Title: Assessing the feasibility of the Inflation Reduction Act’s EV critical mineral targets
Abstract Electric vehicle batteries contain many internationally sourced critical minerals. Seeking a stable mineral supply, the US Inflation Reduction Act sets a market-value-based target for battery critical mineral content. In 2027, for an electric vehicle to be tax-credit eligible, 80% of the market value of critical minerals in its battery must be sourced domestically or from US free-trade partners. We determined that the target may be achievable for fully electric vehicles with nickel cobalt aluminium cathode batteries, but achieving the target with lithium iron phosphate and nickel cobalt manganese batteries would be challenging. We also note that a mass-based target could avoid some of the challenges posed by a market-value target, such as volatile market prices. We further conclude that the approach the Act has taken ignores the environmental effects of mining, non-critical minerals supply, support for recycling and definitions that avoid gamesmanship. more »« less
Robson, Sarah; Alharbi, A.; Gao, W; Khodaei, A; Alsaidan, I.
(, 2021 IEEE Green Technologies Conference)
null
(Ed.)
The high cost and growing environmental concerns surrounding lithium-ion batteries have motivated research into extending the life of electric vehicle(EV) batteries by repurposing them for second life grid applications. The incorporation of repurposed electric vehicle batteries (REVBs) has the potential to decrease the overall cost of new battery energy storage systems (BESS) and extend the useful life of the materials. This paper focuses on maximizing daily profit that can be made from REVBs by stacking two grid services such as frequency regulation and energy arbitrage while minimizing battery capital cost by using second life EV batteries. A model for battery management with stacked frequency regulation and energy arbitrage is developed and tested using PJM market data. A mixed integer linear programming (MILP) is used to solve the optimization problem. It is found that REVBs can generate higher net profits than a new BESS.
On August 7-8, 2024, the Thomas J. O’Keefe Institute for Sustainable Supply of Strategic Minerals at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) hosted the fourth annual workshop on ‘Resilient Supply of Critical Minerals’. The workshop was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and was attended by 212 participants. 143 participants attended the workshop in-person in the Havener Center on the Missouri S&T campus in Rolla, Missouri, USA. Another 69 participants attended online via Zoom. Twenty participants (including 12 students and 4 early career researchers) received travel support through the NSF grant to attend the conference in Rolla. Out of the workshop 212 participants, 199 stated their sectors of employment during registration showing that 88 participants were from academia (34 students), 58 from the private sector and 53 from government agencies. The workshop was followed by a post-workshop field trip to US Strategic Minerals (formerly Missouri Cobalt) in southeast Missouri that was attended by 18 workshop participants from academia (n=11; including 4 students) and the private sector (n=7). Four topical sessions were covered during the workshop: A. The Critical Mineral Potential of the USA: Evaluation of existing, and exploration for new resources. B. Critical Minerals Workforce Development: How to grow the US critical minerals workforce. C. Critical Mineral Processing and Recycling: Maximizing critical mineral recovery from existing production streams. D. Critical Mineral Policy and Supply Chain Economics: Reshoring critical mineral production. The topical sessions were composed of two keynote lectures and complemented by oral and poster presentations by the workshop participants, as well as a 30-minute open discussion at the end of each topical session. Breakout sessions that concluded each day discussed: • Can mining lead the new materials future? • Critical minerals research: where to go from here? • Should the Bureau of Mines be restored? Discussions during the workshop highlighted, for example, that: (i) Mining companies need to better address downstream needs and develop company cultures inclusive of younger generations; (ii) Although funding opportunities over the past year’s started to make a difference for critical minerals supply chain resilience, additional funding that is aimed at strengthening academia – private sector partnerships as well as international collaborations is needed to ensure a long-term impact; (iii) The majority of participants would welcome the reestablishment of the Bureau of Mines, although no consensus was reached on its potential responsibilities. This workshop report provides a detailed summary of the workshop demographics and discussions.
Hydrothermal systems are areas in which heated fluids and organic molecules rush through basaltic material rich in metals and minerals. By studying malononitrile and acetonitrile, we examine the effects of metal and mineral nanoparticles on nitrile compounds in anoxic, hydrothermal conditions representing a prebiotic environment of early Earth. Polymerization, reduction, cyclization, and a phenomenon colloquially known as ‘chemical gardening’ (structure building via reprecipitation of metal compounds or complexing with organics) are all potential outcomes with the addition of metals and minerals. Reduction occurs with the addition of rhodium (Rh) or iron (II) sulfide (FeS), with positive identification of ethanol and ethylamine forming from acetonitrile reduction. We find that polymerization and insoluble product formation were associated with oxide minerals, metallic nickel (Ni), and metallic cobalt (Co) acting as catalysts. Oxide minerals strongly promoted polymerization into insoluble, tar-like products of nitriles. FeS, iron-nickel alloy (FeNi), and rhodium are unique cases that appear to act as reagents by actively participating in chemical gardening without returning to their initial state. Further, FeS tentatively had a phase change into the mineral parabutlerite. This research aims to identify metals and metal minerals that could best serve nitrile catalysis and reactions on early Earth.
