November 2, 2022 • 55 mins
Dr. Surinder Singh’s distinguished career has focused on advancing and incubating technologies that address climate emergency with a focus on fundamentals of science, systems engineering, and business models. He is spearheading Relyion Energy Inc’s strategic business development to create second-life sustainable solutions for Lithium-ion batteries.
Previously, Dr. Singh worked as Director of Engineering and Center of Excellence Leader for NICE America Research (that’s the National Institute for Clean and Low-Carbon Energy), an incubator for China Energy (CE), and a program leader at General Electric. China Energy is the world’s largest overall power producer and renewable power producer by assets. He utilizes system-level thinking to address climate change via clean energy technology developments. He has led initiatives funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Department of Energy, General Electric, NICE, and others on low-carbon technologies such as alternative fuel production for transportation with low greenhouse gas emissions; carbon capture and storage (CCS) including direct air capture and Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage for decarbonizing the power sector, biofuels and biochar production, fuel cells, hydrogen, and energy storage. He has led multi-million-dollar programs, developed partnerships with renowned universities and technology developers, and developed calls for proposals for funding programs.
Dr. Singh is mentoring startups in Climate and Energy at Breakthrough Energy, Third Derivative/New Energy Nexus, On Deck, and STEP-TIET Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals Mentor. He has led multiple cross-functional and cross-organizational teams with chemical, mechanical, electrical, electrochemical, chemists, and material scientists backgrounds. He is a seasoned executive who has authored and co-authored 11 publications, and holds more than 40 patents granted and pending in ClimateTech. His scientific work has been extensively cited. He is also an editor for a renowned scientific journal Sustainable Materials and Technologies. He has a Ph.D. from University of California at Riverside. He is cited in Fortune ' s “Unstoppable World’s Business Minds” and “Are Second Life EV Batteries Game Changers for Microgrid Owners and the Grid?”
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Gregory A. Williams (00:10):
Thanks for joining us for another episode
of climate money watchdog wherewe investigate and report on how
federal dollars are being spenton mitigating climate change and
protecting the environment. Weare a private, nonpartisan
nonprofit organization that doesnot accept advertisers or
sponsors. So we can only do thiswork with your support. Please
(00:30):
visit us at climate moneywatchdog.org To learn more about
us and consider making adonation. My name is Greg
Williams and I learned toinvestigate and report on waste,
fraud and abuse in federalspending while working at the
project on government oversightor Pogo 30 years ago, I learned
to do independent research aswell as to work with
confidential informants orwhistleblowers to uncover things
(00:53):
like overpriced spare parts,like the infamous $435 hammers,
and weapon systems that didn'twork as advertised. I was taught
by my co host the inner racewar, who founded in 1981, and
founded climate money watchdogwith me last year, Dina has
spent 40 years investigating andsometimes recovering millions of
(01:14):
dollars wasted by the DefenseDepartment and other branches of
government at Pogo, as anindependent journalist, as an
author and as a professionalinvestigator. Our guest tonight
is Dr. Surinder Singh.
surrenders distinguished careerhas focused on advancing and
incubating technologies thataddress climate emergency with a
focus on fundamentals ofscience, systems engineering,
(01:36):
and business models. He isspearheading, rely on an energy
incorporated strategic businessdevelopment to create Second
Life sustainable solutions forlithium ion batteries.
Previously, Surinder worked asDirector of Engineering and
Center of Excellence leader fornice America research. That's
(01:57):
the National Institute for cleanand low carbon energy, an
incubator for China energy, andas a program leader at General
Electric. China energy is theworld's largest overall power
producer, and renewable powerproducer by assets. He utilizes
system level thinking to addressclimate change via clean energy
technology developments. He'sled initiatives funded by the
(02:21):
Defense Advanced ResearchProjects Agency or DARPA,
Department of Energy GeneralElectric nice, and others on low
carbon technologies such asalternative fuel production for
transportation with lowgreenhouse gas emissions, carbon
capture and storage, includingdirect air capture and bioenergy
with carbon capture and storagefor decarbonizing the power
(02:42):
sector. Biofuels and bio carproduction. Fuel cells hydrogen
and energy storage is ledmultimillion dollar programs,
developed partnerships withrenowned universities and
technology developers anddevelop and developed calls for
proposals for funding programs.
(03:05):
So, thank you for joining ustonight. And I want to give my
co host Dina a few minutes tointroduce yourself as well.
