[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
PEDAL TO THE METAL:
ELECTRIC VEHICLE BATTERIES
AND THE CRITICAL MINERALS SUPPLY
=======================================================================
FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS
AND OVERSIGHT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE,
AND TECHNOLOGY
OF THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
APRIL 21, 2022
__________
Serial No. 117-53
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
47-349PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas, Chairwoman
ZOE LOFGREN, California FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma,
SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon Ranking Member
AMI BERA, California MO BROOKS, Alabama
HALEY STEVENS, Michigan, BILL POSEY, Florida
Vice Chair RANDY WEBER, Texas
MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey BRIAN BABIN, Texas
JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York ANTHONY GONZALEZ, Ohio
MELANIE A. STANSBURY, New Mexico MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida
BRAD SHERMAN, California JAMES R. BAIRD, Indiana
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida
JERRY McNERNEY, California MIKE GARCIA, California
PAUL TONKO, New York STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
BILL FOSTER, Illinois YOUNG KIM, California
DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey RANDY FEENSTRA, Iowa
DON BEYER, Virginia JAKE LaTURNER, Kansas
CHARLIE CRIST, Florida CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois JAY OBERNOLTE, California
CONOR LAMB, Pennsylvania PETER MEIJER, Michigan
DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina JAKE ELLZEY, TEXAS
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin MIKE CAREY, OHIO
DAN KILDEE, Michigan
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
LIZZIE FLETCHER, Texas
------
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight
HON. BILL FOSTER, Illinois, Chairman
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado JAY OBERNOLTE, California,
AMI BERA, California Ranking Member
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin STEPHANIE I. BICE, Oklahoma
SEAN CASTEN, Illinois MIKE CAREY, OHIO
C O N T E N T S
April 21, 2022
Page
Hearing Charter.................................................. 2
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Bill Foster, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Investigations and Oversight, Committee on Science, Space,
and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.................. 8
Written Statement............................................ 10
Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Chairwoman, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives....................................... 11
Witnesses:
Mr. Nate Baguio, Senior Vice President of Commercial Development,
the Lion Electric Company
Oral Statement............................................... 13
Written Statement............................................ 15
Mr. Chris Nevers, Senior Director of Public Policy, Rivian
Oral Statement............................................... 20
Written Statement............................................ 22
Dr. Venkat Srinivasan, Deputy Director of the Joint Center for
Energy Storage Research (JCESR) and Director of the Argonne
Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS),
Argonne National Laboratory
Oral Statement............................................... 29
Written Statement............................................ 32
Dr. Chibueze Amanchukwu, Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of
Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago
Oral Statement............................................... 41
Written Statement............................................ 43
Discussion....................................................... 49
Appendix: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Venkat Srinivasan, Deputy Director of the Joint Center for
Energy Storage Research (JCESR) and Director of the Argonne
Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS),
Argonne National Laboratory.................................... 74
PEDAL TO THE METAL:
ELECTRIC VEHICLE BATTERIES
AND THE CRITICAL MINERALS SUPPLY
----------
THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2022
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight,
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:08 a.m.
(CST), in the Werch Board Room, Woodridge Village Hall, 5
Village Drive, Woodridge, Illinois, Hon. Bill Foster [Chairman
of the Subcommittee] presiding.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Foster. This hearing will come to order. Without
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recess at any
time, and before I deliver my opening remarks, I wanted to note
that today, the Committee is meeting both in person and
virtually. I want to announce a couple of reminders to the
Members about the conduct of this meeting. First, Members and
staff who are attending in person may choose to be masked, but
it is not a requirement. However, any individuals with
symptoms, a positive test, or exposure to someone with COVID-19
should wear a mask while present. Members attending--who are
attending virtually should keep their video feed on as long as
they are present in the hearing. Members are responsible for
their own microphones, and so, please keep your microphones
muted unless you are speaking. Finally, if Members have
documents they wish to submit for the record, please email them
to the Committee Clerk, whose email address was circulated
prior to the hearing.
Well, good morning to our witnesses and to our attendees.
It's great to be here in a field hearing in Woodridge. I think
the last time I was here was following the tornado, a somewhat
less happy time here, and I'm really proud to be back here in
more pleasant circumstances. I'm thrilled to be meeting on a
transformational technology issue.
The United States has, at last, reached that story tipping
point for affordable, high-quality, electric vehicles (EVs).
The whole world is reaching for their wallets, and the 11th
District of Illinois is answering the call. Rivian is, at this
very moment, ramping up production of electric passenger and
delivery trucks at its factory in Normal, and Lion Electric is
readying for installation of production machinery at its
electric bus factory in Joliet.
I should point out here that battery electric vehicles are
not the only game in town, or more literally in this area, for
low emission fleets. Hyzon Motors is manufacturing hydrogen
fuel cells for commercial vehicles in Bolingbrook, and the
internal combustion industry is not sitting still. Traditional
trucks and buses have been diesel powered with fossil fuels,
which means that they have a higher emissions profile for
nitrous oxides and soot than gasoline-powered vehicles.
Clearflame Engine Technologies in Geneva, in collaboration with
Argonne, has developed low emission diesel engines that run at
full thermodynamic efficiency, powered by low-carbon biofuels
such as corn ethanol, which opens the door not only to low
emissions long haul trucking, but tractors, harvesters, and a
full line of farm equipment that run on fossil fuel free
biofuels that the farm industry itself produces.
So, demand for low emission vehicles is booming, and our
economy--local economy will reap the harvest.
And the clean truck and bus revolution is not just an
opportunity for Illinois, but for a safer climate and cleaner
air around the globe. An electric bus, on one hand, doesn't
really emit anything at all during operations, and allows clean
sources of electrical generation to contribute to
decarbonization of the transportation sector. Electric fleets
will enable massive improvements in urban air quality and help
protect public health. Furthermore, over the life of the
vehicle, the average EV has less than half of the carbon
footprint per passenger mile than the equivalent internal
combustion engine (ICE) vehicle, and the environmental profile
of EVs only gets better over time, as grid operators replace
more and more fossil fuel plants with zero carbon alternatives.
So, there is a lot to be excited about here.
Let us not forget that decades of dedicated research have
led to this moment. It is no accident that the global
transportation sector is changing. Cost-effective, lightweight,
and long duration batteries that last more than a decade are
the key, and they were developed over time by hardworking
scientists and engineers with a very specific vision, many of
them toiling up the street at Argonne National Lab. I am proud
to count some of those friends as my constituents.
But now is not the time to stop innovating. On the
Oversight Subcommittee for the House Science Committee, it is
our responsibility to look into the technology concerns that
could impede progress, and the supply chain for critical
materials that go into an electric vehicle battery: lithium,
cobalt, nickel, graphite, manganese, and others, may be an
enormous technological and cost challenge.
The problem is so large that it has even become obvious to
Elon Musk, who apparently spent a good fraction of yesterday's
earnings call for Tesla complaining about the high cost of
lithium.
Global demand for these critical minerals is surging, along
with electric vehicle sales and projections from automakers.
The numbers are simply eyepopping and because they have more
cells in their products, Rivian, Lion Electric, and other
companies that make big vehicles with big battery packs know
better than anyone how mineral costs are affecting their bottom
line.
Unfortunately, the United States is home to almost no
mineral processing or midstream fabrication for batteries.
China has invested billions in these steps of the supply chain,
and as a result, they hold a lot of the cards right now. One
value proposition of electric vehicles has always been their
potential to loosen our dependence on a global commodity: oil.
Oil prices are out of the U.S.'s control worldwide, so they
create volatility in our economy and harm American families.
Russia's war on Ukraine has brought to light the grave dangers
of our geopolitical dependency on fossil fuels. The last thing
we need is to exchange one form of geopolitical vulnerability
for another. So, we need to focus on alternative battery
chemistries, recycling strategies that can help keep mined
minerals circulating in the economy, and new methods for
extraction and processing that reduce environmental impacts.
I'm a technology optimist. I believe that we can engineer
our way out of this problem, and the U.S. research enterprise
has a lot more battery science breakthroughs up its sleeve. So
many talented scientists, like Dr. Srinivasan and Dr.
Amanchukwu--right? Yes. Thank you. Amanchukwu--are committed--
have committed their professional lives to the battery mineral
supply chain. We have exciting companies like Rivian and Lion
Electric both contributing to that quest, and providing the
demand pull for new innovations.
President Biden has set a goal for 2030 that half of the
cars sold in the United States should be zero emissions and
electric. I want to make sure that the Federal researchers are
laser focused on that goal and deploying all available
resources. I also want the Federal research enterprise to be
thinking beyond 2030. So, I hope that our witnesses today will
be frank in their advice to the Committee and we--as we
appreciate that decarbonizing the global transportation sector
is a matter of urgency. So, I thank the witnesses for joining
us.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Foster follows:]
Good morning to our witnesses and all our attendees. It's
great to be here for a field hearing in Woodridge.
I'm thrilled to be meeting on a transformational technology
issue. The United States has at last reached that storied
``tipping point'' for affordable, high-quality electric
vehicles. The whole world is reaching for their wallets, and
the 11th district of Illinois is answering the call. Rivian is
at this very moment ramping up production of electric passenger
and delivery trucks at its factory in Normal, and Lion Electric
is readying for installation of production machinery at its
electric bus factor in Joliet.
I should point out here that battery electric vehicles
aren't the only game in town--literally, in this town--for low-
emission fleets. Hyzon Motors is manufacturing hydrogen fuel
cells for commercial vehicles in Bolingbrook. Clearflame Engine
Technologies in Geneva has developed a truck powered by low-
carbon biofuels. Demand for low-emission trucks and buses is
booming, and our regional economy will reap the harvest.
But the clean truck and bus revolution is not just an
opportunity for Illinois, but for a safer climate and cleaner
air around the globe. Traditional trucks and buses tend to be
diesel powered, which means they have a higher emissions
profile for nitrous oxides and soot than gasoline-powered
vehicles. An electric bus, on the other hand, doesn't emit
anything at all. Electric fleets will enable massive
improvements in urban air quality and help protect public
health.
Furthermore, over the life of the vehicle, the average EV
has less than half the carbon footprint per passenger mile than
its equivalent internal combustion engine vehicle. And the
environmental profile of EVs only gets better over time as grid
operators replace more and more fossil plants with zero-carbon
alternatives. There's a lot to be excited about.
Let us not forget that decades of dedicated research have
led to this moment. It is no accident that the global
transportation sector is changing. Cost-effective, lightweight,
long-duration batteries that last more than a decade are the
key. And they were developed over time by hardworking
scientists and engineers with a very specific vision, many of
them toiling up the street at Argonne National Lab. I'm proud
to count some of these folks as my constituents.
But now is not the time to stop innovating. On the
Oversight Subcommittee for the House Science Committee, it's
our responsibility to look into technology concerns that could
impede progress. And the supply chain for critical minerals
that go into an electric vehicle battery--lithium, cobalt,
nickel, graphite, manganese--may be an enormous technological
challenge.
Global demand for these critical minerals is surging along
with electric vehicle sales and projections from automakers.
These numbers are simply eye-popping. And because they have
more cells in their products, Rivian, Lion Electric and other
companies that make big vehicles with big battery packs know
better than anyone how much minerals costs affects their bottom
line. Unfortunately, the United States is home to almost no
mineral processing or midstream fabrication for batteries.
