Building a Sustainable Future of Electric Powered Vehicles

Welcome back to another episode of the For Your Innovation Podcast. Today on the show we are joined by Sam Korus, ARK’s Thematic Analyst covering robotics, energy storage, and space exploration. In this episode we are going to talk about the fundamental materials you need to build a future powered by electric vehicles and digging into the question of whether or not the earth has enough of those core minerals, like lithium, cobalt, and manganese. Sam has been researching the fundamental ingredients of batteries and where we are in the state of batteries for a long time, so it is really exciting to get his take on exactly where we are and what research and innovation has planned for the next few years. For an incredible conversation, stay tuned to today’s episode!   Key Points From This Episode: Primary industrial ingredients and elements we need for battery chemistry. Understanding the global supply chain for a lithium ion battery. Why commodity reserves should not be seen as stationary. How new technology incentivizes and enables the increase of reserves. The reason why Tesla is focusing on using less cobalt in their batteries.   Tweetables: “For lithium, we have 400 years’ worth of reserve at current production level.” — @skorusARK [0:03:32.4] “It’s incorrect to think that reserves are stationary.” — @skorusARK [0:04:28.1] “The interesting thing about cobalt is that it’s a byproduct of nickel and copper mining, which means that you can’t open up a mine just to mine cobalt.” — @skorusARK [0:08:02.1]