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Even before the Biden Administration announced the “most aggressive” plan to curb tailpipe emissions to date with new vehicle pollution standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last month, automotive OEMs and Tier 1 suppliers were facing difficulties getting both the parts and raw materials needed for their electric vehicle (EV) components.

The newly proposed rules requiring automakers to reduce carbon emissions by 56% in their 2032 models compared to 2026 models will only add fuel to the fire at a time when geopolitical and trade tensions between the United States and our allies on one hand, and China on the other are soaring.

Recent policy developments, such as the Biden Administration’s invoking of the Defense Production Act (DPA) for the five “battery criticals” — graphite, lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese –  as well as the rare earths, declared DPA priority materials during the Trump Administration, plus the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the energy provisions of which contained EV tax credits observers said would send important signals to investors and industry that the U.S. was serious about domestic supply chains, have provided hope for a positive change, but, as ARPN pointed out recently, “after decades of dwindling domestic resource production and rising import reliance, no one ever said turning an aircraft carrier this size would be easy.”  

Lithium has, to an extent, become the poster child of the push to strengthen EV battery supply chains – after all, it’s mostly “Lithium-ion” batteries we’re talking about. Concerns are certainly well-founded with material shortages for lithium predicted to hit in just a few short years, but a recent Autoweek story and interview with Graphex Technologies CEO John DeMaio outlines “another serious material issue on the horizon: graphite sourcing.”  

As ARPN has previously argued, while much of the focus has been on the cathode of the EV battery, the anode warrants a close look, and may in fact be our “Achilles heel when it comes to building out a battery supply chain independent of China.”

DeMaio explains:

“As far as the percentage of the components in a battery cell, almost the entire anode is graphite. So that makes graphite about 45% of the individual cell.

On a total component basis for an EV battery, graphite is about 25% to 28% of the whole thing. It’s by far the largest component by volume and mass in the battery. And people don’t realize that a lithium-ion battery is sometimes up to 15 times more graphite than lithium. It’s really the unsung player.”

While to date, the supply chain for this “unsung player” is quite firmly dominated by China, the sourcing provisions in the energy passages of the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), coupled with the recently announced grants to “supercharge” U.S. EV battery and electric grid supply chains are important steps towards mitigating that potential single point of failure.

Projects currently underway are expected to qualify for the IRA credits, and ultimately help “domesticate” the graphite supply chain, including Graphex’s pitch coating facility coming online in Michigan, and Graphite One, Inc.’s cooperation with two U.S. national laboratories under the Department of Energy umbrella in an effort to establish an all-American mine-to-manufacturing supply chain. Graphite One, Inc.’s Graphite Creek deposit near Nome, Alaska was recently recognized by the U.S. Geological Survey as the largest U.S. graphite deposit and among the largest in the world.

As DeMaio points out, it’s a “herculean task at hand” because “the United States (…) is so intertwined with China that it’s a little impractical to think we’re going to extract ourselves overnight.”

The challenge becomes even bigger if one considers that, as scholars at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Center have argued “the Biden administration’s efforts to free up federal funds for domestic mining activities has highlighted the inherent conflict between accessing the minerals needed for climate action and the administration’s commitment to environmental and social justice.” 

However herculean the task may be, it is one we cannot shy away from because as ARPN has previously pointed out, lofty goals of net carbon neutrality – and that includes the just-released proposed EPA emission standards –  will not be achievable if we don’t embrace a push to secure critical mineral supply chains from “soup to nuts” to borrow a term used by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

All of which brings us back to what we have noted often at ARPN — the first word in supply chain is… supply.

The time has come for the United States to get “serious about mining critical minerals for green energy,” writes Saleem H. Ali for Nature.

Ali points to the inherent irony of the green energy transition — renewable technologies requiring vast and increasing amounts of metals and minerals like lithium, copper, nickel, cobalt, manganese and REEs, but the U.S. Administration finding itself in a bind with the climate movement, a core part of President Joe Biden’s base, not wanting to mine them, “certainly not close to home.”