China has invested billions in these steps of the supply chain
and as a result, they hold a lot of the cards.
One value proposition of electric vehicles has always been
their potential to loosen our dependence on a global
commodity--oil. Oil prices are out of the U.S.'s control, and
so they create volatility in our economy and harm American
families. Russia's war on Ukraine has brought to light the
grave dangers of our geopolitical dependency on fossil fuels.
The last thing we want is to exchange one form of geopolitical
vulnerability for another. So we need to focus on alternative
battery chemistries, recycling strategies that can help keep
mined minerals circulating in the economy, and new methods for
extraction and processing that reduce environmental impacts.
I am a technology optimist. I believe we can engineer our
way out of this problem. And the U.S. research enterprise has a
lot more battery science breakthroughs up its sleeve. So many
talented scientists, like Dr. Srinivasan and Dr. Amanchukwu,
are committing their professional lives to the battery mineral
supply chain. We have exciting companies like Rivian and Lion
Electric both contributing to that quest and providing the
demand pull for new innovations.
President Biden has set a goal for 2030 that half of the
cars sold in the United States should be electric. I want to
make sure the federal researchers are laser focused on that
goal and deploying all available resources. I also want the
federal research enterprise to be thinking beyond 2030.
I hope our witnesses today will be frank in their advice to
the Committee, as we appreciate that decarbonizing the global
transportation sector is a matter of urgency. I thank the
witnesses for joining us.
Chairman Foster. So, if there are Members who wish to
submit additional opening statements, your statements will be
added to the record at this point.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Johnson follows:]
Globally, electric vehicle demand has tripled in just the
last three years. It is expected to increase another five-fold
by 2030. It's hard to fathom how rapidly the changes are coming
in the transportation sector. We have to be ready to meet the
booming demand for critical minerals that goes along with it.
Unfortunately, the United States is responsible for almost none
of the mineral processing and component fabrication steps in
the EV supply chain. China and Russia have outsized control in
these sectors, and that represents an economic threat to the
United States. Now is the time for a robust, coordinated effort
in the United States to develop new technologies for vehicle
efficiency, minerals extraction and processing, alternative
battery chemistries, and battery recycling and reuse. I am
pleased the Subcommittee on Investigations & Oversight has
taken up such an important topic for today's hearing.
It is impressive for me to see how this corner of Illinois
has taken up the critical minerals challenge. Congress has been
listening to experts like the witnesses before us today. And as
a result, the last few months in Washington have seen a flurry
of policy activity on the EV battery supply chain.
The Energy Act of 2020, which I led for the Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, directed DOE to undertake a
research program on critical material recycling and reuse that
promises to unlock exciting new innovations in the EV battery
space.
In addition, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
that President Biden signed into law this past December was an
enormous leap forward. It includes at least a dozen sections
that address battery materials. It has $3 billion in grant
funding for EV minerals processing, and another $3.3 billion
for EV battery recycling grants. It directs the U.S. Geological
Survey to map potential critical mineral deposits under U.S.
soil. It calls for the National Science Foundation and the
Department of Energy to explore the use of artificial
intelligence for geological exploration. It makes critical
minerals projects eligible for loan guarantees from the
Department of Energy. And earlier this week, DOE made its first
such conditional commitment for a loan to Syrah Technologies to
scale up production of graphite-based battery anode material.
The title of this hearing is ``Pedal to the Metal'' for a
reason. We are not done yet. The Committee on Science, Space,
and Technology has developed two other bills, the DOE Science
for the Future Act and the National Science Foundation for the
Future Act, which would both help advance early stage,
fundamental research in battery science. Both of these bills
passed the House as part of the America COMPETES Act earlier
this year. I am leading the conference committee negotiations
with the Senate, and Subcommittee Chairman Foster is a member
of that committee as well. We intend to come to bipartisan
agreements with the Senate that will help these become law this
year. The DOE Science for the Future Act will authorize new
advanced computing applications for chemistry and materials
science. It will also authorize new money for the Electricity
Storage Research Initiative, which will advance our ability to
control, store, and convert electrical energy to chemical
energy and vice versa.
I am proud of my colleagues in Congress for coming to the
table on a bipartisan basis to tackle this critical technology
challenge. And I hope our witnesses today will tell us how else
we can help.
But I am even more proud of the researchers and innovators
who are out there doing the work at American universities,
national laboratories, and private companies. Texas is here for
the challenge too. My hometown of Dallas has an exciting new
technology start-up called Momentum. Momentum seeks to recycle
lithium-ion batteries using foundational science that was
developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. And they're hoping
to have their first two battery recycling plants in operation
by the end of this year. Down in Houston, a company called
TexPower has developed a new cobalt-free cathode that they say
can go head-to-head with today's battery chemistries, and they
are cooperating with UT-Austin to develop new electrolytes as
well. These are the kinds of innovation stories we need to
repeat over and over in the coming years.
I think we have a golden opportunity here. By redoubling
our innovation efforts on EV minerals, we can not only help
address the global climate crisis, but also regain economic
leadership in the United States in the energy storage sector. I
look forward to hearing from our witnesses about the best next
steps for the federal research enterprise.
I yield back.
Chairman Foster. At this time, I'd like to introduce our
witnesses.
Our first witness is Mr. Nate Baguio. Mr. Baguio is the
Senior Vice President (VP) of Commercial Development at the
Lion Electric Company. He has held positions at Lion as a
leader in electric school bus deployments across North America,
and works to provide a healthy breathing environment to
students, drivers, and communities. Previously, Mr. Baguio has
held leadership roles within various transit projects in Los
Angeles County and in the school transportation sector.
Our next witness is Mr. Chris Nevers. Mr. Nevers is Senior
Director of Public Policy at Rivian. He joined Rivian in
February 2020 to help implement the policies needed to expand
electrification and Rivian's role in creating a sustainable
future. Prior to joining Rivian, Chris was the VP of Energy and
Environment at the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers and
worked in EPA's (Environmental Protection Agency's) Office of
Transportation and Air Quality, and held several roles at
Chrysler. His work focuses on energy, the environment, and
electrification.
Our third witness is Dr. Venkat Srinivasan. Dr. Srinivasan
is the Director of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy
Storage Sciences, or ACCESS, and Deputy Director of the Joint
Center for Energy Storage Research, JCESR, at Argonne National
Lab. His research develops continuum-based models for battery
materials and combines them with experimental characterization
to help design new materials, electrodes, and devices. Dr.
Srinivasan previously served as the Acting Director of the
Batteries for Advanced Transportation Technologies Program and
as a department head and interim director at Lawrence Berkeley
National Lab.
Our fourth witness is Dr. Chibueze Amanchukwu. Dr.
Amanchukwu is a Neubauer Family Assistant Professor at the
Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of
Chicago. His research has focused broadly on sustainable energy
technologies. His team is especially interested in
understanding electrolyte behavior in a wide variety of
electrochemical systems, such as batteries and
electrocatalysis. His work has been recognized with an NSF
(National Science Foundation) career award, an ECS
(Electrochemical Society) Toyota Young Investigator Fellowship,
and the 3M nontenured faculty award.
As our witnesses should know, you will each have five
minutes for your spoken testimony. Your written testimony will
be included in its entirety in the record for the hearing. When
you have all completed your spoken testimony, we will begin
with questions. Each Member will have five minutes to question
the panel.
We will start with Mr. Baguio.
TESTIMONY OF MR. NATE BAGUIO,
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT,
THE LION ELECTRIC COMPANY
Mr. Baguio. Thank you, Chairman Foster, Congressman Casten,
Ranking Member Obernolte, and esteemed Members of the Committee
for inviting me to speak today.
As we meet here in the Land of Lincoln, it reminds me of
something he once said. ``You cannot escape the responsibility
of tomorrow by evading it today.'' Today's discussion about
this historic change in the way our great Nation's
transportation system moves children, passengers, packages,
materials, hauls waste, and important--imports and exports of
goods through some of the world's busiest ports is as critical
an issue as we face today.
With change comes opportunity, an opportunity to take a
direct role in combatting climate change, creating healthy
breathing environments in our communities and workplaces,
reducing our dependence on overseas energy supplies, improving
national security, and reducing the tax burden on our citizens.
Lion is a leading and dedicated to zero emission
manufacturer of all electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicles,
including school buses, urban delivery trucks, refuse trucks,
and shuttle buses. Currently Lion has delivered nearly 600
vehicles in North America, and we are about to open the largest
all-electric medium- and heavy-duty vehicle manufacturing site
in the United States here in Illinois. At full production, this
facility will produce 20,000 all-electric medium- and heavy-
duty vehicles per year made by American workers. This factory
is on schedule to be operational before the end of this year.
The transition to electric vehicles is already well
underway, as EV car sales have more than doubled each of the
past three years, even during the most significant health and
supply chain crisis in our lifetime. Orders at the Lion
Electric over a few years have grown by over 500 percent, with
more expected to come with the Federal Clean School Bus Program
opening in the coming days. This program will help communities
most in need with $500 million in funding for electric school
buses. Funding provided and recently signed into law in the
Infrastructure and Jobs Act will add another $1 billion per
year over the next five years for new, all-electric healthy
school buses for children.
Modern electric school buses have been taking children to
school since 2016, and have been outperforming their fossil
fuel counterparts. On average, the cost to maintain an electric
school bus is 80 percent less than a diesel bus, 60 percent
less costly to fuel. The number of parts to replace, maintain,
or fail in a diesel school bus versus an electric one are
approximately ten to one. The lithium-ion batteries in these
buses have performed well as well. At Lion, we are measuring
less than 1/2 percent degradation available battery energy year
over year from the robust use in wide-ranging climates.
It is important to note that these buses, although very
different technology to diesel, meet or exceed all safety
requirements under Federal law in each of the States in which
they operate.
In order for original equipment manufacturers such as Lion
to continue to provide and grow the availability to EVs in the
U.S. market, a stable supply chain needs to be present. The
manufacturing capacity of vehicles is robust, as is the demand
for these vehicles, but content continues to be based on
volatile sources, even if the vehicles are actually built in
America. It is critical to partner with favorable allies, such
as Canada. The current Canadian Federal budget includes over $2
billion in research for the implementation of funding for
critical mineral mining and processing as well.
Over 90 percent of the lithium-ion battery pack can be
recycled or disposed of sustainably. The Recell Project at the
Argonne National Lab is working to improve this as well. The
goal is to reintroduce minerals and metals back into the supply
chain, do it sustainably, and cost effectively. This continued
research and recycling will be a key part of keeping up with
the demand.
As demand on critical minerals and metals intensifies in
the EV era, a program of encouraging responsible use of these
valuable resources can effectively ease the burden on supply.
The Federal Highway Administration just released results last
month showing that Americans drive less than 40 miles per day.
In very few instances do commuters need maximum range on their
vehicle. The anxiety associated with range and the resulting
strain on the battery supply chain can be offset with robust
investment in charging infrastructure networks and public
education.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit these brief
comments to the Committee, and I invite any questions you may
have for me.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Baguio follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Foster. Thank you, and next is Mr. Nevers.
TESTIMONY OF MR. CHRIS NEVERS,
SENIOR DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC POLICY, RIVIAN
Mr. Nevers. Chairman Foster, Ranking Member Obernolte,
Congressman Casten, and distinguished Members of the
Subcommittee, thank you for the honor of appearing before you
today for this important hearing to discuss ways for the United
States to meet surging demand for battery electric vehicle.
