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Funding for the projects comes through the Vehicle Technologies Office of the US Department of Energy (DoE) and is part of President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which will deploy $7 billion to strengthen the country’s domestic battery supply chain.
The move builds on $2.8 billion awarded last month for domestic battery processing and component manufacturing and supports Biden’s goal to have electric vehicles (EVs) make up half of all vehicles sales in America by 2030.
Currently, the United States does not produce enough of the critical minerals and battery materials needed to power clean energy technologies.
According to the DoE, if this situation is left unaddressed, the lack of domestic mining, processing, and recycling capacity will hinder clean energy and transportation development and adoption, leaving the United States dependent on foreign supply chains which have in turn struggled with logistics issues.
As a result, the US government has stepped up efforts to require corporations to source critical materials required to meet its net-zero climate goals either from US companies or from countries with which it has trade agreements.
According to the DoE, more than 1.2 million EVs have been sold in the United States since the start of the Biden administration, which is three times the number of EVs on the road before he took office.
“Recycling advanced batteries presents an enormous opportunity for America to support the creation of a secure and resilient domestic battery supply chain to reach our clean energy and transportation future,” said Jennifer Granholm, US Secretary of Energy.
“The historic investments of President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are making it possible for cross-sector collaboration that will fuel America’s technological breakthroughs and eliminate our over reliance on other nations to meet our clean energy goals,” she added.
Projects that have received funding in this round will lead to second-use scale-up demonstrations that integrate end-of-life EV batteries into secondary applications. This includes stationary energy storage systems and projects that focus on advanced materials separation, scale-up, and reintegration of lithium-ion battery materials.
Recycling will play a key role in the growth and success of the energy transition, but will limited material hold back the industry? In Fastmarkets’ latest battery raw materials risk matrix report, we discuss how a lack of recycling material could impact the EV market and provide forecasts for available recycling scrap to 2032.
You can read the full report here, which also includes insights into the other factors at play in the risky road ahead for the EV market.
Visit our dedicated battery raw materials page to discover more insights on the factors at play in the industry in 2022 and beyond.