Atlantic Council GLOBAL ENERGY CENTER
I S SU E B R I E F SEPTEMBER 2022
Alternative Battery Chemistries and Diversifying Clean Energy Supply Chains REED BLAKEMORE PADDY RYAN WILLIAM TOBIN INTRODUCTION
T
he energy transition from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy sources will stimulate great demand for energy storage. Batteries that can enable the clean electrification of light-duty transport and reduce the intermittency of renewable power on the grid will be a prerequisite for global decarbonization efforts. It is therefore vital that such technologies be deployed at a scale sufficient to meet the growing energy storage needs of the transition. To date, the leading technology for those efforts has been the lithium-ion (Liion) battery, having displaced predecessors like lead-acid, nickel-cadmium, and nickel-metal hydride batteries because of their superior performance characteristics. Currently, Li-ion batteries account for roughly 70 percent of electric vehicle (EV) batteries and 90 percent of grid storage batteries.1
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However, the ubiquity of lithium-ion batteries has posed obstacles to the energy transition that are likely to become more challenging as net-zero targets demand ever-more expansive energy storage solutions. Accelerating demand for lithium-ion batteries is creating a production bottleneck for energy storage as different clean technologies vie for the same mineral and metal inputs, such as lithium, graphite, nickel, and cobalt—at the same time as demand growth for such minerals and materials in other markets, such as steel-
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Jeff Horowitz, David Coffin, and Brennan Taylor, Supply Chain for EV Batteries: 2020 Trade and Value-added Update, United States International Trade Commission, January, 2021, www. usitc.gov/publications/332/working_papers/supply_chain_for_ev_batteries_2020_trade_and_ value-added_010721-compliant.pdf; and Alexandra Zablocki, “Fact Sheet: Energy Storage,” Environmental and Energy Studies Institute, February 22, 2019, www.eesi.org/papers/view/energy-storage-2019.
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