My name is Chris Nevers, and I am the Senior Director of
Public Policy for Rivian Automotive. We submitted written
testimony to address some of the details of this hearing. I
would like to use my oral testimony to touch on the high points
and critical aspects surrounding electric vehicle batteries and
the supply chain.
Rivian is a U.S.-based manufacturer of electric vehicles
and chargers, with vehicle production in Illinois. Our mission
is to keep the world adventurous forever; forever meaning
sustainability, and sustainability in this case meaning the
electrification of all transportation.
The key to accomplishing this mission are the three
vehicles we now produce in Normal, Illinois: the R1T pickup,
the R1S seven-seater SUV, and a commercial delivery van
designed and engineered by Rivian in collaboration with Amazon.
I'll note that the R1T is the first all-electric pickup in the
U.S. and won the 2022 Motor Trend Truck of the Year.
In addition to producing electric vehicles, we have
committed to both decarbonizing our business and helping to
protect critical natural carbon sinks, complementary and
necessary work that is required to address climate change.
We believe the United States must make transportation
electrification a priority to address climate change, remain
globally competitive, and strengthen our national economic
security. We support congressional action to create targeted
incentives, increase efficiency with funding and--funding
deployment and permitting, and overcome unnecessary burdens to
EV adoption such as State level dealer protection laws.
We also applaud Congress for its current action to
strengthen our domestic semiconductor supply, and we encourage
Congress to use its bipartisan work on semiconductors as a
model for addressing our domestic mineral supply chain as well.
As our CEO recently said in a Wall Street Journal article,
``Semiconductors are a small appetizer to what we are about to
feel on battery cells over the next 2 decades.'' Although the
demand for EVs is robust, market penetration will be limited by
supply chain constraints.
The business and consumer value proposition of battery
electric trucks and fleets are enormous, but battery prices
have actually started to rise due to commodity pricing.
Currently battery cell production capacity still represents
perhaps less than 10 percent of what the market will need in
the next 10 years.
To address the growing supply chain constraints, we need a
whole of government approach to address surging critical
mineral demand, starting with increasing and expediting Federal
support for research into exploration, new extraction and
processing methods, alternative battery chemistries, and
recycling. The United States has the mineral resources and
industrial capability to create a fully domestic battery EV
supply chain, as well as world-leading environmental standards
to ensure it is built and operated ethically and responsibly.
There is also strong bipartisan support for increasing existing
Federal investments, accelerating the deployment of funds, and
removing unnecessary barriers to domestic EV adoption and
battery development. These efforts will yield billions in new
investment across America, create thousands of new jobs and
ensure our supply chains continue to outpace consumer demand.
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to any
questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Nevers follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Foster. Thank you, and next is Dr. Srinivasan.
TESTIMONY OF DR. VENKAT SRINIVASAN,
DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE JOINT CENTER
FOR ENERGY STORAGE RESEARCH (JCESR)
AND DIRECTOR OF THE ARGONNE COLLABORATIVE CENTER
FOR ENERGY STORAGE SCIENCE (ACCESS),
ARGONNE NATIONAL LABORATORY
Dr. Srinivasan. Chairman Foster, Congressman Casten, and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me to testify at this important hearing.
My name is Venkat Srinivasan, and I am here representing
Argonne National Lab. Let me start at the most important
message I want to convey. I believe that we are at a unique
moment in time where the United States can become a dominant
force in energy storage technology. We have a once-in-a-
lifetime opportunity to discover, manufacture, and
commercialize next generation storage technologies to enable a
carbon-free economy, ensure our energy security, create
equitable jobs that benefit everyone, and position the U.S. as
a leader in one of the most important technologies in the 21st
century.
Let me elaborate. Over the last--past decade, the cost of
lithium-ion batteries has decreased dramatically by an order of
magnitude. This, in turn, has led to a surge in market demand
with the increasing penetration of electric vehicles and grid
connected storage. We expect the U.S. battery market to
increase by a factor of 20 in the next decade. The growing
demand for batteries has led to significant private capital
flowing into the battery industry, and the Biden Administration
and Congress have sent a clear signal on the need to transition
the country to what is a carbon free economy. This is the good
news.
The bad news is that our country does not have a secure
supply to meet the growing demand. The supply gap stretches
from minerals to materials to cells to packs. A 20-fold
increase in cell manufacturing capacity is not a trivial task
and takes time, money, and deep expertise, and the challenges
get more acute as you move upstream where our country will
continue to depend on complicated global supply chains for the
battery materials and minerals, including cobalt, nickel,
lithium, and graphite. These supply chains are subject to
sudden dips in disruption like we have seen recently. Recycling
should play an important role in bridging this operation gap,
but it remains expensive and undeveloped. The gap is not just
in supply chain, but also extends into the work force that is
sorely missing to build this industry.
Beyond these operation issues, I want to emphasize that we
will still have a technology gap in this space. While lithium-
ion batteries have created a world where EVs are now not a
distant dream but a reality, we still need significantly better
batteries for economy-wide decarbonization.
Let me give you a couple of examples. Electrifying long
haul trucks requires energy density twice that of lithium ion
that we have today, and for electric aviation, it is even
harder, requiring as much as three to five times the energy
density. These dramatic changes are not possible with
incremental improvements to lithium-ion batteries.
In summary, we have a shot-term challenge. We know lithium
ion works for many applications, but we need a secure supply
chain. But we also have a long-term challenge. We need leapfrog
technologies that can enable a sustainable, carbon-free future.
To solve the shot-term challenges, we suggest these five
parallel actions.
First, we should incentivize domestic mining, but do that
with consideration for environmental impact, water, and energy
use. Second, we should perform the R&D (research and
development) to reduce the cost of recycling to enhance our
supply, and do the kinds of research that the ReCell Center at
Argonne is doing. Third, we should expand the research and
development of substitutes for critical materials with emphasis
on earth abundance and U.S. resources. Next, let us prioritize
chemistry-agnostic R&D to ensure that the right battery is used
for the right application, rather than relying on lithium-ion
batteries for all the applications that are out there. Last,
and the final one, we need to establish international
collaborations so that we are working with our allies toward
our common targets.
I want to emphasize that success in these five areas
requires seamless interaction between fundamental science,
applied research and development, and industrial production.
Success will also require coupling the near-term actions that
I've mentioned with a sort of complementary long-term solutions
that can be the basis of a sustainable carbon-free economy. We
need storage that enables deep decarbonization that is also
inherently safe, uses earth-abundant materials, lasts many
decades, and is completely recycled. Such chemistry is not
achievable with incremental improvements in today's lithium-ion
batteries. Rather, a basic science approach that brings new
insights into battery storage, integrates the latest tools,
such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, and
enables actual discovery of novel materials, architectures, and
systems will ensure long-term U.S. leadership in this
technology.
The Federal Government has taken many bold steps in these
directions. I want to call out all of DOE (Department of
Energy) and all of government approach taken in programs of the
Energy Storage Grand Challenge, and organizations like the
Federal Consortium for Advanced Batteries (FCAB) that have
really pushed the boundaries, and I want to call out the Office
of Science with programs such as JCESR that have provided a
pipeline of ideas that can lead to a diversified set of
solutions.
I will close by noting that the United States has a long
and rich history of innovation energy storage, with world-class
expertise in fundamental and applied research. Our country
continues to be a hotbed for entrepreneurship, with vibrant
startup culture. However, we have struggled to translate these
activities to a robust manufacturing base. We now have an
opportunity to do this. We should seize this moment to become
the world's leader in the most important technologies of the
21st century.
Thank you again for giving me the time to speak at this
meeting. I will be happy to answer any questions that you might
have.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Srinivasan follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Foster. Thank you.
Next is Dr. Amanchukwu.
TESTIMONY OF DR. CHIBUEZE AMANCHUKWU,
NEUBAUER FAMILY ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
OF MOLECULAR ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Dr. Amanchukwu. Chairman Foster, Honorable Casten, and all
distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the
invitation.
I am an assistant professor at the Pritzker School of
Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, and I am
honored to join the Committee today at this pivotal moment in
the U.S. energy industry, a moment that could define the next
century.
The renewable energy transition is already upon us, but we
can learn from the past with other energy transitions. The
advent of the internal combustion engine led to the rise of
gasoline as a fuel source. Crude oil was easy to source in the
U.S.; however, as car manufacturing and deployment soared, the
U.S. became an oil importer. Dependence on foreign oil led to
the oil shocks of the 1970's that made the U.S. vulnerable.
Fortunately, innovation in drilling practices, such as
horizontal drilling and proliferation of natural gas set the
U.S. on its path as the world's top oil exporter today.
From this history, it is important to emphasize that
innovation, rather than diversification alone, played a primary
role in regaining U.S.'s energy independence. This history
provides a lens with which to view the challenges that will
arise in the current energy transition.
Innovation focused on alternative battery chemistries
beyond current lithium-ion batteries is the ultimate disruptor
and path to mitigating supply chain challenges and making the
U.S. energy independent. Batteries are complex devices, and can
be broken down into three primary components: the anode, the
electrolytes, and the cathode. Many of the current supply chain
challenges can be tied to the cathode. Promising short-term
research efforts have focused on reducing the cobalt content
and increasing the nickel content in these batteries.
My research group at the University of Chicago has invested
heavily in designing new electrolytes that can allow these
next-generation cathodes to be used. However, nickel will
become an even more critical material; hence, this strategy
works only for the short-term.
Promising long-term research efforts focus on batteries
that do not exist today. My research group is working on some
of these new chemistries. Alternatives that use lithium metal
as the anode have been termed the Holy Grail because they can
double the energy that can be stored. Some battery chemistries
completely eliminate the use of lithium, such as sodium ion,
fluoride ion, calcium and dual ion batteries. However, these
battery chemistries are plagued by lack of suitable
electrolytes and many other challenges, and suffer from poor
understanding of the fundamental mechanism. That is why
continued and increased funding appropriation for basic and
fundamental research through the Department of Energy's Office
of Science and the National Science Foundation is key.
From the discovery of lithium cobalt oxide by University of
Chicago alumnus John Goodenough, to the development of lithium
nickel manganese cobalt oxide NMCs at Argonne, U.S.-based and
U.S.-led innovation in the lithium-ion battery chemistry are
what led to the revolution in energy storage. However, America
lagged in translating these discoveries to the marketplace and
fell behind its counterparts in Europe and Asia.
The recently enacted Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill
acknowledges these challenges and provides funding and
incentives to U.S. companies. Even greater efforts would be
needed to translate future battery discoveries to American
industry. Significant effort must be placed on training the
talent and U.S. work force that will develop next generation
batteries, build those batteries, and manufacture electric
vehicles here in the U.S. This is an area where universities
have historically shone. Training women and under-represented
minorities in battery science and electrochemistry is important
and under-represented minorities in battery science and
electric chemistry is important to ensure that all segments of
U.S. society benefit from the energy transition. A curriculum
that was heavily dominated by the thermochemistry of the past
century will need to transition to electrochemistry for the
next century.
To summarize, as the U.S. ramps up deployment of electric
vehicles and battery manufacturing, it is important that the
U.S. continue to invest in fundamental research to develop
alternative battery chemistries with properties that surpass
that of current lithium ion. This alternative battery chemistry
strategy is the pathway for the U.S. to regain its perch as the
leader in battery technology and lead the world as it
transitions. In the past, the U.S. innovated in batteries but
did not manufacture. Now, we need to manufacture and continue
innovating.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Amanchukwu follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairman Foster. Thank you, and at this point, we will now
begin the first round of questions, and the chair will
recognize himself for five minutes.
