General Discussions, page-19778

Interesting article in the Washington post. Most if not all LTH will be aware and this will be just another article discussing graphite's future direction. Nevertheless, it's a good read.

Can be found here: America’s EV Ambitions Need a Graphite Plan. Fast. - The Washington Post

Key points

• Americas EV manufacturers need a fast plan to capture shortfall in graphite production fast. Most of the worlds supply is currently sourced from China
• Biden has invoked the Defense Production Act to boost domestic sources of battery minerals along with the Inflation Reduction Act to localize production of key elements domestically or through its partners with the aim to wrest control of clean technology supply chains away from China
• The average battery contains way more graphite than Lithium, it’s the biggest input by weight.
• A typical 60 kilowatt-hour EV battery might hold 160 pounds of graphite compared with ~ 20 pounds of lithium
• The exact mix of other metals such as cobalt and nickel in the other electrode — the cathode — may change, graphite’s place in the anode is more or less fixed.
• China’s grip on graphite is even tighter than it is for lithium. China only dominates Lithium processing, not mining. In graphite, China is virtually inescapable. It accounts for more than two-thirds of natural graphite mining; about 60% of synthetic graphite production (an alternative made from oil by-products); and virtually 100% of coated spherical graphite, or CSG, production, the processed form suited to anodes. China also accounts for 98% of announced anode-manufacturing capacity expansions through 2030.
• The U.S didn't produce enough graphite in 2022 to fill a pencil. The US hasn’t mined any since the 1950s. Even if it had, all that raw material would need to be shipped to China for processing.
• Biden’s targets, and automakers’ investment plans, require millions of EVs to be sold each year in the U.S, ultimately taking over the entire US market within a decade or two. Many millions more will be sold worldwide.
• Just one million EVs, assuming a 60 kilowatt-hour battery in each, requires almost 80,000 tons of graphite. U.S total demand in 2022 was just 72,000 tons, batteries or otherwise.
• Global demand for flake graphite — the natural grade best suited for anodes — is projected by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence to rise more than threefold by 2030, to 4.1 million tonnes.
• A yawning graphite gap threatens to develop quickly; something seemingly not yet reflected in prices, as used to be the case with lithium before fears of shortages took hold. A US Geological Survey of large domestic graphite deposits has indicated a total resource — that is, the most generous estimate — of 11.9 million tonnes
• Processing graphite for anodes, either natural or synthetic, is energy intensive. Coating natural graphite involves blasting it in furnaces at more than 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Synthetic graphite, meanwhile, is not only derived from oil but undergoes several high-temperature processes to convert that byproduct into graphite powder. Relying on China, whose power sector accounts for a third of the world’s entire coal consumption, is not ideal.
• A conclusion to draw here is that, in the near term, dependence on Chinese graphite, especially processing the stuff, is baked in however, globalization is going out of fashion. Even discounting the geopolitics, China’s carbon intensity jars with the ultimate goal - decarbonization.

There's a little bit more to the article that is also interesting, link up top of this post.

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