Dina Rasor (03:15):
Okay, I'm Dina razor. And so Greg is first job
one better hires I've ever had.
And we are having a lot of fundoing climate money watchdog
because we're taking the skillswe've learned from our careers.
Greg's partly has worked in thecorporate world, but also a lot
in the nonprofit world. And I'vepretty much been doing the same
(03:35):
investigations usingwhistleblowers and finding out
where the government money isand, and things like that for,
you know, 40 years I hate tosay. But anyway, I climate money
watch, we started it because Ishould say climate money
watchdog got a typo, I don'tthink is we just decided to do
(03:56):
this because the environmentalmovement has just never had this
much money. I mean, the in thesense that I talked to some
environmentalists, oh, once weget the money, it's going to all
be so great, because it's allgonna be environmentalists and
it's all gonna be Kumbaya.
(04:17):
Nobody will cheat. And I'm like,Okay, I don't think I will keep
buying oil out, you know, so Iwas like, okay, that make it
very clear that that's notreally going to happen, because
as soon as you get that muchmoney, all kinds of sharks show
up. So anyway, what we wanted todo in talking to surrender today
(04:39):
is we're really interested inthese new startup technologies
that are coming up from the pushthe corporate and federal and
state push towards climatechange, and climate mitigation
really, and we want to we wantto talk to him today about
(04:59):
public input. Private money, andit's new technology. And it's
kind of a hard thing we all weall know we have to move. We all
know that there's deadlines, weall know that the catastrophe is
coming. But when you're spendingthis money, you also have to
have oversight. Because if aprogram is, could be a really
(05:20):
good program, but if it's gotfraud, waste or abuse in it,
whoever is against that programwill then use it to make sure
that it's not funded again. So Ikeep telling them that if you
don't want to have them comeafter you, we've got to put good
oversight. So that's what we'redoing our little niche here. And
what we really want to do islook at technologies, also
(05:41):
looking at technologies to seeif from a layperson, it makes
sense to us. Because some ofthese some of these projects, I
kind of say, I don't know howyou're going to want to do it
for the amount of money. Or ifyou have to buy, you know, if
you have to put co2 pipelinesall over the country to ship the
carbon capture. That's not verypolitically fun. So anyway,
(06:06):
that's what we're doing. And sotoday, I'm gonna start asking
him questions. And I think thisis a technology that I really do
not run into in all my reading,and that is that there's going
to be a lot of batteries, fromcars and all kinds of things.
And then you know, batterieswear out, and they're going to
(06:28):
have to be recycled or somehowused again. So my first question
is that the lithium ionbatteries was what you've been
working on, are needed for thishuge expansion of, of electric
vehicles and battery stacks forhomes and businesses. So
according to your companywebsite, there'll be 12 million
(06:49):
tons of batteries retiring by2030. How complicated is it to
recycle a Lyon battery? And whatdoes that battery recycling
industry has done so far andfacing this problem?
Dr. Surinder Singh (07:04):
First of all, thanks, Tina, and Greg for
having me here. I'm lookingforward for the discussion. So
as he mentioned, so there'sexpected 12 million tonnes of
lithium ion batteries that areexpected to retire by 2030. And
every time actually this number,when it gets updated, it always
increases. So 12 million numberis, I think, the lower estimate
(07:27):
with respect to how many tons ofbatteries will be retiring by
2030. And to start actually, ofwhat I would mention is that
what lithium ion technology did,and specifically what EVs did,
is really tremendous fordecarbonisation of the
transportation sector. And weneed to decarbonize actually all
sectors that are involved withrespect to power production,
(07:50):
transportation, chemicals, andso on. But one of the challenges
associated with the with thelithium ion batteries is that,
what do we do with the batterieswhen they retire? If you look at
the battery materials, or otherthings also that that are
getting recycled, there is avery stark contrast between lead
(08:13):
acid batteries and lithium ionbatteries. The current estimates
are that sub 10% of batteriesare getting recycled. Whereas
more than 99 99% of lead acidbatteries are recycled. And
there's a number of reasons whythat happens. There's technical,
technological reasons, businessreasons, and policy reasons. And
(08:34):
we'll talk about why actually,in the lithium ion case,
actually, that number is so low.