Dr. Srinivasan, you described meeting the battery challenge
as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Dr. Amanchukwu said in his
testimony that this moment in energy technology ``could define
the next century.'' The Administration and Congress have heard
this call, and we have been putting a lot of--pulling a lot of
policy levers to help. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs
Act had $7 billion in funding to support EV battery minerals
programs.
Dr. Srinivasan, I mentioned you are familiar with all of
these new funding streams, as Argonne will be a key player in
carrying them out. With those in mind, if you had to identify
one key research frontier that could still use more attention
and resources, what would it be?
Dr. Srinivasan. Thank you, Congressman Foster.
I will maybe point out a priority of three that might be
the most important to think about.
The first one I believe it's very important for us to think
hard about substitutions for nickel and cobalt in these
materials. I think that in the long-term, moving away from
these critical materials is going to be important for us in the
country to maintain the kinds of secure supply chains that we
will need going to the future.
The second, which is maybe equally important, is to ensure
that we are able to buildup the supply chain earlier in
material refining and maybe on to capital and add-on materials.
We do not have that as you pointed in your remarks, and I think
it is important for us to build out that part of the supply
chain to ensure that the many of the cell manufacturing plants
that are coming up in the recent past are able to reach a point
where they can get the supply of the materials from domestic
manufacturing units.
And the last one is, I think, as the next 10 years, I view
recycling as being critically important and incentivizing and
providing the R&D support to make recycling cost effective is
going to be extremely important for us to add to the supply
chain of these materials.
Chairman Foster. Thank you.
Dr. Amanchukwu, do you have a favorite area that you think
could use more effort and attention?
Dr. Amanchukwu. Yes, certainly. Thank you very much,
Congressman Foster.
I think one especially important area is on innovating in
battery chemistries that do not exist today. So, while we are
trying to deploy lithium-ion batteries, there will be the
incentive to focus on solving challenges with lithium-ion
batteries. But we need to anticipate the challenges of the next
10, 20 years, and that often involves funding to the National
Science Foundation and the Office of Science where there is no
current target. So, ``pie in the sky'' ideas for battery
chemistries.
And then the second point is on talent. Who will build
these batteries here in the U.S.? Who will manufacture them?
Who are the scientists that will solve these problems? This is
where efforts, specifically from the Federal Government on
emphasizing battery science and electrochemistry, to make sure
that even with the demand that we anticipate, that the U.S. can
actually build these here in the U.S.
Thank you.
Chairman Foster. Thank you, and you point out that there's
a lot of technological uncertainty in what materials will
become crucial, and so, one of the key and difficult things
that Congress faces is the need to sort of become venture
capitalists and decide which minerals to invest in early.
China has clearly placed a big bet on lithium and first-
generation lithium-ion batteries and won by that early
investment in minerals processing. And so, do you feel that
more could be done to partner with the minerals processing
industry, at least for the minerals that we can see, are likely
to be important, and what are the efficient ways to deploy
Federal resources there to demonstrate new processing
technologies and bring them to market?
Dr. Amanchukwu. I think, one, yes, there are certain
chemistries that will continue to dominate. We know that there
are certain chemistries that will be important. So, lithium,
nickel, cobalt, and the U.S. used to dominate lithium
processing, actually, in the early 1990's until it fell behind
in terms of how to process these cheaply. And so, investing in
companies that already exist as well as fundamental science and
the research to come up with new ideas to process lithium, for
example, will be important for any energy transition that will
go on in the next century.
Dr. Srinivasan. If I can quickly add a comment to this?
One of the reasons why Asian countries were able to move
ahead is because they had a roadmap of where they thought the
market was going to be. I think it's important in the United
States to think about where we think the markets are for the
different transportation sectors and maybe even the good
sector, ask what kind of chemistries might be the answer, three
years from today what do we need, 10 years from today what do
we need, and then start to build out the industrial base that
allows us to meet those targets.
A little bit of that kind of road mapping exercise is going
to be crucial for us as we think about how we are going to
incentivize companies to do the things that will give them a
sustainable, long-term future.
Chairman Foster. Thank you, and my time is up, so I will
now recognize my colleague, Mr. Casten, for five minutes.
Mr. Casten. Thank you so much, Chairman Foster, and I am so
excited to be here. I love that we are having this hearing, and
not only because it's a stone's throw from my house and I got
to see my kids before coming down here today.
I am an entrepreneur, and I sit there and I look at these
numbers I just pulled up--and don't quote me on this, but it's
on the internet so it must be true. 2019 U.S. demand for
passenger electric vehicles, 2.1 million vehicles. 2020, 3.1.
2021, 6.7. We are in this exponential increase in demand, and
all of the concerns that we hear is demand is growing faster
than supply. I love that kind of problem, right? We can solve
that and the fact that we are in Illinois, we have got this
entrepreneurial spirit that we've not only got, you know, the
foundational research that's happened at Argonne and our
universities, University of Chicago, U of I, Lion, Rivian,
the--Navistar up the road. We've got the people who are
building this infrastructure. I go to, you know, the union
halls at IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers)
where they've got the training facilities. We're owning the
future and it's awesome, and I just love that we're doing this.
And so, thank you all for doing what you do and embracing that.
I do--I want to--and by the way, we also are generous. We
don't--we share our wealth in Illinois. One of the first Loan
Program Office investments was for Sierra Technologies down in
Louisiana, so you're welcome, Louisiana. We are sharing with
you.
I want to focus on some of the supply chain issues. I know
we got time for multiple questions, so I probably won't get
through all this first.
But Mr. Nevers, I want to start with you. Your boss talked
about that, you know, we've only got 10 percent of the supply
we need for the chain. I know you've talked about expanding
your supply--your production in the U.S. I wonder, as you think
about the supply chain, we've got basic materials, whether it's
lithium or cobalt, where those are going to come from where the
natural deposits are. We've got, you know, the first stage
processing refining that oftentimes is going to happen close to
the mine, you know, except in unusual situations. How much of
the supply chain do you think you can--you know, we can put in
North America as you think about building this out, and how
much of the supply chain is just naturally going to be
overseas? How do you think about that?
Mr. Nevers. Well, thank you. That's a great question,
Congressman, and I can get back to you with more details there.
I think eventually, of course, depends on where we go with
chemistries is, as the doctors had pointed out earlier on
diversification. We're trying to onshore as much as possible.
Eventually we would like it all, and some of that can be done
with not only looking at some of the Mining Act on the table
right now--of 1872--but allowing and changing how we permit.
For example, right now if someone were to stake a claim,
the only way for locals to voice concern is to basically
litigate. Whereas if you had a--I know we talked earlier about
a road map. But if you went out and actually had a map of where
the resources are and you could sell things to be a lease or
you can get public comment up front, I think if you did that,
you would fill in the supply chain, as it were, at least the
raw material aspect.
As far as--what are they called--midstream, that could all
be done here. We have refineries here doing similar things. We
have the talent here. It's just realizing that, and again, once
the batteries are here, keeping them here. Once they're here,
they're a resource.
I don't know if I answered your question, but I can get
back to you.
Mr. Casten. You know, that's great, and like I said, I know
I am going to run out of time, but Mr. Baguio, I know you guys
are manufacturing in Quebec, right? I'm curious how you think
about the same question.
Mr. Baguio. Yes, we have a saying at Lion Electric
internally that every one year at Lion is like five years
everywhere else. So, when you----
Mr. Casten. I feel the same way about our job.
Mr. Baguio. Yes. So, when you look at what we're doing,
because we are building a battery manufacturing plant just on
the other side of the border in Quebec as well to produce 500
gigawatt hours per year. But that's not enough to feed the
factory we're building right down the street.
So, it's--we are looking for additional domestic sources of
these batteries, and you know, the outlook is good for the next
two, three years from our standpoint of supply chain, but we
can't plan a business in that short term.
So, I think the comment on having a long-term road map with
measurable milestones to know that we're on track is going to
be key to getting this considerable change in the way our
economy works underway. And yes, the first phase is with
lithium ion, and that's a big, lengthy phase. But new
technologies, new chemistries are going to have to back that up
as we start to try to power ships and planes and over the road
trucks.
Mr. Casten. OK. See, I'm out of time, so I yield back.
Chairman Foster. Thank you, and the Chair will now
recognize himself for five minutes.
Mr. Baguio, I guess we all remember the three R's, reduce,
reuse, and recycle. Alternative chemistries will help us reduce
demand for critical materials, and we can hopefully figure out
how to efficiently extract and recycle minerals from the old
battery cells into new ones.
But there's also an opportunity to reuse the entire battery
pack. People are talking about taking batteries out of the EVs
once they're depleted and stacking them up to create a grid
scale energy storage device. Can you talk a little bit more
about what Lion Electric is doing to prepare for vehicle to
grid applications with your batteries?
Mr. Baguio. Yes, absolutely. We have participated in five
V2G, vehicle to grid, pilot programs across the United States,
and recently--as a matter of fact, yesterday--signed an MOU
(memorandum of understanding) with the Department of Energy to
more closely examine the usefulness of these batteries in a
grid application so that once they come out of the battery--out
of the vehicle, I'm sorry, there are other opportunities to
power with other renewable sources such as wind, solar, and
hydro.
Again, if we are taking the batteries from these vehicles
that still have considerable energy resources in them, again,
there are supply chain impacts. You don't have storage
companies looking for brand new lithium ion when there is this
vast resource across all of transportation, not just our
vehicles, to fill that need for stationary storage.
Chairman Foster. Thank you. It sounds like your rate of
degradation of the battery is, you said, one percent per year?
Mr. Baguio. Half of one percent per year.
Chairman Chairman. Half of one percent. That's under normal
use?
Mr. Baguio. That's under normal use.
Chairman Foster. So, it's mostly 200 years before----
Mr. Baguio. And that's----
Chairman Foster [continuing]. Your battery pack is ready to
be sent out to pasture?
Mr. Baguio. We'll see. We're tracking this, but the initial
results are very encouraging.
Chairman Foster. Wow. So, are there other things that the
manufacturers of automobiles and vehicles have to do to
anticipate the recycling? I remember saying, you know, one of
the new innovations in, I think it was Tesla, is to make the
aluminum support frame for the whole thing being filled up with
batteries, and I looked at that and said boy, that's going to
be hard to recycle. Whereas if you have a, you know, a
standalone battery pack that you can just pull out and use, it
will be easier. Are there things that are anticipated or rules
that government could set about ease of recycling that make
sense to contemplate?
Mr. Nevers. Good question. I'll note our battery packs are
modular, so you can take out the individual modules. And what's
great about that is the optionality. So, down the road you
could either choose to recycle or reuse whatever made most
sense for you.
As far as what government could do going forward, Rivian is
for extended producer requirements guided by, actually, the
Federal Government. Instead of having, perhaps, maybe 30, 40,
50 State programs, we could see that coming. That would be a
nightmare on the regulatory side. We're all for zero landfill,
no battery ever going to landfill again. It wouldn't make any
sense to, because they're actually worth something now.
So, I don't know if I answered your question there, but
there are things that you can do, including EPR (extended
producer responsibility) and working with some of the States,
including California and some other States who are already
looking at implementing warranty and battery durability
requirements that we're following closely.