Zhao, Yixin; Behdad, Sara
(, the ASME Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC))
Electric vehicles (EVs) are spreading rapidly in the market due to their better responsiveness and environmental friendliness. An accurate diagnosis of EV battery status from operational data is necessary to ensure reliability, minimize maintenance costs, and improve sustainability. This paper presents a deep learning approach based on the long short-term memory network (LSTM) to estimate the state of health (SOH) and degradation of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles without prior knowledge of the complex degradation mechanisms. Our results are demonstrated on the open-source NASA Randomized Battery Usage Dataset with batteries aging under changing operating conditions. The randomized discharge data can better represent practical battery usage. The study provides additional end-of-use suggestions, including continued use, remanufacturing/repurposing, recycling, and disposal; for battery management dependent on the predicted battery status. The suggested replacement point is proposed to avoid a sharp degradation phase of the battery to prevent a significant loss of active material on the electrodes. This facilitates the remanufacturing/repurposing process for the replaced battery, thereby extending the battery's life for secondary use at a lower cost. The prediction model provides a tool for customers and the battery second use industry to handle their EV battery properly to get the best economy and system reliability compromise.
Cathles, LM; Simon, AC
(, International Energy Forum)
Electric vehicles (EVs) require substantially more copper and other metals than conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. For example, manufacture of an ICE automobile requires 24 kg copper whereas manufacture of an EV requires 60 kg. Many have expressed concern that the lack of critical mineral resources may not allow full electrification of the global vehicle transportation fleet, and the vehicle electrification resource demand is just a small part of that needed for the transition. By displaying both demand and mine production in full historical context we show that copper resources are available, but 100% manufacture of EVs by 2035 requires unprecedented rates of mine production. The 100% EV target not only requires significant extra copper for battery manufacture, but also more copper for grid upgrades to support charging, while hybrid electric vehicles do not require extra grid capacity. Under today’s policy settings for copper mining, it is highly unlikely that there will be sufficient additional new mines to achieve 100% EV by 2035. Policymakers might consider changing the vehicle electrification goal from 100% EV to 100% hybrid manufacture by 2035. This would allow for future output of existing and new copper mines to be used for the developing world to catch up with the developed world in electrification. Life cycle emissions for battery electric vehicles compared with hybrid electric vehicles are comparable with each other. Mining must be recognized as essential, and exploration and responsible copper mine development strongly encouraged.
Trost, Jenna N., and Dunn, Jennifer B. Assessing the feasibility of the Inflation Reduction Act’s EV critical mineral targets. Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10468763. Nature Sustainability 6.6 Web. doi:10.1038/s41893-023-01079-8.
Trost, Jenna N., & Dunn, Jennifer B. Assessing the feasibility of the Inflation Reduction Act’s EV critical mineral targets. Nature Sustainability, 6 (6). Retrieved from https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10468763. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01079-8
@article{osti_10468763,
place = {Country unknown/Code not available},
title = {Assessing the feasibility of the Inflation Reduction Act’s EV critical mineral targets},
url = {https://par.nsf.gov/biblio/10468763},
DOI = {10.1038/s41893-023-01079-8},
abstractNote = {Abstract Electric vehicle batteries contain many internationally sourced critical minerals. Seeking a stable mineral supply, the US Inflation Reduction Act sets a market-value-based target for battery critical mineral content. In 2027, for an electric vehicle to be tax-credit eligible, 80% of the market value of critical minerals in its battery must be sourced domestically or from US free-trade partners. We determined that the target may be achievable for fully electric vehicles with nickel cobalt aluminium cathode batteries, but achieving the target with lithium iron phosphate and nickel cobalt manganese batteries would be challenging. We also note that a mass-based target could avoid some of the challenges posed by a market-value target, such as volatile market prices. We further conclude that the approach the Act has taken ignores the environmental effects of mining, non-critical minerals supply, support for recycling and definitions that avoid gamesmanship.},
journal = {Nature Sustainability},
volume = {6},
number = {6},
publisher = {Nature},
author = {Trost, Jenna N. and Dunn, Jennifer B.},
}
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