Ep 18 Volt Rush and China’s role in the EV battery supply chain with Henry Sanderson

Henry Sanderson, Managing Editor at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, presents his book Volt Rush: the winners and losers of the race to go green. In this very well-researched book, Henry presents the battery technologies, the materials essential for EV batteries and the leading players in this industry. We focus our discussion on the many Chinese companies playing a central role in the EV battery supply chain.

 

We cover the following topics

1. Battery: The role played by CATL in the global battery value chain and the personal story of its founder Robin Zeng
2. Lithium: How lithium is extracted and processed in Chile and Australia and why lithium extracted from the spodumene is 7 times more carbon intensive than the Li extracted from Li brine
3. Lithium: How Ganfeng Lithium and Tianqi Lithium are involved in the Li supply chain and how they have built their dominance over the years
4. Cobalt: The role of the Congo DRC in the global cobalt supply chain and the role of the two dominant players Huayou Cobalt and Glencore
5. Cobalt: The Amnesty 2016 report exposing issues around artisanal mining and child labour in the cobalt mining sector in Congo DRC and the impact of the report
6. Nickel: How Tsingshan positioned itself to benefit from Indonesia's ban on raw Nickel ore export in 2020, and how it succeeded in dominating the nickel industry with its investment in the Morowali industrial park
7. Nickel: The environmental impact of processing nickel for stainless steel and battery material
8. Deep-sea mining: Recent developments of deep-sea mining potential in the Clarion-Clipperton zone

 

 

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