Chairman Foster. Do any of our witnesses know, are there
other countries that are doing a better job of specifying the
recycling ability of things that are hitting the market?
Mr. Nevers. So, right now, the European Union Battery
Directive, which is under review, will set recycling
requirements. Those will be effective probably in the next
couple of years. I will note, we are concerned there that we
don't want to specify maybe--we don't want to specify a mandate
of recycling percentage, just because we don't know how many
recycled batteries are going to be available if they end up
lasting like we expect, 10-plus years. It's going to be a while
before we can get them back and put them into new batteries.
Chairman Foster. So, you would prefer just sort of a
structural requirements on you have to be able to remove the
batteries efficiently, you have to be able to disassemble,
perhaps, the individual cells rather efficiently?
Mr. Nevers. Correct. We look more for extended requirements
on the manufacturer, either battery take back or
responsibility. They're coming anyway. Let's do them
responsibly.
Chairman Foster. Thank you, and my time is nearly up, so I
will now yield the next five minutes to Representative Casten.
Mr. Casten. Thank you.
Dr. Srinivasan, back in my misspent youth I spent a ton of
time working on the GREET (Greenhouse Gases, Regulated
Emissions, and Energy Use in Technologies) model, trying to
understand the impact of, you know, the total well-to-wheels
cost and environmental impacts of various fuel choices.
I wonder if you can speak--you know, we talk in electric
vehicles about the supply chain issues of electric vehicles,
where it comes from, the environmental--as we should. Have you
guys done any analysis of how that compares to conventional
vehicles? You know, my sense is that we also need weird metals
to make an engine block, and on a lifecycle basis, I would
assume that we use a lot more imported material to run a car
for 20 years than we need to run an electric vehicle. That's an
oil joke, for those of you that didn't get it.
Have you guys, within GREET or some other context, can you
speak to the--both in terms of domestic content and
environmental impacts of conventional vehicles versus electric
vehicles?
Dr. Srinivasan. So, the GREET model has looked very
carefully at both the internal combustion engine-based vehicles
and the electrically based engines. I'd have to get back to you
on details of exactly what it says about domestic versus
foreign, but I will note that in general, making an electric
car tends to be more environmentally energy-use wise than a
gasoline car, and that's because much of the energy used goes
into making the battery itself. So, you can imagine making a
battery is a high energy process. There's a lot of high
temperature heating that happens in different stages. Mining
processes also take a lot of energy and refining is actually
oftentimes at high temperatures, which take quite a lot of
heat.
One of the things that we think about quite a bit in the
R&D space when it comes to the refining and the mining and the
making of the materials is how do you make low temperature
routes for those high temperature analogs? Just as an example,
if you have to heat a battery cathode material to 800 degrees
Celsius for many hours to make the actual crystal structure
that you need, you're going to spend the energy by doing it
either from a fossil fuel source or some sort of a hydrogen
source to get that kind of heat that needs to be there.
Instead, if you can find a different process, say, a solution-
based process to make that same cathode material, then all of a
sudden instead of using 800 degrees Celsius, you can decrease
the temperature and that will--significantly, and if you can
get the same characteristics or even better characteristics,
then all of a sudden, the total energy use has come down. So,
there is quite a bit of work but if you try to link what GREET
is telling us about energy use in EV batteries, trying to see
how to develop alternate processes so we can find a way to
decrease the total energy use. And I believe that this concept
has to go upstream all the way to even the refining of
materials where we think about how much energy and water we are
using, so that we can develop new processes.
So, one of the things that we want to do is integrate GREET
into all of the innovations so that we're able to continuously
use that as a metric to understand are we doing better than
existing.
Mr. Casten. Can you compare that, though, because the
domestic content, I expect we'll get back on that, but you
know, it also takes a lot of thermal and electrical energy to
pump oil, to refine oil, to run a cat cracker, to distribute
it, and I'm doing that every time I fill up my tank with oil as
opposed to just when I buy the car and keep it for 13 years or
whatever. How do those--just with conventional manufacturing,
how do those balance out?
Dr. Srinivasan. Conventional manufacturing--electric
vehicle manufacturing is more energy use than conventional
manufacturing without taking into consideration things like
the, you know, the extraction of oil. We're just talking about
making the pack itself. So, then it becomes a question of what
is the primary energy source? Are you going to use oil in one
case or gasoline in one case? Are you using electricity? Where
is the electricity coming from? I think in general, all of us
know that renewable electrons for all electric cars is the best
way to go, but if you can't do that, it's always better to sort
of think about it in terms of going electrification, because we
know that they're going to gain when we drive that electric
car.
Mr. Casten. OK. Well, pivoting there to on the electric
side. I just introduced a bill with Paul Tonko two weeks ago
and I hope we get the appropriations. But I have a concern that
because of this entrepreneurial challenge, we're seeing so much
rising demand for electric vehicles. The--you don't have to
grow very far before we need to build more generation, we need
to build more transmission, we need to build more wires. We
need to build them in the right places, which you know, not
necessarily where the loads are right now. I'm hoping to get
some money to the Department of Energy to fund that, but I'm
curious if you've looked at that and have some sense of--just
in order to meet the market demand we're seeing, how much
supply do we need to add to the grid, and by the way, let's
make sure it's zero carbon supply.
Dr. Srinivasan. Yes, so we've looked to ask the two
scenarios one can think about in the United States. One where
we have a grid across the country with the renewable generation
at different bases and maybe nuclear to add onto that where we
don't have to worry about moving electrons from place to place,
and we can deal with intermittency of renewables. That scenario
is expensive, but also requires us to have State rights, you
know, kind of cross State transmission lines.
If that scenario doesn't work, then we have to go to
distributor generation storage concept. The latter is always
going to be more expensive because there's a lot of storage you
have to buy, and storage can be expensive. But in the sense of
looking at this right, if you were to go the latter route then
the amount of batteries needed for the grid is going to be
another approximately 6-terawatt hour to 8-terawatt hour. If
you build transmission lines, you might be much lower, maybe 2-
terawatt hour to 1-terawatt hour, somewhere in that range.
So, we've looked at that scenario to ask ourselves what the
future could be, but certainly, I think the debate is on as to
whether there's going to be a transmission line built country,
or are we going to go more distributor generation and storage.
Mr. Casten. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Foster. Thank you. You can say a little bit more
about that. In terms of grid storage, which is one of the
things that I know I--both Sean and I worry a lot about, is
there seems to be almost two problems. One is the day/night
problem where you're talking about a battery where you're
buying cheap electricity during the day and selling it at night
or vice versa, and so, that requires a battery that can hold
its charge for 1 day and the capital cost that gets recovered,
you know, bit by bit every day. Much more challenging is the
seasonal variation where many places in the U.S. there are two
to one or more ratios with the availability of renewable energy
on a seasonal basis. And that seems like it's much tougher and
may lead to different technologies.
Any of you have ideas on where you think the leading
chemistries and the focus of effort on that much tougher long-
term energy storage problem might lead?
Dr. Srinivasan. I can start and see what others have to
think about this.
Congressman, you're exactly correct. There is a dual
challenge, one that we call the short duration challenge,
anything less than 10 hours, and the long duration, which is
now everything beyond 10 hours. So, it can be multi-day. As you
pointed out, it could also be seasonal. And the challenge gets
harder and harder and harder the longer and longer we desire to
store energy.
So, when we take seasonal, that's probably the hardest
because of the lowest cost. Estimates are that we might have to
be in the area of $10, $20 a kilowatt hour, just to give you
some numbers. Today, the install cost is probably in the order
of $250, $300 a kilowatt hour. So, we're talking order of
magnitude decreasing costs for those applications.
In those chemistries, it's not even clear that we want to
be thinking about, you know, manufacturing and pulling things
out of the ground, because all of that takes money. So, I think
we have to start looking at alternates like things like
hydrogen as a means of storing energy. Unfortunately, that
requires us to store the hydrogen, which means that the
location matters a lot. So, it's going to work in some parts of
the country, not in others. We have to think about extremely
low-cost electric chemical storage using things like manganese
and zinc and materials that we know are ubiquitous, easy to--
available, but also should be easy to make into batteries so
that every cost is going to come down dramatically.
We also, I think, should be thinking very, very hard about
using other forms of storage, including liquid fuels that are
easier to store and using that as sort of a backup as we go to
the future.
I do think that R&D in long-term seasonal storage is going
to be extremely important. As all of you know, the Department
of Energy has announced the Energy Earthshot, in which one of
them is a long duration storage shot, so I'm hopeful that as
part of that, many of these ideas and more will be sort of part
of the R&D portfolio.
Chairman Foster. And it's my remembrance--Sean may correct
me if I'm wrong--but I thought that the--what they call long
term storage is a matter of weeks, not truly seasonal.
Dr. Srinivasan. Right, they define long duration storage in
the Department as anything more than 10 hours, and as you know,
11 hours can be a lot easier target. Three months is a
significantly harder target. So, the way I think about this is
you should think about the time of storage on one axis and the
cost you can have on the other axis, and the cost comes down
dramatically as you start going toward seasonal as----
Chairman Foster. Dr. Amanchukwu?
Dr. Amanchukwu. I think I will just echo some of what Dr.
Srinivasan mentioned, and I think the big part of it is
innovation in chemistries. The chemistries that can do this
don't exist today. So, why is that a challenge? So, one,
electrochemical reactions that you want to control, they lead
to side reactions, and so, can you sustain them for weeks,
months? So, that--calendar life. So, what's the calendar life
of these new battery chemistries that have been developed? And
while it is easy to see that we have iron or zinc in abundance,
typically nature is not a favorable way of--also really
difficult to make batteries, long-term batteries with. So,
there's a lot of innovation and science that needs to be done,
but the promise is there. If we can do it, we have an
electrified future.
Chairman Foster. Thank you.
Now, the--one of the things we've done recently is that the
America COMPETES Act is going to be authorizing large upgrades
to the major user facilities operated by the Office of Science,
predominantly at the National Labs. And you know, I've always
felt that these facilities were crucial in that they enabled
access to scientific instruments that are really outside the
ability of individual universities to access.
Dr. Srinivasan, can you say a little bit about how such
user facilities are important for moving this forward?
Dr. Srinivasan. Thank you for that. I will say two things.
One is a computing facility. In the last 10 years in the
battery space, the discovery of materials has been
revolutionized because of computation. What used to be a Ph.D.
thesis of five years is now maybe within six months because of
the computational--come and accelerate discovery of materials.
So, it is extremely important for us to continue to use those
kinds of facilities to continue discovery and acceleration.
The second one I will call out is the Advanced Photon
Source, which is the use of the cyclotron facility at Argonne
National lab. We use this photon source for everything from new
material discovery, but also to do science on things like
manufacturing. So, you know, one thing that I want to emphasize
is that science comes everywhere across the supply chain. Even
an applied problem can be solved using a fundamental approach,
and the APS (Advanced Photon Source) shows how to do that by
looking at things like how our battery material is being made,
what happens during the making of the battery material, what
happens when you try to make an electrode in a battery, and try
to understand the processes that occur there so that it can
control them better and try to make them into something that
can last a long time.
So, I think the use of facilities will continue to play an
outsized role as we think about innovation and the future.
Chairman Foster. You spent that whole time talking about
the APS without mentioning curing cancer.
Dr. Srinivasan. Yes.
Chairman Foster. Thank you. I will defer five minutes for
Mr. Casten.
