Northvolt / first anode customer, page-52

Being the EU, words commonly attributed to MarieAntoinette come to mind
"Let them eat cake"
or
the implication from MT
"let them eat synthetics"

The EU Green Deal does not deliver on the green promise if synthetic graphite is the basis for current Li-Ion batteries. The EU leaders will be rightly mocked. pabs gets the first shot from which they would likely not recover.

I've now watched MT's presentation several times. I thought he was rather pragmatic. Not energetic. Not irritated. Not tired but pragmatic knowing full well that the end justifies the means somehow.

I put together this near as possible transcript... everything italics is Mark Thompson

currently100% anode materials are imported (for EU)

currently 60,000 tpa and needs to increase by 10 timesover next 9 years which was prior to the VW/NorthVolt announcement of plans for240 GWh.


“therequirement to make the green deal happen…”



If one were to propose what would make a good anode for Li-Ion batteries that’s made from graphite, there are 3 things to look out for:

1. It would be based on natural materials where the energy to graphitize the carbon has been done by Mother Nature and so you have savings on energy compared to coal and oil based synthetic based graphite which is currently the case today.

2. You would also be using hydro-power or some other form of sustainable electricity

3. It would have a short supply chain. As we saw with COVID earlier on this year the supply chains are extremely limited in their capacity to deal with disruptions.

The current supply chain for this material is extremely dirty I would say when it comes to emissions. Currently most of the material that’s imported from Asia is synthetic, it contains approximately 90 times the CO2 emissions of what natural material would be produced in North Sweden.
<Aussie> ... the Lass from Northvolt was equally adamant as to where the "green" basis fails ... dirty raw materials cannot make for greenest batteries!


And so MT sums up what Talga is doing with this plea...

We are building a supply of anodes.

We are actually producing the material that would be useddirectly by a battery company.

We are producing it locally.

We have plans to build an EV anode plant which gettingunderway now in Lulea Sweden and our plan would be to have a verticallyintegrated project where we mine graphite from near Kiruna, concentrate it andthen purify and form the anodes near Lulea in Sweden. That is the existingplan.

However, there are other aspects of Talga’s work in theNordics to make this even bigger in future which is we are also a technologycompany, we have our own anode technologies including silicon and solid statewhere we have anodes for those sorts of batteries …

Now is the time for leadership … There has been a lot ofwords and its time for more action frankly. It is not a done deal. While thecapital markets are helping put some funds towards these things, frankly it isa longer process to build these supply chains than it is to build a batteryfactory.

We would now look to the same support that these large companies getwith battery factories and automotive, that also has to apply to SMEs unlessyou want these supply chains to not be built in time and continuously berelying on fully imported materials which unfortunately is currently extremelyhigh emission and so to enable truly greener batteries we must enable a greenersupply chain … and the artic can certainly deliver that if we are given a fairplaying field in which to do so.


"Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way" is a phrase that has been used by many leaders. I think MT also said that just now (more politely). You cannot simply say you want the EU to lead ... you must act and empower those with the resources to deliver on the goal. EU, Sweden, Germany and UK, ... no time like the present!!!