Ali cites the January 2023 Boundary Waters decision, in which the U.S. Department of the Interior closed over 350 square miles of the Superior National Forest in northeastern Minnesota – an area that holds some of the nation’s largest undeveloped deposits of copper and nickel but is also known for its pristine lakes — to mineral and geothermal leasing for twenty years.

Arguing that while the “Not In My Backyard” (NIMBY) sentiment has gone global – Ali points to Serbia’s Jadar lithium mining project being stopped in response to environmentalist pressures — the “United States seems particularly stuck.”  

(See ARPN’S coverage of the NIMBY movement here.)

Relying on allies, such as Australia and Canada, and countries with “controversial domestic-labour policies and environmental standards, including Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo” rather than developing its own resources has led to the U.S. yielding to China which has “benefited from the uncompromising US opposition to domestic mining and has built up a formidable dominance in critical metal extraction and processing over the past 30 years.”

Ali notes that while “[m]ining has a sordid history of exploitation and plunder, particularly with respect to Indigenous people,” “contemporary mines with regulatory oversight can have workable impact–benefit agreements with communities,” citing specific examples exemplifying such agreements, including Voisey’s Bay nickel mine in Canada and Red Dog Mine in Alaska, which preferentially employ Indigenous people, respect traditional hunting seasons and include incremental royalties and partial resource ownership.

Ali suggests:

“The country is in danger of forgetting one of the four laws of ecology that Barry Commoner (…) established in his 1971 book A Closing Circle: ‘There is no such thing as a free lunch.’ All industrial activities have some ecological impact. As researchers, and as informed societies, we must consider the benefits and trade-offs in concert.”

adding that

“as the world prepares for the 2023 COP28 climate conference — where even free conference lunches are not really free — the United States should revisit Commoner’s wisdom: there is virtue in embracing tough trade-offs.”

All in all, a welcome if somewhat unexpected proposition coming in an article from (mostly) peer-reviewed Nature.

If we needed any more reminders about the high-stakes nature of our ongoing (see ARPN’s post on the latest USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries report here) deep over-reliance on Chinese-sourced (and/or processed) critical minerals, the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon in U.S. airspace and the subsequent downing of three other unidentified flying objects over Alaska [...]

 For all the talk about reducing our over-reliance on foreign critical mineral resources against the backdrop of soaring demand, strained supply chains and increasing geopolitical tensions, last week’s release of the annual USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries report still paints a sobering picture. While the number of metals and minerals for which the U.S. remains 100% import dependent [...]

Earlier this week, the Biden Administration unveiled a road map for reducing the transportation sector’s carbon emissions to net-zero by 2050. Two weeks into the new year, the green energy transition continues to gain steam.  However, as Morgan D. Bazilian of the Colorado School of Mines and Gregory Brew from the Jackson School of Global Affairs at Yale [...]

  2022 surely was as fast-paced a year as they come. Didn’t we just throw overboard our New Year’s Resolutions?  We blinked, and it’s time for another review of what has happened in the past twelve months. So with no further ado, here is ARPN’s annual attempt to take stock of what has happened on the [...]

As geopolitical tensions continue to mount, and China tightens its reins on its critical mineral supply chains, U.S. policy makers are stepping up their efforts to secure domestic supply chains. The latest case in point: Sen. Dan Sullivan’s (R-Alaska) and Mitt Romney’s (R-Utah) just-introduced “Critical Mineral Independence Act of 2022,” legislation aimed at reducing the United States’ over-reliance on [...]

As the global push towards net zero carbon emissions accelerates, the understanding that critical minerals hold the key to achieving climate goals has grown.   With EV battery technology at the heart of the green energy transition, the “Battery Criticals” (lithium, cobalt, nickel, graphite and manganese) have entered the spotlight.   While initially the main focus was on the cathode materials [...]

While there has been a flurry of activity at the federal level to strengthen U.S. critical mineral supply chains against the backdrop of mounting global and domestic pressures, some of the early proponents of mineral resource policy reform on Capitol Hill are questioning the Biden Administration’s commitment to improving the federal mine permitting process “to help [...]

We’re “on a highway to climate hell.” The picture UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez is painting of current efforts in the climate fight is – expectedly – bleak. As such, it is no surprise that nations have been doubling down on their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the Biden Administration is no exception. Followers of ARPN have [...]