May Round Up 2025

Jun 04, 2025

We are 5/12 through 2025 and the stories don’t stop. Here’s what caught our eye in May.

🛢️ Oil Party in the USA

The US Department of Energy has cancelled 24 grants worth $3.7bn, mostly in Republican-led states, following a review process that cancelled any grants that ‘did not meet the economic, national security or energy security standards necessary to sustain DOE’s investment.’

The two largest $500mill cancelled grants are for carbon capture at cement plants, and also included are other critical minerals based projects. The Trump administration is attempting to revive American manufacturing using import tariffs rather than grants, which many are calling ‘shortsighted’ and ‘giving away the future of manufacturing.’ This dismantling also represents something darker for the fossil-fuel dependent communities, as the Biden-era policy of creating economic diversification is completely removed, and these communities are left entirely at the mercy of fossil fuel production fluctuations.

On May 22, 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the partisan budget bill, which substantially repeals nearly all of the tax credits in the 2022 IRA to support clean electricity, fuels, vehicles and manufacturing. The ‘Big Beautiful Bill’, which still needs to pass the senate, will reportedly raise energy costs for all American households by 7% in 2035, a material value of $230. This represents one of the worst possible scenario detailed in this paper which modelled the full repeal of the IRA sceniaro, and predicts an end to the US manufacturing boom.

Trump's likely first moves on US energy policy | Reuters

♻️ End of Li-Cycle

Canadian US recycling giant Li-Cycle has filed for bankruptcy. They are looking for a buyer, and reportedly Glencore is interested, but has not yet instigated a full takeover.

Black mass was supposed to be recycled in the Li-Cycle facility in Greece (which for those not based in the US, turns out to be a suburb of Rochester, New York State and not the Mediterranean), after batteries were shredded at ‘spoke’ facilities in other states. However, whilst the spoke facilities were built and can now shred up to 40 kt of batteries a year, the construction of the hub was paused in October 2023 due to runaway costs. The project was never restarted, despite a loan from the Biden administration, but without matching private funding Li-Cycle was never able to access that money. The Rochester hub would have been a key generator of value, creating the starting materials to form the basis of a US supply chain for pCAM and CAM.

We wrote about US recycling start ups back in April 2024, and at the time the map for Li-Cycle, Ascend Elements and Redwood looked like this. The map is rewritten, once again…

Powin Powers Down

Portland based BESS installer Powin has warned it is at risk of closing by the end of July if the present situation continues.

Powin reportedly had the ‘third most GWh of batteries installed in the US in 2024’. That same year CATL filed a complaint for missed payments totalling $44 million. Not producing their own cells has definitely proved to be a key weakness compared to other BESS providers, who are better placed to compete in terms of product adaptability, and financially.

American LFP

LG & Samsung SDI Pivot to LFP Production for General Motors EVs

LG Energy Systems and Samsung, suppliers for General Motors, are reportedly bringing LFP production to America. This is part of GM looking to other chemistries to lower the cost of their cars. The Samsung/GM joint venture in Indiana will retrofit part of the NMC prismatic production for LFP cells. LG will do the same to its Ohio and Tennesse factories. The LFP batteries should save up to $6,000 on one model of their EVs compared to NMC.

Tesla has also recently announced plans to onshore LFP in the US, in a patent which combines LFP with LMFP.

This podcast interviews LG Energy’s Bob Lee about all things tariffs, LFP and the company’s plans, and it’s a good listen.

🥔The Swede we can’t stop talking about

Northvolt: Peter Carlsson to be charged after fatal accident

Peter Carlsson, former CEO of Northvolt, has raised at least €5m for a new company, Aris Machina, founded with Northvolt’s former VP of Software Engineering & AI Siddharth Khullar. The company jumps on the AI hype aiming to improve manufacturing processes. The raise has been met with mixed reactions, particularly considering that Northvolt had roughly $5.8 billion worth of debt at its end. As former CEO, much of the responsibility must inevitably fall to Carlsson. You’d have thought that would bury most mere mortals, but Carlsson is back with more funding.

He has also being questioned by the police over a death of a 25 year old following an explosion in 2023 at the factory. Northvolt will be ceasing production in Skelleftea at the end of June if no buyer is found by then. Norran spoke to him for a longer interview piece, well worth a read.

🍬 Tidbits

💊 Zn/MnO2 battery used for local electrochemical immunotherapy may offer a drug-free cancer immunotherapy, according to a new Science paper.

🔋 AESC has secured £680m from the UK government and £320m in private finance and equity to further build out the plant in Sunderland in the North East of the UK. When finished it will provide 15.8 GWh of supply at full capacity.

🧂 Oregon redox flow company ESS Tech narrowly avoided bankruptcy following an ‘unexpected infusion of funding’ that will keep it operating in the short term. It had announced 2 days previously that it was planning to clsoe it Wilsonville HQ.

🚗 BMW and Solid Power are testing prismatic solid state batteries in a BMW i7.

🎧 What else we're reading and listening to

📝 We had a packed month with a piece on Green jobs and why they matter, three pieces covering Novel Operational Strategies to Enhance Battery Performance (1, 2 and 3) covering acoustics and magnetism, and sizing off grid set ups on Doing my BESS to stay online.