The next big battery material squeeze is old batteries
There’s nowhere near enough scrap to supply recyclers yetis good news for automakers worried about future raw material supplies. But the wave of new factories poses a big risk for the recycling industry itself: there’s nowhere near enough scrap yet to feed them all.
Some are already talking about supplementing their plants with freshly mined material -- a counterintuitive solution given that recycling is intended to be a crucial and environmentally friendly answer to limited mined production of metals like lithium and cobalt. Automakers have been racing to lock in future supplies amid concerns about raw-material shortages that have sent prices spiking in recent months.
There are two main types of recycling feed — old, used-up batteries, and waste material from battery factories. But most EVs being driven now will remain on the road for years and, even when the cars are scrapped, batteries are often sold on for re-use. Battery makers are also cutting waste at their plants, leaving even less material for recyclers.
“In terms of where the scrap is coming from, China is going to be dominating supply,” Benchmark analyst Sarah Colbourn said by phone. “It’s quite an opaque market to understand, but the overwhelming majority of capacity is in China and the volume of scrap available will be higher in China.” “Supply for us is not an issue, we have more batteries than we can typically handle,” Kochhar said. “But there is a question about how that will evolve for the industry as a whole.”
Li-Cycle’s relationship with Glencore could offer a solution if it does run into future shortages, by supplementing waste supplies with raw materials from Glencore’s own mines until scrap volumes finally swell in earnest, Sinha said.approach, with rival recycler Redwood Materials announcing plans for a $3.5 billion battery-chemicals plant in Nevada that will be fed with a combination of mined and recycled raw materials.
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