Techtric New Year
Reflecting on 2022.
We enter a new year, 2023, and leave 2022 in the past as one wild year for the decades to come. Strong demand reverberates throughout the lithium-ion battery industry and many players race to keep up. 2022 saw rapid raw material price increases and corresponding impacts on supply chains and manufacturing and most can attest that over the next 5-10 years, mining should be the focus.
We put mining in italics, because mining is something that cannot be implemented quickly. Faster and more efficient permitting could be considered one of the primary ways to bring lithium resources to market faster. Bringing resources to market faster presents the challenge of maintaining quality and specifications for the battery industry. There is also the add-on process taking those mined lithium pre-cursors and using them to make cathode materials.
The Inflation Reduction Act is a step forward for incentivizing at-home battery production, but Western producers should be open to Eastern experience and techniques if they would like to scale quality batteries in an appreciable way.
A Year of Firsts
2022 was also a year of firsts for TECHtricity.  Two independent contributions were made to Intercalation, a leading blog in the battery space. The first one was a review of a sodium ion review paper, and the second was about a dive into the nickel supply chain with a particular focus on the class I and II nickel markets.
2022 Highlights and Favorites
Books – Powerhouse by Steve Levine, Volt Rush by Henry Sanderson, and also looking forward to trying Lithium: The Global Race for Battery Dominance and the New Energy Revolution.
Eccentric Podcast Episode – The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life (#571). An eye-opening take on a unique lifestyle of observing animals. Boyd Varty, quite the character. Any Tim Ferris interview is bound to take you on a journey.
Battery Podcast Episode - Discussion about the battery supply chain with James Frith. Essentially the theme of 2022.
Renewables Podcast – Battery Insiders. Unique guests, technical questions, and interesting insights.
Renewables Story – Nuclear Fusion
Trend-breaking News Story - Bloomberg NEF announces battery price increase to $151/kWh for 2022. There were hints of this throughout the year, but the culmination into this report is a good read. BNEF Report
TV show – White Lotus. Get your head out of the gutter, but seriously the unique plot and fantastic character development of this show were fantastic. It also has a great soundtrack - suspenseful, humorous, and gripping all at the same time. Both seasons had entertaining twists at the end. Â
Favorite EV Brand – ALL 😊 - When you get into the specifics of batteries you can find pros and cons with all of them.
What other favorites do you have in the renewables and battery space? Would love to hear about them!
What’s in Store?
2023 will present its own set of challenges as inflation and higher interest rates reverberate through the economy. Let’s look forward to more controlled growth of the whole lithium ion battery space.
Also a huge welcome to all of the new readers. The journey of writing and blogging continues into the New Year.
