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Direct Current is a podcast about energy -- the kind that lights our homes, powers our lives and shapes our world. From the U.S. Department of Energy's digital team in Washington, D.C., Direct Current brings you fresh, insightful stories of how we generate and use electricity, what that means for the planet, and the cutting-edge science that's driving a global energy revolution.
SARAH HARMAN: When thinking of the technology of the future, what comes to mind? Hoverboards, or maybe time machines?
SARAH HARMAN: Well, what about batteries? They’re in your phone, your computer, and -- if you didn’t know it – they’re shaping the future of transportation.
SARAH HARMAN: I’m Sarah Harman. You’re listening to Direct Current – the Department of Energy’s Podcast, and today’s episode is part two of our batteries series.
SARAH HARMAN: If you haven’t listened to part one, go ahead and check it out — we cover why batteries are such a big deal and the challenges surrounding their production.
SARAH HARMAN: But today we’re looking ahead. How are we making batteries better and cheaper? How do we secure the critical minerals moving forward, and how do we make sure that everyone benefits from the advancements of the battery industry?
SARAH HARMAN: Stick with us and find out, after the break!
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SARAH HARMAN: When we talk about the future of batteries, Michael Berube’s an expert. You might recognize him from part one; he’s the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Sustainable Transportation and Fuels here at the Department of Energy.
MICHAEL BERUBE: Our goal is really nothing short of, how do we develop the technologies to decarbonize all of the transportation sector.
SARAH HARMAN: Yep, that’s the goal: decarbonizing every single car, truck, plane, and train. Not just developing the actual technologies, but also getting them out there in the real world and helping industry deploy them.
SARAH HARMAN: In terms of batteries, his team has been at the forefront of the development of new battery chemistries for three decades, improving their performance, and driving the cost down.
SARAH HARMAN: The Biden Administration has set some ambitious climate goals: 50% clean energy by 2030 and net zero emissions by 2050. According to Michael, batteries are going to be critical in this effort. The changes are most visible to consumers in electric vehicles, but he says more people will store energy in batteries, both in their home and in industrial settings.
SARAH HARMAN: So, what does that clean energy transition look like and how will batteries pave the way to net zero? U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm spoke to just that at the opening of a new next-generation battery manufacturing facility in San Leandro, California back in February of this year:
Secretary Jennifer Granholm: “[T]his means for us all that in 2050, if we've reached our goals, these batteries are not just going to be in our cars, but they're going to be in our busses and cargo and airplanes, military aircraft and super high-speed vehicles. I mean that we don't have to wait until maybe 2030 for that to happen. We'll be powering our schools and our offices and, you know, everywhere we live and work and play with the technology that you are working on here today.”
SARAH HARMAN: As the market for EVs continues to grow, and battery technology becomes more cost-effective, we should expect to see a corresponding rise in demand for all kinds of batteries. So, how do we develop better batteries that can meet this exploding demand while using fewer resources? Micheal Berube again.
Michael Berube: The critical minerals that are inside the battery are something that we have been working on and looking at for quite a few years here. In terms of the amount of those critical minerals that are inside of it, we've reduced the amount of critical minerals dramatically. I’m talking about batteries that replace things like graphite, which really isn’t made any place in the world, with things like silicone, which are really earth abundant, sulfur, so there's a number of different chemistries out there that we think we can go to, that will both reduce the amount of critical minerals, but that will also help reduce the cost of the batteries. And of course, the catch here, is that we gotta do it at the same time as we want to improve the performance of those batteries. So, you want to get them smaller, we want to be able to fast charge really quickly if it's an electric vehicle. So, our goal is to do all of these at the same time.
SARAH HARMAN: And, according to Michael, the Department of Energy’s National Laboratories are uniquely suited to lead the charge toward a better battery future.
Michael Berube: The US national labs have really been the backbone globally, I would say, of the work on batteries. And we do a lot of our work with industry and private sector as well. But what they do is they come to the US National Labs, because we have the tools, the microscopes, the computers, that allow us to develop in and understand battery chemistry at the atomic level scale. And that’s what you need to really get these breakthroughs.
