The United States comes after China and Europe in the production of lithium-ion batteries

That would leave the United States dependent on China and other trading partners for much of its battery supplies, a proposition fraught with risks not just for the auto industry but for the military, which plans to electrify more of its vehicles and equipment. It could also mean losing much of the job boom this sector is expected to bring. “This might be a game changer when it comes to jobs, but we have to find a way to ensure that the technology in the United States is preserved and stimulated,” said Venkat Srinivasan, a senior battery expert at Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois, that this will happen, US companies and supporters say. Clean energy, if only the federal government helps coordinate and fund the pressure to boost local manufacturing of batteries and their raw materials, as governments in China, South Korea and Europe are doing. Danny Kennedy, CEO of New Energy Nexus, says: “We are naive in pretending that this will happen without the government dynamism. Its business, “a nonprofit organization in Oakland, California, funds and advises startups. The calls are part of a renewed adoption of industrial policy to help the United States maintain its technological edge in an increasingly competitive global economy. Supporters of federal action say that without it, states are at risk. United States lost another major technological breakthrough – as it did with solar panels and 5G mobile network equipment, thanks to universities and national laboratories. Federally funded, the United States has some of the best early-stage battery research in the world. It also has Tesla, the leading electric vehicle manufacturer that has big plans for domestic battery production. But other countries are doing more to support their battery industries and ensure production jobs remain local. China supports its battery and electric vehicle companies with tens of billions of dollars in government support, including research and development funding, subsidies to manufacturers and funding for battery charging stations. It has also increased demand by subsidizing consumer purchases of electric cars, and by making buyers of gasoline-powered cars wait longer to obtain a license plate. The European Union is also closely involved in supporting the battery sector, after it created a European Battery Alliance in 2017. Which set comprehensive targets for manufacturing and charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Germany requires all petrol stations to provide electric vehicle charging. Last month, the European Commission said it would spend $ 3.5 billion to support Tesla, BMW and other companies to produce more batteries in Europe and help reduce imports from China. Under the Obama administration, the United States provided federal loan guarantees to support hygiene – energy companies including Tesla, which is now one of the world’s most valuable auto companies. It also provided a $ 7,500 tax credit to buy electric cars, but the advantage was limited to 200,000 cars per manufacturer, which is what Tesla and General Motors have already exhausted.Some of that federal support dried up during the Trump administration, in light of intense criticism from conservatives, who rejected clean energy. As a liberal priority. Unlike California, which has adopted numerous incentives and regulations to promote electric cars and renewable energy, the United States has largely left the sector to the free market. President Biden said he would “use everything” that leverages the federal government, from purchasing power, research and development, taxation, trade policy, and investment to “position America as a world leader in the manufacture of electric vehicles and their input materials.” Take the first step by signing an executive order calling for Government agencies, including the US Postal Service, have begun converting their fleets into electric cars. He also pledged to build 500,000 charging stations, review and expand tax exemptions for buyers and tighten fuel economy standards for gas-powered vehicles, which the Trump administration has relaxed. Cabinet members and candidates need to move quickly to create – energy jobs. ”It is better to believe that China is in this game. “They are competing hard,” former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, Biden’s candidate for energy secretary, told a Senate hearing on January 27. “Without a federal partner to make sure we can get these jobs in America, we’re going to lose out globally.” In a meeting with Senators on Thursday to discuss infrastructure investment, Biden warned of the need to compete more effectively with China. He said, “If we don’t move, they’ll eat our lunch.” Also Thursday, the Department of Energy announced new funding of up to $ 100 million for clean energy research, and Doug Campbell, co-founder of battery startup Solid Power in Louisville, Colorado, said the United States should boost tax credits and more. Financial support for companies building manufacturing plants. “One of the cool things that we do here is innovation,” said Campbell, whose company sprang up from the University of Colorado. “But where there is a gap when it comes to the scale of manufacturing. This is where other countries step in and provide some of that capital before the bank wants to rely on it.” “We can choose to step in and lure industry and growth, or we can’t risk giving up all of this abroad,” he added. Solid Power has so far established a limited manufacturing line to produce thousands of cells per year, which are tested by automakers including Ford and BMW, and lithium-ion batteries have arisen from research that won the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The powerful rechargeable batteries first appeared. In Sony video cameras in the early 1990s, they are now used in everything from smartphones and laptops to electric cars, and are essential to harnessing renewable energy, allowing energy companies to store solar and wind energy for use when the sun goes down and the wind stops blowing. Cars, buses, and energy companies use large battery packs that contain thousands of individual battery cells. Sam Jaffe, a battery expert at Cairn Energy Research Advisors in Boulder, said the Pentagon was “very interested in electricity” as a way to reduce fuel costs. Colo, William Aker, executive director of the nonprofit NY-BEST, said that drones and other electronic equipment already run on batteries, and future ships and aircraft may be as well, adding to the need for robust domestic production. Promote the battery business in New York. “If all of our batteries come from Asia and you need them to conduct military operations, that is a very worrying situation,” Aker said. Tesla and its Japanese partner, Panasonic, are making lithium-ion battery cells at a giant plant in Nevada. At Tesla’s “Battery Day” presentation in September, CEO Elon Musk said the company was preparing to build a new battery cell plant that would significantly increase production and cut costs. Musk did not say where the plant is, but in January Tesla tweeted about job vacancies for battery production in Giga Texas, the new Tesla car plant building near Austin, and Musk also said Tesla would begin extracting lithium from a deposit in Nevada to supply the new battery plant. He said that mining would include using salt to extract lithium from piles of dirt, then returning the dirt to its original location, a process he called “environmentally friendly”. Tesla’s goal is to exert control over the entire battery supply chain.From the base, Musk and other executives said on Battery Day that the battery materials to build battery cells, to be fitted directly into Tesla cars, GM and its partner, South Korean LG Chem, began building a battery cell factory in Lordstown, Ohio, last summer would eventually create 1,100 jobs. The plant is part of General Motors’ big campaign to stop selling gas-powered cars and switching to electricity by 2035, which the automaker promoted with a Super Bowl ad starring Will Ferrell, and the Chinese Envision Group gained control of a lithium-ion battery plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, After the Japanese Nissan Nissan battery business was acquired in 2019. The plant manufactures batteries for a factory close to the Nissan LEAF. To increase job creation and to ensure the United States has a safe supply of batteries, it needs to develop industries that mine and refine materials for production, including lithium, says Kennedy, president of New Energy Nexus. China currently dominates much of the trade in these materials, and the United Nations warned in a report last year that some battery-related mining was causing environmental damage. Most of the world’s current lithium supply comes from Latin America, where some mining is causing groundwater depletion, soil pollution and other forms of environmental degradation, the report said. The United Nations described the global boom in electric cars as “great news” to curb greenhouse gases. Emissions, but said the industry should invest in greener mining technologies and better ways to recycle materials from spent batteries, and Kennedy and others point to a startup in Southern California called Lithium Valley that seeks to extract the mineral from the Salton Sea. The project says lithium can be extracted in an environmentally friendly way, as a by-product of geothermal energy production already underway in the region. The California Energy Commission has expressed interest in the idea, and has provided grants for further study of the project. California has also established a committee to study the environmental impact. California is the largest market in the US for electric cars and energy storage batteries for power grids, and “we would now like to do more manufacturing for intermediate steps,” David Hochschild, chair of the California Energy Commission, said in an interview. “We have the end use of electric cars and energy storage, and we have the raw materials, so the vision for Lithium Valley is to have the full supply chain.”