Mr. Casten. Thank you.
Dr. Amanchukwu, don't take this personally, but you hurt my
feelings when you said that we needed to transition from an
education system based on thermochemistry to one based on
electrochemistry. You gave me a flashback of as a chemical
engineer when my former head of engineering, who was a double
EE, said to me, you know, a chem E is just a double EE who
couldn't handle the math. And it was painfully true, because
once we got to imaginary numbers, I was really lost. So, no
offense taken, but I'll get over it.
I do want to ask, though, how you think about sort of where
we should be investing from an education perspective, because
if we are making this move to electrochemistry, you know, I
suspect there's a lot more before your line that we should--you
know, your short line. What does that look like? How do we do
that, and you know, given my own experience, it's hard, right?
How do you--what do you envision we should be doing, especially
at the Federal level, to help facilitate that transition in our
work force?
Dr. Amanchukwu. Yes, I am also a chemical engineer, so we
can relate to that comment.
So, I think there are multiple approaches that the Federal
Government can take, and one is that you need to start early.
So, if the benefits of the industrial revolution were not
evenly distributed, so how do you make sure that young kids
grow up to want to become scientists and maybe especially
battery scientists, electrochemists. So, that's also investing
in the education system, investing in training our teachers,
equipping them with the skills that they need to be able to
translate real world science problems in a way that a middle
schooler can understand. That takes training. Investing--I'm
probably biased, but the investing in early career faculty
members or professors so that many institutions--many countries
in Europe and Asia that there's greater focus on ensuring that
early career talent have the support that they need. Research
has shown they take the most risks in terms of scientific
problems, and that's--those are the people we want solving
battery problems. Yes, they can solve cancer challenges. That's
great, but we also want those minds coming to battery science
and electrochemistry.
And then finally, ensuring that even those who come into
the States, into the U.S. to do this work, so international
collaborators, can also stay here and contribute to the science
that we've trained them to do. So, having them leave to go back
to their own countries is also a loss to the United States. How
do we keep the talent that we've already trained?
Mr. Casten. Hear, hear.
Question for all of you, and it builds up on--follows on
some of what Chairman Foster was asking about the recycling and
the recycling technologies. I'm wondering how you think about
this in a world where the battery chemistry is rapidly
changing, and you know, I've been to recycling facilities that
really focus on getting, you know, chemically pure strains. You
know, eddy current field separators. I've also been to other
recycling facilities where--like some of the battery recycling
facilities I've seen are sort of, you know, powdering the
cathode down and saying we're still going to maintain the
chemical composition of this thing, but put it in a pellet that
can be reused.
Can we even confidently predict enough about where the
battery technology is going to think about how we--what sorts
of recycling facilities and technologies we should be investing
in, or do we have to wait until the technology stabilizes to
think about how to make sure that we do have a robust recycling
industry on the back end? For any of you who have a thought on
that, I'd love to know how you think about that?
Dr. Srinivasan. I will maybe start off by sort of noting
that I think the way the battery industry is moving, we will
constantly see this sort of stream that is coming into
recycling is going to be an older material compared to the
material that we want to be putting into a battery. The
challenge, I think, is going to last for a few decades. You
know, we don't have a solution for that. We've already seen
this change happening with high metal content, cobalt content
materials really coming into the market, because the batteries
that were made 10 years ago are now going to have to be made
into high nickel content.
So, for example, in [inaudible] the way we think about this
as to ask how do we convert from one form of cathode to another
form of cathode, so that we are always supplying the right
cathode that seems to be the one that everybody wants to use at
the time, but by starting with whatever input feed shows up,
because that's the one that we put into a battery ten years
ago. So, I think it's going to be important for us to
constantly have that.
I will go back to the idea of a road map. I think if you
had a road map of where we think things are going to be in the
next five, ten years, it's easier to sort of plan these things.
Mr. Nevers. Congressman, I would just add--oh, by the way,
I'm a Chem E also.
But I would just say----
Mr. Casten. We can all cry on each other's shoulders later.
Mr. Nevers. I would add, this is a good problem to have.
The fact that technology is advancing, we are not stuck in one
place. This is actually the best problem you could have. So, it
will turn into basically another commodity tool, if you will,
where a battery comes in one end and out the other end, you
have a set of commodities. I think that's what we're seeing
long-term, and we will have time. We'll have 8 to 10 years
plus, based on some of the EPRs we expect to see. They set up
those requirements to adapt.
Mr. Casten. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Foster. Thank you. I guess as a physicist, I will
refrain from quoting what physicists say about engineers, which
is probably the same thing that mathematicians say about
physicists. So, we are probably--we know where we are in the
ladder of snobbery in academia, I guess.
But let's--if we think a little bit more about, you know,
sort of the future of vehicles and the recycling strategy. You
know, there is sort of--there's a flashlight scenario where
you'd plan on replacing the batteries many times over the
lifetime of cars. However, there's the iPhone strategy where it
costs so much to replace the battery, they might as well just
get the next model. Where do you think the vehicle industry
will be going in these? You know, both for frequent use
vehicles like delivery trucks, and also for, you know, consumer
vehicles?
One of my big worries in this is that we really want to
deploy these batteries to avert CO2 emissions, and
the worst thing you can do is build a big, expensive battery
pack that stays in the garage of some rich person. You actually
want to get that battery out there and you want to charge and
discharge it as many times as you can, you know, basically beat
it to death as quickly as possible to avert the most C02.
So, where do you think the tradeoffs are going to be there?
Mr. Nevers. Well, thank you for that question, Chairman.
There's a lot of components to that.
First of all, if you want to make sure the vehicles are
being used, there are other mechanisms that can be in place.
For example, EPA is looking at an E-RINS (Electric--Renewable
Identification Numbers) program as far as their RFS (renewable
fuel standard) rule that will incentivize use. States also have
clean fuel standards that incentivize use or displacement of
conventional vehicle miles with electric miles. So, that's
probably the first piece.
As far as how long will these vehicles last, it really
depends on, I think, on the class. As you get into the medium-
and heavy-duty vehicles, you're looking at decades and you will
probably see more battery swaps than you will on light duty.
With the light and medium duty, which is where our R1T and R1S
are, you will probably see at least one battery swap if it were
to last 15, 20 years based on our warranty that we have right
now. But that's going to depend on the consumer, you know, in
the long run.
Mr. Baguio. Yes, historically when you look at how long a
vehicle's, you know, useful life is, you know, when you look at
a school bus or a class six truck or a tractor----
Chairman Foster. I remember when I was a child, you know,
there was an even money bet whether the car would just rust
into a pile of junk, you know, before the drivetrain failed.
Mr. Baguio. Right, and historically, older meant dirtier
and more costly, but with this EV future we are talking about,
the platforms in medium- and heavy-duty are so robust you can
run that chassis for decades, as was previously stated.
So, we're going to see more battery swaps once those come
out. And also, when you are connecting your vehicle to the
grid, you're going to see more cycles. So, those batteries will
have to come out sooner. It's not just based on the vehicle's
duty cycle, it's going to be based on what everybody wants from
that battery, including utilities, and there instances even in
Virginia where they are pulling the battery even before its
done with its useful life as a source of energy to make the
vehicle move, because they have other plans for stationary
storage and microgrid.
So, I think it's going to be all over place, but the good
news is older in EV doesn't necessarily mean dirtier and more
costly.
Dr. Srinivasan. If I can add a very quick comment to that.
I should note, I think, because you are on the record, I am
also a chemical engineer, so I thought it was just important
for me to say that.
One of the things that is happening in the battery
community is we think it's extremely important, especially for
the things that you guys were talking about--and also the need
to use vehicle to grid on an ongoing basis, to have batteries
that can last many decades. So, there is a lot of work going on
in the battery community trying to understand why degradation
occurs and how do we extend the life of these batteries?
Probably the biggest challenge that we are facing is
predicting the life of the batteries. So, if something has to
last 20 years and the applications are changing because we are
suddenly going to V2G which we were not doing in the beginning,
and we don't quite know how degradation is going to be impacted
by how we are going to use the battery, and nobody wants to
wait 20 years to find out what the life is. So, a big part of
what we're doing is using tools like machine learning and
artificial intelligence and use of facilities at the labs to
start to think about how do we take early data, accelerate some
of the mechanisms, and try to see how to predict the life of
these things.
Chairman Foster. One of the concepts that was big about a
decade ago was the idea of hot swapping batteries, and I guess
that is sort of being reborn in China where they are doing long
haul trucking by swapping. What is the status of that thinking
in the United States?
Mr. Baguio. At this point, you know--and we have seen
models for that as well in other countries. Israel is doing
something similar. But it's--you know, there are so many duty
cycles right now that are the first step for heavy duty EV
that, you know, we need to check off that first step as well.
There's so many duty cycles that are under 200 miles per day.
Every refuse truck in the United States, school buses, we've
already well talked about, dredge trucks going from ports of
entry to distribution centers, very short miles. So, you know,
we are very focused--and I am only speaking for Lion at this
point. But we are very focused on active-duty cycles.
And as both of you know, our real focus is being able to
hand keys to something, to a heavy-duty vehicle, and have
somebody drive it that day. This is not years away. This is
going to fit into your operation today when we hand you the
keys. And I know both of you have been handed keys and have
driven our school bus here in Illinois.
So, I think that is our focus now, but I think in a long-
term view, yes, it will be part of our business plan to look at
longer range vehicles.
Chairman Foster. Thank you, and I will remind everyone that
when we did a lap around your building, I just completely
crushed Adam Kinzinger for the lap time. I just want--five
minutes for Mr. Casten.
Mr. Casten. Yes. Let's make sure we have that on the record
for posterity.
The--with all respect to our colleagues, I love the fact
that it's just Congressman Foster and I, because we really get
to dig into the details having these multiple rounds, and
it's--I appreciate going--taking the time.
I have a big, meaty question on the science and a big,
meaty question on economics. I want to start with Dr.
Srinivasan. I'm sorry, I keep struggling to pronounce your
name. The--25 years ago when I was working as a chemical
engineer, the conventional wisdom was that the automotive
sector was going to go from lead acid to nickel metal hydride.
Lithium ion was this interesting consumer electronics battery
that didn't really have an application in the auto sector. And
of course, thanks to all the technological research, we have
done that.
We have also basically run down the periodic table, right,
in chasing sort of lower--higher mass densities, higher
volumetric densities. We've gone from 200 molecular weight to
whatever nickel is, 50-something, down to three. Are we at a
practical limit on mass weight densities with lithium ion? You
know, is that simple characterization right? And then
separately, should we be thinking about fundamentally different
chemistries in grid-based applications where we don't have the
same weight constraints, as we think about how optimize the
supply chains?
Dr. Srinivasan. Maybe I'll start off by saying we
absolutely have a lot of room left with lithium-based
chemistries, so we obviously have spoken a little bit about
lithium-ion batteries, the fact that we have removed cobalt and
nickel, but if you now move toward the kinds of chemistries
that we have broadly called solid state, which is really based
on lithium metal, it fundamentally changes the energy density
constraints that we're going after. It allows us to not only
use lithium metal instead of using graphite, which allows us to
increase energy density by a factor of 30 to 40 percent, but it
allows us to go toward cathodes like oxygen and sulfur cathodes
that are much higher energy density than today's sort of
transition metal oxide chemistries.