Michael Berube: Batteries are all about moving, you know, moving these electrons, right, these batteries, and we can now actually see some of these movements at the atomic level, in real time. So you can actually see how a new battery chemistry is working, where it's failing, then it allows you to develop new countermeasures and new technologies and approaches to address that. In the past, we just kind of had to guess what was happening, now we can actually see it.
SARAH HARMAN: Essentially, we’re addressing the fundamental issues of materials and the electrochemical interactions associated with batteries. This research attempts to develop new and promising materials.
SARAH HARMAN: By using advanced models to predict the ways in which batteries fail, we can then employ scientific diagnostic tools and techniques to gain insight into why materials and systems fail. Building on these findings, we can develop ways to mitigate those failures.
SARAH HARMAN: So, these new technologies, coupled with new investments in infrastructure and supply chain manufacturing should have some obvious impacts on the American people, right?
Michael Berube: People of course are starting to see electric vehicles coming out and when they're watching the Superbowl and they're seeing wow, like half these ads are about electric cars, I guess this is really, really a thing that's happening out there. What people are going to start to see next and I think I see because the cost of the electric car is going down, they're gonna see more models becoming available. And that's because the cost of the of the batteries are coming down. They may not see it as much, but what's gonna be happening in the background too, is a lot more recycling happening, both recycling of consumer electronic batteries, but also as those cars start to age we start to have our electric cars being recycled. We think in the future, up to 30 to 40% of all the critical minerals we need new batteries will actually come from recycled batteries, and that's huge. And that's another reason why, you know, we are confident we can grow the number of electric vehicles and still manage the critical minerals we need.
SARAH HARMAN: And thanks to the $7.5 billion infrastructure law, a fully-fledged national EV charging network is on the horizon. The Department is working to reduce the costs and charging time of electric vehicle batteries, while increasing their energy storage and lifespan. But the long-term effects of a growing EV market are not just limited to the roadways.
Michael Berube: One of the good things is, while we're trying to reduce all the emissions from transportation, we're simultaneously as a country working to get to 100% clean electricity. That means a lot of increase of new electricity. And if we develop, you know, electric vehicles, and there's new demand on the grid, and we manage it right, and we do it simultaneously, we think there's actually an opportunity to optimize the system overall.
SARAH HARMAN: So, the research also supports, development and deployment of battery technologies that would allow the electric grid to store excess energy to meet future demand.
Michael Berube: As you look forward into the cost of batteries being driven down, I believe you're going to start to see many more people having batteries in their home, right, utilizing energy storage. You’ll start seeing a lot bigger use by people in maybe industrial settings, where they have a large battery, where they're maybe generating some electricity on site, using some of that to charge their electric buses, for example, and then having a really large-scale battery in the back that stores energy. And sometimes when they need it, they get it off the battery, sometimes they get it directly off their solar panel, and then maybe all of a sudden, the electric grid is down in the area and that big battery back can be used to help provide power back over to the electric grid. So, it becomes this really critical part.
SARAH HARMAN: Ok, so what is the carbon footprint of an EV when compared to its traditional gasoline counterpart?
SARAH HARMAN: Well, we know it’s not as simple as comparing what greenhouse gases are emitted from the tailpipe of a gas vehicle to that of an EV. If that was the sole measurements for comparison, the EVs clearly come out on top. As a typical gasoline passenger vehicle emits about 4.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. Obviously, this number can vary based on a vehicle’s fuel economy, and the number of miles driven per year. But an EV emits zero, a hybrid is a little more difficult to compare, but it too emits less than a gas-powered vehicle.
Michael Berube: The other thing people ask a lot about is, well, is the electric vehicle unit zero emissions? What about all that electricity? And all of the things we do, and we look at comparing different technologies, we look at the full lifecycle emissions from making the car or making the batteries, to comparing it to internal combustion engine, hybrid, getting that fossil fuel, so through all the way up through to the end of life of the vehicle. And when you look at that, and you look at the typical emissions in the US today, the electric car has absolutely lower greenhouse gas emissions than that internal combustion engine. And the good news is, if you bought an electric car today, every single year, it is getting cleaner and cleaner, because the grid is getting cleaner. As the grid moves towards close to 100 percent clean electricity, right that allows that vehicle become super, super clean.