In addition to recycling, what Ialso mentioned is that we need
to develop full circularity oflithium ion battery
technologies. And recycling is avery important component of
that. But the other thing thatis available in between is that
when the easy batteries theyretired, they have a very good
(08:57):
state of health, that it's alsoknown by S O H. And what that is
related to is how muchdegradation of the batteries has
taken place. So when these Eviebatteries retired, they have a
really good state of health,which is on the order of 70 to
80%. And the analogy that I useis that every time let's say we
(09:18):
eat food, or drink coffee andthings like that, let's only eat
the top, the 20% or 30% of that,and the rest, let's compost it.
The thing is that the intentionis rarely good, but the
execution is really bad. And sowhat we need to do with the
lithium ion batteries is findout how we can utilize these
batteries that have such a goodstate of health still remaining.
(09:41):
How do we utilize them to theirfull true extent and take them
to the true end of life and thenrecycle them?
Gregory A. Williams (09:51):
You may get to this eventually, but at some
point, I'd encourage you todescribe why something is being
retired at 70 or 80%. And What Iwas going to offer is that there
are many of us who buy a newphone when our phone isn't
remaining, you know, fullycharged the way it once was. And
so while we may wait for, youknow, 50 or 60%, you know,
(10:13):
imagine having a car that needsto get you to and from work, and
it can now only get you, youknow, three quarters of the way
to and from work that's, that'sa problem.
Dr. Surinder Singh (10:23):
Yes, absolutely. Greg, you You hit
the nail on the head. This isone of the primary reasons that
actually everybody who's drivingcars, they would want to
actually utilize their cars tothe full extent. And once you
start getting actually lessmileage out out of it, then the
batteries retire. On top ofthat, actually, what happens is,
in a typical electricalengineering or energy storage
(10:45):
system, you're limited by theworst performing component. And
as we know, actually differentevey battery packs are made up
of many, many modules. And ontop. Inside of those modules,
there are many individual cells.
And what happens is that eachindividual cell degrades at a
different rate. Now, there aremany studies that have been done
(11:06):
with respect to what's thedegradation rate of different
lithium ion batteries. And oneof the most cited actually, a
study was done by Emeril where,even if you take a battery from
single OEM with a single batterychemistry, coming from a single
batch, and put them undertesting for, you know, various
(11:27):
cycles and various duration oftime, under absolutely same
conditions of temperature andenvironmental conditions and so
on under the same load curve,what happens is that over 1000s
of cycles, each battery celldegrades at a different level.
So it's not only the externalfactors, but there are internal
factors that cause thisdistribution in the degradation.
(11:50):
And what happens inside eveybattery packs is when the the
sales are degrading at adifferent level, you're going to
be limited by the worstperforming component. So the
full pack is going to behave asif it's formed by the worst
performing component. And itwon't, the state of health would
not be reflective of the truestate of health, what is of each
(12:11):
individual component. And that'swhere actually our technology
also comes in where we try totake advantage of the full
distribution instead of beinglimited by the worst performing
component.
Dina Rasor (12:25):
So then gets me right into the next question. So
tell me about really rely onwhere you are in the startup
process, why your technology torecycle is new than the other
recycling tests. And you know,we already talked about using
all that second use batteries,you know, the ones ones that are
retired early, but reallyinterested in your company. And
(12:48):
I looked through the othercompanies and they're they seem
to be further along and further,doing demonstration plants and
things but it they looked atyour site, and I could see that
you had a way of using thesecond the second battery life
and actually making a better newbattery from it that goes
(13:10):
longer. So I'll let you take itover. And I'm also really
interested on where you are inthe startup process.
Dr. Surinder Singh (13:16):
Absolutely.
Sounds good Dina? So withrespect to rely on our
foundation of the technology isthat what we started with was
that we need to develop SecondLife system that maintains the
advantage of low cost, inaddition to providing the life
and the performance, comparableto new battery energy storage
(13:36):
systems. So knowing thatactually that's what we've
developed in terms of thetechnology. But let me take a
step back and explain actually,what what is the traditional way
of utilizing these retiredbatteries. So as I mentioned
earlier, the evey battery packis made up of many different
modules. And inside of thosemodules are individual cells.