So, if you look at raw numbers--and I will be very careful
here, because sometimes--energy densities are not what actually
one can get. But in theory, one should be able to get
significantly higher energy density, maybe as much as an order
of magnitude compared to lithium ion. In practice, that is
going to be very hard to do, only because these chemistries
like oxygen and sulfur are very difficult to control, but we
think there is a possibility of going somewhere between 2 to
2.5 x energy density increase based on these new chemistries.
So, that is the first thing I will say.
The second one--and you picked on a very important point,
which I think when we look at the grid, I was telling you some
numbers before where we might end up requiring 5-terawatt hour
or 10-terawatt hour of energy density for batteries for the
grid. We need to think about a diversified set of supplies, and
one important constraint we can remove is the energy density,
volumetric and gravimetric. We don't have to worry about that.
We have to worry a lot about, I think, multi-decadal lifetimes.
Solar panels last 25 years, your battery cannot be replaced
every 8 years. You have to think hard about safety. It is going
to be extremely important to have very safe batteries.
So, I do think that as we look at the grid, we have to
start thinking about chemistries that are low cost, are based
on, say, water-based so they are not flammable, and that's
where I think some R&D really is needed for us to get to the
kinds of chemistries that move away from lithium. Today, there
is a tendency to use lithium for both applications only because
it is available. The economics are such that it is the one that
makes the most sense, but I think we do have to start thinking
about it from an R&D perspective, especially for applications
on the grid side.
Mr. Casten. I want to pivot onto my big, meaty economics
question. Mr. Baguio and Mr. Nevers, the--we're sitting here
looking at this COMPETES Act that we're hopefully going to get
through the Senate that's going to bring, you know, $57
billion, something like that, to re-onshore domestic
manufacturing. We are seeing a whole lot of companies who are
saying, you know, my lesson from COVID is these supply chains
are too brittle. I need to bring more manufacturing back
overseas, and we are seeing that in our economic numbers that
for the last year and a half and for the foreseeable future,
we're creating jobs a lot faster than we're creating workers.
I don't know how that doesn't lead to significant wage
inflation, and everybody who has a job is pretty excited about
that. Everybody who has to buy things from people earning
higher wages complains about that, right? And I'm wondering how
you, as you look at sort of the economic landscape, do you see
that--I mean, how do we skin that cat? Do we basically say
we're going to accept higher wages and therefore higher cost of
consumer goods, and we're going to have a marketing solution
how to fix that, or are we going to say, this 30-year trend
toward--let's just offshore everything because it's cheaper,
regardless of the consequences that we're not going to be able
to separate that. How do you--I mean, we think about that a lot
in our job. How do you guys think about that tension?
Mr. Nevers. Thank you for that simple question,
Congressman.
I would say we're trying to onshore as much as possible,
and that means everything from battery production, vehicle
production, to charger production. I would also say that one
thing Congress could help with would really be streamlining the
visas for skilled workers, and there are a couple reasons for
that. Not just because you need someone for the job, but if you
think of it this way, bringing in the right skilled worker
might help keep more jobs in the U.S. So, that's probably what
we're looking to do is push for greater access to international
workers that have the skills so we can onshore. So, I think
that's sort of the key enabler is being able to bring in the
skilled people so you can keep all the rest of the jobs here,
and onshore as much as possible.
Mr. Baguio. Yes, and I guess one component that maybe isn't
real evident out there, but what we're trying to do is start
earlier with the worker and work with STEM (science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics) programs at the high
school level and even middle school level in some cases. As you
both know, the city of Joliet has the Nation's oldest junior
college in the United States, and we are working closely with
them to identify that worker at a very early stage, because
workers that are just now entering the work force for the first
time are very excited about EV. This is their reality where it
may not have been the reality for us on the panel here. But
starting early, developing some of those skills, whether it is
manufacturing, whether it is engineering, early on and really
creating that work force and steering them toward us as opposed
to other things is part of a strategy that I think is going to
work in this new, exciting field.
Mr. Nevers. And if I may, I can get back to you later on
some of the details that we, too, are working with both
universities on training.
Dr. Amanchukwu. I can add something very quickly.
Not only do we start them young, but the changes in the
transportation industry is going to affect those who are
already in internal combustion engines. So, how do you reskill
workers? How do you provide certificate programs? So, a lot of
people who have already been trained on one technology to then
equip them to be able to move on to a different technology, and
that is also an important part of the portfolio.
Mr. Casten. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Foster. Now, if you talk about the very non-
applied research, I'm--you know, things like transformative
chemistries. Of all the papers that you read coming in, you
know, what fraction come in from Europe, from the United
States, from China, from Asia, the rest of Asia as a whole? And
also, what fraction of them are sort of hidden inside stealth
mode companies?
So, if you would just sort of give, you know, a quick guess
as to what--you know, when you read an interesting paper, where
does it come from these days?
Dr. Amanchukwu. I guess I can start. That's a tough
question and I do not have numbers, but I think when we read
interesting papers, they actually come from everywhere now, not
just the U.S. The U.S. used to lead the number of innovations
that came out, but that comes from everywhere in Asia, in
China, in Europe also. And that's a good thing. I think that's
an important thing for the transition. If only the U.S.
transitions, we are still suffering from climate change
problems. The entire world has to transition together.
But one thing that we have seen is that there has been
greater investment in Asia and Europe on these technologies
than we've seen here in the U.S., especially in the fundamental
research and R&D. So, that's where we need more support,
because we have world-class universities, we have world-class
researchers that can bring in talent from everywhere. But how
do we actually get them to work on battery and electrochemical
related challenges?
Chairman Foster. Compared to, say, social media startups or
Wall Street or crypto----
Dr. Amanchukwu. I wouldn't blame them. They pay more.
Chairman Foster. It's a cultural problem that somehow all
the rewards in our economy go to the people with social media
startups rather than the people that design the integrated
circuits that make the whole thing possible. And the same thing
is true of, you know, so much of our economy, you know, at the
very end of the value chain, somehow that's where all the
rewards come, and I struggle with that a lot.
Dr. Srinivasan. Some quick thoughts to that. I want to echo
what Dr. Amanchukwu said, if you go back 20 years ago, I used
to be editor of a journal where most of the papers used to be
from the United States, Japan, and maybe Europe. Today, it has
changed pretty dramatically. There's a lot of papers from all
over the world, especially from China. That's just the reality,
and that has been happening as a trend every year for the last
2 decades, I would say.
I will note, however, when you look at the startup culture,
it does feel like United States still has that sort of real
entrepreneurial spirit where we see a lot of ideas, especially
compared to Europe where we see a significant amount of lower
sort of, I would say, you know--going after things in more of
the sort of manufacturing. That is what we are seeing a lot
more in Europe. So, the U.S. still continues to have that kind
of, you know, sort of the entrepreneurial spirit where they're
trying to take technologies from lab to market. My
understanding is this is also increasing in Asian countries.
There's a lot of emphasis there where they're trying to look at
startups and new innovation, so I think we are going to see--we
are in a world where competition is worldwide. We are seeing a
lot of different things that are happening.
But the last point you made, Congressman Foster, I will
note that in the last two years, something has changed in the
battery industry. We are now seeing a tremendous, you know,
talent has become a huge issue as we've all been talking about
here. So, we see a lot of people looking at the energy sector,
asking is that a way for them to get the riches, especially in
startups. We've seen a lot of these special acquisition
companies that have gone public and there's been a lot of
stocks that have been issued to these companies, and to the
employees. So, we are seeing the beginnings of a trend where we
see, I think, the earlier carrier people choosing energy over
software and seeing the financial incentives are going in that
direction. I don't know if that's going to be a long-term
trend, but certainly something that looks encouraging.
Dr. Amanchukwu. And just to quickly add, even those who are
working on software, working on software for energy
applications. So, how do you use--if you look at an electric
vehicle, it is software-driven. Your battery management system,
how do you predict battery lifetime as Dr. Srinivasan
mentioned, all of that also uses expertise that has been
developed for artificial intelligence for deciding is it a cat
or a dog? Those technologies can translate to material
discovery, and so, there is that--and young people are very
interested in moving to energy storage, or just energy in
general.
Chairman Foster. Yes, and so, there is a lot of sort of
shared intellectual space between, you know, the study of how
different proteins may bind together and the interactions when
you get an ion inside a cathode. So, there's--and it's much
more computational. It's not like old style thermochemistry
where you've got a big vat of this at this temperature and
doing something.
Dr. Amanchukwu. Thermal chemistry did power the industrial
revolution, so it's played an important role in energy
transition.
Chairman Foster. And I guess catalysts were always like
that. There was always microstructure to be understood.
Anyway, I am now down to 10 seconds, so I'll turn it back
to you.
Mr. Casten. So, the power of good staff, they are reminding
me of areas that I should have followed up on earlier.
Mr. Nevers, I understand, if my notes are right, that back
in 2019 I think one of your colleagues answered the question I
was asking Dr. Srinivasan earlier. They said that the--over the
life cycle, factoring in manufacturing and fuel use, that an
electric vehicle was 40 percent lower CO2 emissions?
I see you nodding your head, so hopefully that's jogging
memory.
Do you--I'm curious if that used the GREET models, and to
what degree that assumption was based on a grid mix, and so as
the grid cleans up, how much does that come down?
Mr. Nevers. Well, thank you for the question, Congressman.
I'll get back to you on the GREET model aspect.
Mr. Casten. OK.
Mr. Nevers. I'll have to get back to you on that, but I
would point to a new study that came out last year from the
International Council of Clean Transportation, and they
actually revised those numbers. And now, it's 60 to 68 percent
more efficient than an ICE, and that--when you talk about fuel
mix, that's life cycle. That's average life cycle in the U.S.,
so that includes battery development or battery production,
vehicle production, and fuel. And that's marginal--that's a
marginal delta to ICEs.
Mr. Casten. I'm assuming you're making some assumption
about the mix of fuels that form the power on the grid that
you're using to charge that?
Mr. Nevers. Yes. So, the paper came out last year, and it
used a national average.
Mr. Casten. OK.
Mr. Nevers. And I could forward that paper to you.
Interestingly enough, there was another study done just
recently. I think it was the Center for Automotive Research and
maybe Ford that showed that some of the larger vehicles like
pickups, when you displace gasoline pickup with an EV, you
displace about 1-1/2 times more CO2 than the similar
passenger car. And why that's important for us is 70 percent of
our customers are first-time EV buyers, so you're really--
you're going at the market that really is the heaviest
polluting chunk, if you will, and displacing those vehicles one
at a time really--it's not just the 60 percent. It's the 1-1/2
on top of that.
Mr. Casten. OK.
Mr. Baguio, I understand that you started your career as a
bus driver? Do I have that right?
Mr. Baguio. I did. Yes.
Mr. Casten. I'm assuming a diesel bus, probably.
Mr. Baguio. It was a diesel bus, yes.
Mr. Casten. It's got to be kind of cool that you now have
something without a tailpipe on it that you're taking out.
Have you guys--we're talking about CO2, but
shifting to the criteria pollutants, you know, there's no
shortage of research that not providing idle diesel buses, you
know, especially in urban areas, not only has health benefits,
but huge economic benefits because people live longer lives.
I'm wondering if anybody--and this could be for you, given your
history, or any of the rest of you through this. Have we looked
at what that offsetting economic gain that comes from not
having the health costs of particulate pollution and everything
else that comes with that out of the back of the idling school
bus?