SARAH HARMAN: So, even when we look at the emissions created during the production and distribution of the electricity used to fuel an electric vehicle, it still has less of a carbon footprint than traditional combustion engines.
SARAH HARMAN: Because producing and distributing the gasoline used to power your internal combustion vehicles, also creates greenhouse gases. For example, the production of gasoline requires extracting oil from the ground, transporting it to a refinery, refining the oil into gasoline, and transporting the gasoline to service stations. Each of these steps can produce additional greenhouse gases.
SARAH HARMAN: And with transportation constituting the single biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions, the implications of large-scale EV adoption are far-reaching.
Michael Berube: We just published a comprehensive blueprint across four government agencies and the White House on how to get to net zero across all transportation. And this was not a pie in the sky type of theoretical paper, this was a very practical, how can we get there with technology that we have or that is on the active pipeline in a way that is economically viable, that we have the resources to do it. It will take DOE level and American ingenuity type of work to help make it all happen, but I believe it is really achievable.
SARAH HARMAN: In case you missed it, let me fill you in on the details of the blueprint and how it came about.
SARAH HARMAN: In September of 2022, the leaders of the Department of Energy, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and the Environmental Protection Agency signed a historic memorandum of understanding to enable the four federal agencies to accelerate the nation’s affordable and equitable clean transportation future. It called for the agencies to release a comprehensive strategy for decarbonizing the transportation sector that will help guide future policy decisions, as well as research, development, demonstration, and deployment in the public and private sectors.
SARAH HARMAN: By January, the agencies then released the U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization, a landmark interagency framework of strategies and actions to remove all emissions from the transportation sector by 2050.
SARAH HARMAN: The Blueprint offers a whole-of-government approach to addressing the climate crisis and meeting President Biden’s goals of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Having a comprehensive plan in place and buy-in from industry partners, the timeline for decarbonization and transition to a fully renewable grid seems closer than ever.
Michael Berube: The US auto industry, or I should really say global auto industry, with the administration and with Union have committed to get to 50% of all new cars electric by 2030. I used to work in the auto industry for a long time; 2030 is like seven years away that is like really close, that is in your production pipeline. We're gonna get there. And if we can get to 50%, we can drive that up close to 100%.
SARAH HARMAN: So, with the near-term goals identified, let’s adjust our view and look at the macro issue of sustainability over the course of 20, 30, even 100 years. How do we get to a place where technology can keep up with the long-term pressure of continued growth, while making seemingly smaller, incremental improvements to battery technology and density?
SARAH HARMAN: To answer those questions, we turn to Venkat Srinivasan, director of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science at Argonne National Laboratory.
Venkat Srinivasan: Even though this is the one observation a lot of people, as you were pointing out, will observe saying, hey, it's been 30 years seems like you guys are improving batteries by five percent and six percent. That is correct. Battery, in general, the energy density improves by maybe five to six percent. But if you kind of think about it, right, how do you sustain that for 30 years, you sustained that for 30 years because you're constantly doing the R&D in the background. So that five years from today, that R&D becomes the one that got you the next 5%.
SARAH HARMAN: Think of that compounding increase like a 401k investment plan: every year, a five percent increase compounds on top of the previous increases resulting in a higher yield. If you continue to contribute money, or in the case of batteries - R&D, that compounded investment will pay increasing dividends.
Venkat Srinivasan: People like us dream about this thing, right? Where you have that sort of leapfrog that happens one day, and that can be hard, right leapfrogs can happen in the lab, sometimes it takes a longer time to happen in the market, because a leapfrog often means somebody has to get $5 billion of investment to build a factory to compete against the previous $5 billion investment. And sometimes those can be challenging, you have to de-risk the investment. And you have to ensure that you're building small factories, and then making it slightly larger, and ultimately making it into something that is a giga factory. Those take time, right. So even though you can have leapfrogs, that could happen in a lab environment, it does look incremental by the time you finish it, partly because of just the time constants involved. But I would not view incremental changes, meaning things are static, it just means that there is something happening that is feeding that pipeline to continue that incremental improvement every year. And we've been doing that for 30 years.
