Sustainability Fieldnotes #01: The Fascinating World of Batteries

Written By Begona Markovic Lopez

You don't need to spend a lot of time learning about the renewable energy industries to figure out that energy storage and retrieval is a huge part of the innovations and problem-solving constantly occurring within the sector. A lot rides on our ability to solve these issues.

When I decided to dive deeper into energy storage, I came face to face with what turned out to become a bit of an obsession: batteries.

Batteries have silently fueled our daily lives since portable electronics became a thing we (or most of us) could no longer live without. They have evolved from their primitive origins into key players in today's tech-driven society. I wonder how many of us use our phones, laptops or electric cars without knowing a thing about the batteries that power them? The hero of the battery story at the moment is the Lithium-Ion batteries. 


The Rise and Issues of Lithium-Ion Batteries

I had no idea that I would find batteries fascinating. I have very little expertise in chemistry but I found myself reading up on various chemical compositions, reading pages of impossible-to-understand reports and listening to quite a few podcasts on the topic.

It was all sparked by a podcast, Bloomberg’s Zero. In Episode 24: High-Octane Capitalism Meets Climate Change with guest Chamath Palihapitiya (Social Capital & the All In Podcast), the whole episode breaks off while battery chemistry is hotly debated.

Ok, I absolutely wanted to listen in on that debate, but since that was not an option, I went on to do my own research. There are several chemistry variations each with its benefit and drawback.

As the host, Akshat Rathi explains: "Lithium is the element that has enabled the explosion of the handheld electronic devices we use today, and the electric car revolution. But within lithium-ion batteries, there are different formulations. And these formulations have meanings beyond just how the battery works.

There's cost, there's also supply chain and ethical implications related to buying the raw materials.

Chamath mentioned iron-based chemistry; he's still talking about a lithium-ion battery, one with a formulation of lithium, iron and phosphorus, the LFP battery. The F stands for Fe which is the chemical symbol of iron. This chemistry is behind one of the cheapest lithium-ion batteries you can buy in the market. That's because the components of an LFP battery are widely available elements.

The other type he mentioned, NMC or NCA batteries, are made with nickel, manganese, cobalt, and aluminium. These metals are more expensive, and they have other problems. The cobalt supply chain, for example, suffers from abusive labour practices. What chemistry a company chooses is a major decision."

Chamath Palihapitiya further adds that "if you move away from these ternary chemistries, and you go from instead of three critical inputs like nickel, manganese and cobalt, which are difficult to source, complicated, terrible supply chains, to LFP, which is basically everywhere [...] I think that that's worth exploring [...]from the perspective of cheaper, faster, better solutions will only happen on LFP, in my opinion."

I understood very little of that exchange, so I began by researching how these batteries work. Lithium-ion batteries function by shuttling lithium ions back and forth between electrodes, a process that's efficiently reversed when charging (I'll admit, some more research was needed to "kind of" grasp all of those concepts too). 

Also, it was personally very hard to move past the cobalt supply chain disaster. However, when I dug deeper, I also realized that it was not just the cobalt supply chain that was an issue.

The extraction of the lithium itself (which mainly occurs in a part of South America referred to as the "lithium triangle") comes with its own sustainability concerns due to the arid nature of this region and its water-intensive nature extraction. From an ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) perspective, the supply chain often overlooks the rights of local communities in the pursuit of these valuable resources.

Towards Ethical Production and Recycling

There are efforts towards sustainable lithium mining and these are gaining momentum, with promising innovations such as waterless extraction. The drive for ethical supply chains is intensifying with a focus on eradicating child labour and human rights abuses, something we seldom tie to owning an electric vehicle or using our computers - and yet to me seem far more alarming than a simple supply chain issue.

This brings me to another key aspect of sustainability which will be recycling and second-life application. These are essential for long term sustainability and will keep materials such as cobalt, mined in very few places on Earth, in circulation internationally so that each country can have its independent deposits reducing the pressure they're exerting on areas of the world that may not be able to defend against the growing demand for virgin materials.

