April 2025 & 10k AMA
Here in the UK we’ve just had the hottest 1st May ever recorded. The push for decarbonisation is more important, both for the climate and financially, than ever. Energy storage is a critical mission. Here’s what happened in April.
💎 China, the US and Critical Minerals
The USA has put up to 245% tariffs on some imports from China. In response, China has limited exports of certain rare earth minerals and magnets, While the US has stockpiles of some of these metals, it will be unable to supply its defence contractors indefinitely without an end to this restriction.
Trump has signed another executive order to speed up deep-sea mining in order to try and source domestic versions of these critical minerals. This order is relying on an ‘obscure, decades-old law that allows the federal government to issue seabed mining permits in international waters’ and has received international outcry since it was widely acknowledged that the deep sea is not owned by any particular country.
Regulations from the International Seabed Authority (ISA) for deep sea mining will take a couple more years to finalise, and so The Metals Company has decided to apply for a permit via the US government instead of waiting for the ISA. The US never signed the UN convention on the Law of the Sea, but it is still considered a binding international law that the US is ‘driving a coach and horses through’. Once again the current US administration is pursuing a seeming policy of global isolationism. We’ll be following and updating you on this spicy complicated story as it develops. Notes from the deep have also developed this handy glossary.
Deep sea mining cannot provide graphite, essential to batteries, as many non-Chinese graphite makers are anxious to highlight.
🧂 Nat This Time
The future of sodium ion batteries has been in review this month, with US based company Bedrock Materials pausing development and returning the capital raised to investors in an unexpected twist. The reasons given by CEO Spencer Gore were primarily the crash of prices for both lithium and battery packs, as well as policy uncertainty on EVs. A January Nature paper mentioned by Gore models the scenarios for techno-economic competitiveness of sodium ion against lithium-ion, concluding that sodium ion in the short term will struggle to compete in price against LFP, and would need a breakthrough in energy density to compete.
One of the innovations Bedrock worked on was reducing nickel content in layered oxide cathodes. Despite being lithium free, some critical minerals and critical processing technologies remain a crutch for sodium-ion. Antonio Baclig of Inlyte energy wrote his own critique of such directly LIB analagous sodium ion batteries, rather different architectures which would use much more sodium and remove flammable materials.
In a vote of confidence for Na-ion, CATL launched their Naxtra brand of 175 Wh/kg cells with first systems going toward heavy duty trucking and ultra-cold performance. CATL thinks Na-ion could instead play nice with LFP, showcasing a highly safe hybrid chemistry architecture concept for EVs.
❓ 10k AMA!
You asked, we answered. If you don’t see your question here, we’re probably preparing a full article response…
What are the best blogs, books, podcasts, etc to follow to stay up to date? What are your recommendations? How do you do it? How do you organize all the information?
Our secret sauce is we have a small but mighty team from different parts of the industry who spot different news bits and help tie all the threads together. Admittedly, we are very European and US focused, just because of the geographical nature of our team. We keep haphazard notes throughout the month that we all add to, and at the end of the month one of us will go through and find common themes to write these round ups.
Key podcast recommendations include Transmission by Modo Energy, Catalyst by Shayle Kahn, and Redefining Energy among others.
What's your biggest takeaway from interacting with the Intercalation community?
There’s a real desire out there for approachable science content that looks behind the headlines and hype. Even within an industry like batteries there are so many specialisms such that writing about BMS, AI innovations and geopolitics of materials all for the same newsletter requires finding the middle ground between technical detail and big picture thinking. People want to be able to follow what’s going on across the industry.
We’d love to engage with you all more - if you have any ideas do get in touch.
What are your best tips for continuing to develop engaging content week after week?
As individuals, we’re really passionate about what we each do within the battery ecosystem. We write articles that genuinley fascinate each of us and it’s a pleasure to take readers along to learn together. Our first tip would be to write about things you find interesting and make sure you put a strong narrative through it.
Second tip is to ask lots of questions of lots people. We love chatting to everyone from students to VCs to CEOs and we’re always delighted when someone is kind enough to agree to an interview for our readers.
Finally, we think it’s a real strength to stay flexible in scheduling and be able to publish current and relevant content, as well as having content that is less time sensitive but just as interesting.
🍬 Tidbits
⚡ Spain and Portugal had a major blackout last week. Whilst the initial reason for the frequency drop is unclear, it is clear that Spain’s grid needs more investment and management, particularly in increasing their energy storage capabilities.
🚁 German battery maker CustomCells has filed for insolvency, primarily citing the loss of major customer Lilium.
⬇️ Indian LTO company Log9 is reportedly in dire straits, having laid off the majority of its workforce.
♻️ Lucid has bought the former HQ of Nikola in Arizona for $30 mil. They’re also planning to offer >300 former Nikola employees new jobs.
🛠️ Similarly, Virdi, a US BESS company, has acquired the former Moxion Power HQ in Richmond, California along with a $9.3 mil grant from California Energy Commission.
🍋 Lime has announced a partnership with Redwood Materials to recycle its bike and scooter batteries.
🎧 What else we're reading and listening to
BYD’s 5 minute 400km car charge is here, for customers in China. The serious advances made at both cell, pack and infrastructure level are seriously impressive. Gaël has written a great explainer on super charging, and also CATL’s advancements with pack swapping.
This month Issy wrote about European recycling policy tensions after a chat with Cling Systems.
Al Gore’s initiative to track all greenhouse gas sources on one map - climate trace.
An interesting Nature paper on the need for standardisation and collaboration to translate discoveries into cells.
Journal of Power Sources review of energy consumption in battery manufacturing, identifying the pain point areas in most need of innovation.
🎧 Catalyst with the CEO of Powin: ‘What’s next for the battery storage boom?’
🎧 The Green Blueprint with Drew Baglino, former VP in Tesla: ‘The scrappy beginning of Tesla’
🎧 Catalyst on the geopolitics of rare earth elements
🎥 Youtube video with the CEO of Base Power: The untold economics of home battery storage
🌞 Thanks for reading!
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