SARAH HARMAN: And so, as we continue to make incremental improvements in capacity, density, and production, we’re starting to see battery technology that is cleaner, cheaper, and much closer to the goal of net zero emissions.
Venkat Srinivasan: You have to compare yourself in the beginning to what you're doing today. And we are doing better than the fossil fuel way of doing things. But that doesn't mean we just say we're done, right? We have to do even better. And that's really the focus of what you know, I think we should be all taking off. And I think that that conversation is happening. All right, how do we get even better, so that we ultimately get to a complete carbon free way of battery manufacturing? You know, with the modern materials and all that.
SARAH HARMAN: A goal to “do better,” also means addressing the social and environmental inequities that continue to persist in and around battery manufacturing and use.
Mallory Clites: There's strong concern that these, you know, newer projects wouldn't benefit historically, the people that don't get benefit from them in the first place, in the areas where that mineral is being extracted. And, you know, what we're seeing today in the way that the supply chain for batteries currently is that all that extraction is being done kind of in international locations, where environmental standards are lower than they are in the US, and where the concern over environmental justice is not as strong as it is in the US.
SARAH HARMAN: That’s Dr. Mallory Clites. She works in the Manufacturing Energy Supply Chains Office here at DOE as a supply chain deployment manager.
SARAH HARMAN: So, the challenge becomes: How do we ethically push toward a clean energy future?
SARAH HARMAN: On one hand, solving the climate crisis is absolutely necessary, but on the other hand, we must acknowledge that the “old way” of doing business isn’t sustainable.
Mallory Clites: Department of Energy at large, has been trying to work on this issue. There are, you know, working groups within this realm of energy to kind of go to, you know, tribal communities that have historically not benefited from the extraction that's happened on their land. And there's been, you know, working groups with local communities in California and Nevada State groups as well, that are participating in those conversations with the local communities. And when we are in our office, did the first round of the battery materials and manufacturing grants, we required within those applications, community benefits plans, and also environmental impact plans. And so in this community benefit plans, you know, it was to work towards that energy, Justice 40 initiative, that is an initiative of the administration.
SARAH HARMAN: President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative is an environmental justice goal that aims to give 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain climate and clean energy investments back to the communities marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.
SARAH HARMAN: DOE’s Office of Energy Justice and Equity identified eight policy priorities to guide the implementation of Justice40. The priorities comprise of, decreasing the environmental exposure and energy burdens for disadvantaged communities.
SARAH HARMAN: Increasing equality in clean energy technology access, for example, solar or energy storage within the communities.
SARAH HARMAN: Also increasing access to low-cost capital, clean energy jobs and job training for individuals from disadvantaged communities. And finally, growing energy resiliency and energy democracy.
Mallory Clites: And so we were working to, you know, require companies that came to us with their proposals to also give us the proposal to support the communities that they were going to be existing in, and to, you know, give back 40% of that, you know, profit that they're talking about, whether it be in, you know, money or whether it be benefits to the community at large, so training programs, scholarships, you know, union support, and so how were they going to work with the communities that they were going to be engaging in.
SARAH HARMAN: The required Community Benefits Plans Dr. Clites mentioned are based on four core policy priorities: Engaging communities and labor; Investing in America’s workforce; Advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility; and Implementing the Justice40 Initiative. Incorporating these key principles into project proposals will help ensure broadly shared prosperity in the clean energy transition.
SARAH HARMAN: Achieving President Biden’s ambitious clean energy goals has never been more critical than it is today. But with the support of strong policy and cutting-edge science, the Department of Energy continues its work to secure our clean energy future.
SARAH HARMAN: That’s it for another episode of Direct Current! Many thanks to our guests, Michael Berube, Venkat Srinivasan, and Mallory Clites, for lending their expertise.
SARAH HARMAN: If you want to learn more about the present and future of battery technology, check out our show notes. You can find those, along with our other episodes, at energy.gov/podcast.
SARAH HARMAN: Direct Current, and our episode artwork, is produced by me, Sarah Harman. This episode was written by Matt Dozier, Sarah Harman and Keith Langsdorf. Music and sound editing by Michael Stewart.
SARAH HARMAN: This is a production of the U.S. Department of Energy and published from our nation’s capital in Washington, D.C. Thanks for listening!
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