Faraday x Intercalation Essay Runner Up
This summer, we ran an essay competition with The Faraday Institution Conference. It was based around the prompt ‘Your vision for the battery industry in 2040.’
We hope you enjoyed the first vision of 2040 essay from Sam.
Our honourable mention was Jessica McConnell, Faraday PhD Researcher at the University of Cambridge working on Degradation. Let us know what you think of both!
Batteries are the future. Qualm as much as you want because we do not need to agree quietly. In fact, it is our duty to complain so they improve. Now is when we (everyone) make sure that batteries are responsibly made, used and disposed of, in and for our future. They should be more convenient for us and better for the planet.
The battery industry is met with overwhelming enthusiasm, but unparalleled scrutiny; it is a topic that everyone has an opinion about. This seems justified considering the news surrounding batteries, the impact they are expected to have on our daily lives, and the money being invested.
The funding is largely governmental and heavily supports the strengthening of the UK’s standing in the global battery industry. There is incredible financial backing for the research field to understand the fundamental science governing how to extend battery lifetime and maximise energy density.
In the coming decades the commercial market will likely take over as the main funding source, where money invested will go towards manufacturing spaces, material sourcing, training and hiring people, and ensuring the batteries meet the needs of their intended use. Additionally, funding is necessary to implement policies which ensure only the safest batteries come to market.
All of the above is a lot, and challenging to consider all at once, but it is possible to get an overview of all the time, energy and materials that go into making batteries.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) summarises everything from the mining and transport of materials to the impact of recycling the product. The perfect life cycle would be cyclical, with no waste or unnecessary byproducts needing disposal at any point. However, a perfect life cycle is an exceedingly difficult achievement if you are not Mother Nature. That is not to say that we shouldn’t strive for it. Pursuing the perfect life cycle for batteries (and other products) maintains the attitude that things can always be improved.
Concern lies with the improper management of battery waste. A prime example of poor waste management is that of plastics. Research is emerging about the infiltration of microplastics into natural systems (like the human reproductive system) and their impact on fertility and brain development.
The fear is that batteries have their own version of a microplastic that hasn’t been realised yet. On the sceptical side, I expect that by 2040 we will have an answer as to what this could be. Whether we find the aftereffects in our water, our food or our air, I hope it is found sooner than microplastics were. However, mistakes are something to learn from, and people seem to be taking this offered hindsight from plastics seriously.
We can see this development with the UK’s first industry-scale lithium-ion battery recycling plant opening its doors in the summer of 2023. However,the predicted 48,000 electric vehicle (EV) batteries they will recycle per year makes a small dent in the 1.1 million EVs currently on the road, and an even smaller dent in the forecast 25.5 million by 2040.
Between now and 2040, we would need to see hundreds more recycling facilities open their doors to combat these numbers. Many people use their personal vehicles for short trips, and their cars spend most of the time parked. Inspired by the e-bike stations popping up around the country, a similar idea for car rentals could be used, reducing total private car demands.
Alternatively, the industry and the government could focus on the attraction and accessibility of public EV buses and trains. One double-decker bus could remove around 70 cars from the road, which is about 70 fewer batteries manufactured and requiring recycling. Once no longer useful in EVs, batteries can be given a second-life as stationary storage for excess renewable energy. A large bus battery would be highly efficient in this role.
The out-of-the-box thinking being utilised for batteries suggests that many technological advances could rise and grow out of the path it has forged. In research, we regularly see that great discoveries aren’t the result of perfectly planned-out experiments, but often the product of an unexpected result or failure attracting the attention of a curious scientist. There is always plenty to discover in every field; an accidental contamination, challenging assumed knowledge, or going off-piste in the lab can lead to world-changing discoveries.
Scientists side-tracking from the written goal to scratch itches in their brains have changed our daily lives. Fleming’s discovery of penicillin is a great example, while lesser-known discoveries include the adhesive on Post-it notes (a failed attempt to make the world’s strongest adhesive) and the microwave (a scientist noticing the chocolate bar in his pocket melted when he was studying radar waves).
It is exciting to think what next crucial technology will bloom in the wake of the battery industry. Innovation could come from including new, more abundant materials (sand and seaweed are already being studied), by making batteries go places they could not before (edible batteries allow for ingestible medical care) or by making them mechanically marvellous (stretchy or able to withstand high-pressures). Once the bent edges are ironed out, it would not be surprising for batteries to offer us more freedom in our interstellar exploration; they are already taking us into orbit. Charging the spaceship from the nearest sun rather than the Tesla charge point does appeal.
All of this is a result of curious minds seeking answers. The battery industry right now is offering answers to questions and opportunities to discover for the inquisitive mind. However, in a few decades, as the research matures, the sector is less likely to draw the same volume of curious individuals. The curiosity draw will have weakened, and the draw of job opportunity and attractive pay will have taken over. This is not a criticism, but the more knowledge, the more industry engagement. There is just less to learn and more to earn, and you cannot blame people for wanting high-paying, secure jobs. We are all human after all.
As humans, we can be notoriously hard to predict and can often be the largest source of error as both the subject and the researcher. EVs need charging points, but it is difficult to predict where they are optimally located (the best spots get rated!). Our variable nature is a serious hurdle for designing the ideal infrastructure for EVs.
Not everyone is a commuter with a driveway at home and time to spare on long shop trips and gym sessions, where their EV can be charged. We cannot ignore the people who work from home, travel to work using their vehicles, or those whose work is their vehicle. What is convenient for one person may not be for another. An EV hire service would only work for some, as there are cases where people cannot give up their personal vehicle.
Migrating to EVs must come with the realisation that convenience is key to convincing people to change their habits. Having to carry around a charging cable and remembering to plug-in your car for hours at a time to prevent being stranded at the side of the M1 is inconvenient.
To improve the accessibility, and in a brilliant show of what the future may hold, Norway unveiled the world’s first wireless charging road in August 2024. This shows Norway’s commitment to their sustainability targets and that the onus is not always on the public to sacrifice their convenience, but that the government has an important part to play too. The UK needs to decide now whether to follow the example set by Norway, a transformation I would like to see, to accommodate the impact the battery industry will have.
By 2040, I hope to see the seemingly impossible decentring of private vehicles as the main transport mode, replaced with an accessible and fluid public transport system. Excess renewable energy stored in some second-life bus batteries from our windy winter storms could be heating our morning showers or our weekend staycations. Battery waste is being combatted and is less of an issue than microplastics because of our preventative action.
I expect to see batteries become an exhausted topic of discussion at the dinner table, in the way that my family doesn’t discuss the benefits of having a refrigerator the way my great-grandparents did. The scramble to produce the cheapest, most sustainable, and most powerful battery has dwindled. The collaborative work across the UK battery sector is witnessing the fruits of its labour.
No more bent edges and cut corners. No bad news of fires, explosions, or toxic gases, because we overcame them. No good news of scientific breakthroughs, new trade deals, or new batteryfactories and recycling centres, because we have made them. I want news in 2040 to focus on what will come after batteries.
🌞 Thanks for reading!
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