The Future: Emerging Battery Technologies

As we strive to mitigate issues associated with lithium-ion batteries several innovative battery technologies are emerging, each with unique benefits and potential solutions. There are hints that solid-state batteries could provide longer driving ranges to electric vehicles and that flow batteries could stabilize the power grid by storing excess energy produced during peak solar and wind production times.

I am still to deepen my knowledge of solid-state batteries and flow batteries, but coincidentally another episode on Bloomberg’s Zero Podcast (Episode 33: Building a Battery to Replace a Coal Plant) took a look at Iron-Air batteries which I found hopeful and inspiring. It is well worth listening to, not only to find out more about this innovation but because it's always so fascinating to listen to people who think deeply and are creative and innovative when problem-solving.

I learned quite a bit from this conversation, as the host Akshat explains "Multi-day storage is really about money. In principle, you can use any battery to store any amount of electricity you want. But it is currently uneconomical to use lithium-ion batteries to store any more than a few hours' worth of electricity."

This then is one problem facing lithium-ion battery use at a grid utility level, this, and the sustainability and ethical issues previously mentioned.

He continues: "Form Energy’s battery uses iron and air and that means it can be one-seventh the price of today's lithium-ion batteries. That would make it cheap enough to build huge batteries for storing multiple days worth of solar and wind power, which could eliminate the use of most fossil fuel power plants."

I found this intriguing because it's the most frequent objection I come across when reading about renewable energies. 

Mateo Jaramillo, Form Energy's CEO, explains the chemistry behind Form's batteries: "When we talk about energy, we are talking about electrons, right? This is a battery after all. So if people know something about batteries, they probably have heard of lithium-ion batteries. And indeed, that is the name because there is an ion of lithium that in fact is going back and forth from the anode to the cathode. And that is what provides that charge, right? When an electron is either given up or it's given back, the lithium-ion is the one that is conveying that charge. For us, there's no iron ion that's going back and forth. It's a hydroxide. So this is a combination between hydrogen and oxygen. And that is the molecule that is doing the work of either accepting or giving up the electron [...] 

[i]ron in the wild, gives up its electron for free. Essentially, it goes somewhere else, right? And the trick is that we capture that electron in this liquid environment where this hydroxide ion can do the work that we need it to do. 

Billi Woodford, the Chief Technology Officer at Form Energy explains it further: "The analogy here is the rusting reaction. And that reaction is actually practised intentionally in hand warmers. So these small pocket-held devices that you use when it's very cold outside, you want to keep your blood circulating into your fingertips. And those are actually full of a fine iron powder that is rusting. And it's rusting very slowly, and it's generating heat. And so the energy of the rusting reaction in that case is going into heat. 

In our battery, because we separate that and drive it electrochemically rather than just chemically, we can capture that energy as electricity. And I know that because in the very early days of Form, some of the very first iron powders that we tested, I sourced by buying a bunch of hand warmers and cutting them open.”

Scaling such a technology only comes from the drive to, as Mateo Jaramillo puts it, "make that chemistry perform at its highest possible level, at the lowest possible cost."

I'm sure that the future of batteries lies in diversifying battery chemistry and battery uses to ensure long-term sustainability, efficiency and successful energy transition to cleaner energies. 

Towards a New Chapter in the Story of Batteries

As the world shifts toward clean energies, driven by concerns about climate change, geopolitical issues and a desire for a cleaner, healthier environment, we can't ignore that the demand for batteries will increase, making these issues some of the most important, I believe, in our drive for a more sustainable and just future.

There exists (in my opinion) a knee-jerk reaction towards turning away from cars altogether or even reducing energy needs, as solutions to the problems we face. However, there are countless examples of thoughtful, curious, brilliant innovators operating in the sector and I think our energies are better spent in spotlighting them.

By supporting the trailblazing companies and researchers who are pushing the boundaries of energy storage, we can collectively build and cleaner more sustainable world.

I feel there will be quite a few more deep dives into the world of batteries as I keep learning about the green energy and clean tech industries.

I never thought I'd feel excitement when a new podcast episode pops up in my feed dedicated to batteries, but, this is the wealth we gain by deciding to expand our worldview. I, for one, am happy to be perpetually fascinated with batteries from now on.

Begona Markovic Lopez
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