions to scale up its battery recycling efforts, including a new 100-acre recycling facility in Northern Nevada.

At the roundtable, Granholm also announced $200 million in funding over the next five years for electric vehicles, batteries, and connected vehicles projects at Department of Energy (DOE) national labs. The funding is open to DOE’s network of 17 national laboratories and is administered by DOE’s Vehicle Technologies Office.