Mr. Baguio. Yes. I can tell you that I did start my career
as a school bus driver, you know, driving a route in between my
college courses, and it was a great job. Eventually I became a
general manager of large vehicle locations. So, you know, at
one point I was in Los Angeles operating over 300 buses for the
school district there, and you'd walk in at six in the morning
and you would have that many diesel buses starting all at once.
All of your employees walking into that environmental certainly
affected our ability to keep people at work and health issues,
and we're still really understanding what the--you know, how
magnified that was because of the environment. And your
mechanics and all those other folks. So, there's certainly an
impact in when you walk into, like, a Twin Rivers School
District in Sacramento, California, where they are well on
their way to converting to all zero emission, the environment
for the worker every morning and afternoon is very different
from what I experienced in the mid-'90's. There was also--
someone smarter than me, an eighth grader in the Miami-Dade
School District did a science project measuring diesel
particulate inside the bus, outside the bus, in the classroom,
and the worst air that her and her friends were breathing was
inside that school bus going to school and going home. So,
there's impacts on health. There's impacts on learning. A lot
of things that can be measured economically certainly.
So, you know, making this transition to EV even more
important.
Mr. Casten. Has anybody tried to quantify that? I mean,
we--I spent a lot of time trying to get people to understand
that we subsidized the fossil fuel sector in ways that distort
capital allocation that we get away from it, and you know, to
the extent that Medicaid is subsidizing the diesel fuel
industry, it distorts markets. I'm wondering, has anybody tried
to quantify those numbers and figure out, like, what is the
scale of that cost we are accepting as a society?
Mr. Baguio. We have not done that at Lion Electric, but we
do pay attention to organizations--non-profits like CalStart
and the American Lung Association, the American Medical
Association has done some things. But I haven't seen that, you
know, dollar for dollar what are the impacts. There are
certainly measurable statements in the, you know, loss of life
and things like that.
Mr. Nevers. If I may, Congressman. EPA is looking at new
round of rules, 2027 and beyond for light duty and medium,
heavy-duty vehicles. This would be hopefully in the regulatory
impact analysis. Having worked there before, it's real easy to
put in zeroes, and that's what you get for EVs. You put in
zeroes for pollution. So, yes, we don't have those numbers
either, but we're really excited because we have 100,000-unit
contract or agreement with Amazon, and those are largely going
to be displacing stop and go gas and diesel vehicles in some of
these areas. So, maybe that would be a good question for some
folks over at EPA, you know, what is the real-world air impacts
of electrification, especially some of the urban areas?
Mr. Casten. I know I am out of time, but I see Dr.
Amanchukwu, so if Chairman Foster will allow, I would welcome
your response.
Dr. Amanchukwu. It's very quick. So, the Energy Policy
Institute of Chicago is doing that research on trying to
quantify the impacts of pollution and how that can be used for
justifying the electric transformation.
Mr. Casten. OK, thank you.
I will yield back.
Chairman Foster. When we talk about, you know, securing the
supply chains, does that mean securing the supply chain in the
good old US of A, into North America into the free democracies
of the world? I guess--well, where does Rivian and Lion
Electric, where do you view a secure supply chain as coming
from? How are you handling that in your strategic planning?
Mr. Baguio. Obviously in our near-term plan, there is still
heavy dependence on cells coming from the Asian market in
general; however, you know--and again, to just to reiterate
what an important topic is we're discussing today, but there's
also efforts in Canada as we're opening battery manufacturing,
working with both Quebec--province of Quebec and also Canada to
identify sources that--mining sources that are going to feed
that battery manufacturing. It is certainly part of our long-
term goal, and also do that here in the U.S. We were looking at
Joliet as strictly vehicle manufacturing, but we were really
looking at probably having some battery manufacturing happening
there as well to close that gap between the 20,000-vehicle
capacity that we'll be building down the street versus the
17,000 vehicles that our battery plant will supply in the
Province of Quebec.
So, you know, again, it's a phased process. We have to go
where the batteries are so we can get these vehicles into
people's hands, but looking at a North American, Central
American, even in some cases, South American source has to be
part of our longer term.
Mr. Nevers. I would just add we're all for, I guess they
call it ally shoring or leveraging existing diplomatic power,
if possible, and really, that goes beyond just availability. It
goes to sustainability and transparency. So, as part of our
mission, we wouldn't want to--and I don't want to speak--but I
think we all agree, we don't want to outsource just to find out
later that maybe there was an issue with said outsource because
there wasn't transparency or it wasn't done in a sustainable
manner.
So, the extent we can onshore that's great, and ally
shoring, I think, is important. I guess the question would be--
back to the Subcommittee would be is there a way we can develop
allies with the strategic goal in mind? We've done it in the
past, obviously, you know, looking at different countries and
why we're there. Why couldn't we do the same for these
resources?
Chairman Foster. And I think that you are right that that's
something that government really has a role in. You know, we
have to decide where our incentives should apply to, you know.
Should they be the free democracies of the world, which would
be my preference. I have to say, I'm very impressed at the
Biden Administration's stance toward that. They are saying we
have to make our economy, you know, really not reliant on
countries that we don't--shouldn't be trusting from the
strategic point of view, or a human rights point of view. And
the difficulty is how we set up the government incentives to
make sure that you don't get your clocks cleaned by countries
that offshore to cheap and abusive production facilities.
Go ahead.
Mr. Nevers. Yes, I just wanted to add, we don't want to see
this as a race to the bottom where companies are going to, as
you mentioned, Chairman, to basically the country with the
lowest common denominator in terms of environmental or human
rights.
Dr. Srinivasan. Maybe make three quick points here. First
is the Federal Consortium for Advanced Batteries, which was
championed by the Department of Energy that brings together
DOE, DOD (Department of Defense), Commerce Department, State
Department, other agencies, as really thinking about a holistic
view on how to have a secure supply, including the sort of
collaborations with allied countries. That's the first thing I
wanted to point out.
The second point I wanted to quickly make is that for
security, one needs a diversity of materials. So, the problem
with cobalt and graphite is that they're concentrated in one
country. So, having materials that have a wider availability in
the world--nickel, for example, is one of them, actually--can
provide us an opportunity to think about this from a secure
way.
The last thing I'll quickly point out is that last year,
the Argonne National Lab along with the DOE and the Department
of Energy started a consortium called Li-Bridge which is really
aimed at bridging the supply chain gap. It's a public/private
partnership, and part of the public/private partnership is
looking closely at where this road mapping exercise is going to
go, and which part of the world do we have those kinds of
materials. So Li-Bridge will be talking to this FCAP group and
sort of making sure we are coordinating with the Federal
Government so that we provide a view on what industry thinks
the future is going to be, and how the Federal Government may
be able to help us as we go to that future.
Chairman Foster. Well, when you figure that out, let us
know. You know, trying to optimize the Federal subsidies for
the right set of things is an ongoing challenge.
Let's see. At this point, I am done with questions. Mr.
Casten, do you have additional?
Mr. Casten. Well, I will leave--maybe to put the question
back to you all. You guys have been very generous with your
time.
The--you know, this transition to clean energy broadly
strikes me as being both enormously optimistic, because all the
transitions make us--we have more money in our pockets because
we don't have to pay for fuels anymore. We have cleaner air.
We're creating all these jobs. And pessimistic because it is
creating a tremendous wealth transfer from those parts of the
world that have depended on resource extraction to those parts
of the world that depend on having access to cheap energy. And
that should be easy, but there are politics involved there.
There's a report I see out today that Blackstone has said
that global decarbonization is a $50 trillion investment
opportunity, and while the politics sometimes make it hard for
government to lead, we can at least follow. And I'd love any
closing thoughts that any of you have, if you were in our
shoes, what would--given where capital is flowing, given how
exciting and entrepreneurial this market is, if you could ask
for one thing from Congress to sort of fix and make sure that
it flows in a way that delivers the kind of social outcomes we
want, what would you like to say to us?
Mr. Baguio. I'll start with that response, and I think a
lot of what's happening or what we're seeing happening now
especially with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that
we're seeing the Federal Government in an unprecedented way
really take action for zero emission technologies. But what I
would like to see, the ask would be to really curb funding for
legacy fuels, fossil fuels. I think we've decided as a society
which direction we're going, and whatever we can do to get
there faster. We're trying to overcome over 100 years of fossil
fuel culture, and it is going to take that initial push. But at
companies like Lion and others like us, we understand that this
investment means we get out range up, we get our prices down,
and not just achieve parity with the legacy fossil fuels, but
improve upon that performance.
So, you know, we would like to see continued unprecedented
investment in this sector also, but also holding us accountable
to achieve that eventual goal of giving something back better
to the society of the United States that performs better than
what we've just settled for for the last 100 years.
Mr. Nevers. Thank you for the question. It's really hard to
pick, but I guess that my ask would be an easier one, and that
is first, do no harm, and when it comes to, for example,
discussions around adjusting the 30D tax credit, do not exclude
those manufacturers that have orders, have customers expecting
a tax credit, but if there are some changes to that credit or a
cap, it could really disincentivize future investment and
future startups. So, that would be my concern there. First, do
no harm on 30D.
Dr. Srinivasan. Maybe I'll quickly say something that I
said in my earlier remarks. I view the energy transition as a
two-prong problem, short term for the supply challenge, get
these batteries out there, get us decarbonization as quickly as
possible. But also as long term, to be sustainable, carbon-
free, or completely sustainable materials supply, secure supply
kind of a world.
And that second one requires long-term R&D. The first one
requires more, I would say, combination of long-term and short-
term R&D, and so, having a steady ship that sort of lasts those
10, 15, 20 years where all of these are incentivized would
probably be the most important thing for us to ensure that
we're able to move the transition and so that we don't end up
with some fit starts or where we go in one direction and then
have to change direction again.
So, I would say that steady ship is probably the most
important thing.
Dr. Amanchukwu. Again, just echoing my earlier testimony,
increase funding support to--for basic and fundamental science
will always make the U.S. ready for whatever transition. Once
we have the fundamental and basic research science happening
here in the U.S., and building talent. Talent is key. It
doesn't matter--any industry that comes, if you don't have the
talent, you will not be able to sustain that industry. Those
two things are key, two things from the Federal Government. So,
increased funding for the NSF and the Office of Science at DOE,
and building talent especially.
Thank you.
Mr. Casten. Thank you.
Chairman Foster. Thank you, and I guess I'll just close
with agreeing violently with all of you, especially the last
point. When you read one of those really impressive papers from
some place you've never heard of before, we want to be able to
hire that person and bring them into the U.S., and if they're
some student, we want to--and we've trained them, we want to
staple a green card to their Ph.D. thesis. It is something that
we're hoping to get into the COMPETES Act to really make that a
permanent U.S. policy, which would be transformative.
You know, we're about to reach the point where the total
cost of ownership of electric vehicles will be less than
internal combustion vehicles, and that was only possible
because of decades of federally funded research, and incentives
to bootstrap the business. I think we should remember that
lesson because it's only once we've convinced the world that
zero emissions technologies are cheaper than fossil fuel
technologies that we're going to be able to win the battle for
climate change, not only in the United States which can afford
to decarbonize our economy, but in the rest of the world we're
not going to want to burn fossil fuels because zero emission
vehicles are cheaper.
So, I want to thank you all for your part in that battle,
and with that, we are looking forward to the Committee visit to
Argonne National Labs, and we will be adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
Appendix
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Dr. Venkat Srinivasan
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