And when these battery packsretire, their performance is
(14:00):
very different. So what thestate of the art technology that
exists right now is that youdisassemble the battery packs
into its own modules andcomponents. And then great the
battery packs, or the modulesand the cells into the goods,
the bads and the uglies or youknow, tier one, tier two, tier
(14:21):
three and so on, where you putsimilar battery components
together and make up a batterypack again and you put into an
energy storage system. What endsup happening because of this is
even though the technology worksso you can cycle the batteries
and grate them and put similarones together, it would work but
the drawback is that it is avery time consuming and energy
(14:43):
consuming a labor intensive andlong process. It can take not
only weeks but months also toget these batteries disassembled
graded and reassemble due tothat the The cost benefit that
was there, it ends up costingmore in doing all of these
methods, and then compare it asa comparable cost. The new
(15:07):
battery energy storage systemsare actually cheaper rather than
the second life battery energystorage systems. In case of rely
on, what we do is actually wetake these battery packs with
the full distribution. Sowhether if there's a battery, EV
battery that is coming with a90% state of health, or there is
a battery that is coming with40% state of health, we can
(15:28):
utilize them as it is, evenwithout knowing and grading the
state of health of thesedifferent batteries. And the
technology, the way it works isbased on its physics based, and
thermodynamics based algorithmsthat have been developed over
very, very long periods of time,with tremendous amount of data
that we have, and are alsoutilizing the battery parameters
(15:52):
that are directly measurable,whereas Soh is an indirectly
inferred parameter, which is notdirectly measured. So what we've
done is actually simplified theprocess considerably. It's very
fast, and maintains the economicbenefit of these retired
batteries so that they can beutilized for their full life.
Gregory A. Williams (16:15):
So you might want to take a moment and
explain the difference between acell a battery and a module.
Dr. Surinder Singh (16:20):
Yes, I think the simplest way to explain this
is at the most foundationallevel, a single cell is the
building block of a lithium ionbattery inside if that is the
anode, and the cathode andelectrolyte and so on. But one
single cell is actually thebuilding block, you combine
single cells into, into acombination of groups. And each
(16:45):
battery OEM has actuallydifferent number of cells that
they put together in terms ofdifferent series and parallel
configurations to build a blocka module, and those modules then
become a building block for afull evey battery pack. Let me
give an example of Tesla soTesla has actually 1000s of
these individual cylindricalcells that go into the evey
(17:07):
battery pack that has certainnumber of modules, whereas for
example, Nissan LEAF which isanother evey, battery Evie, that
has only about 50 to 100 modules50 to 100 cells actually rather
than actually 1000s of cells ascompared to a Tesla so every OEM
(17:28):
has their own method to workwith how many cells modules that
they put together into formingan Eevee battery pack so good
you know
Dina Rasor (17:41):
I'm sorry i didn't i How do you end up then doing the
recycle your your way ofrecycling versus what's been
done in the past that makes itless expensive, less carbon
intensive and all that
Dr. Surinder Singh (17:57):
I would differentiate between actually
two two steps one is recyclingand second is repurposing so
specifically about rely on we dothe repurposing so in case of
recycling, as I was mentioning,you take the battery down to its
material level and separatethose out into different
components. So the lithium,nickel, cobalt and so on, in and
(18:21):
make new batteries out of thethe recycled material. Whereas
in case of repurposing, what youend up doing is Take for
example, if you have batteriesthat were utilized for the EVs
in the transportation sector,you take those batteries in and
recurrent configured them fordifferent application without
(18:41):
going down to the materiallevel. So we utilize the battery
modules and put them in a formfactor that can be utilized for
stationary energy storagesystem. And what I mean by
stationary energy storage systemis the analogy would be what
Tesla does for with theirpowerwall power pack and the
mega packs for residentialapplications or CNI sector or
(19:02):
for utility grid scaleapplications.
Gregory A. Williams (19:05):
So what I think is implied, but it would
be great for you to confirm isthat in the automotive capacity
of battery is worth the mostwhen it has a very high density
of energy to weight. Whereas inapplications like you know, home
energy storage, the amount ofways is essentially
(19:28):
insignificant. And so thereduction in in in state of
health is a lot less importantin that application than it is
in the automotive application.
Dr. Surinder Singh (19:38):
That is very true. Exactly. Yes. The
automotive standards areactually much higher than the
stationary standards in terms ofdifferent KPIs key performance
indicators. So batteries thatretire from the transportation
sector are really good for thestationary sector. Okay, I
Dina Rasor (19:59):
think If we got the technical part of what you were
talking about how you you know,did it and you repurpose it. So
So where are you in the startupprocess?
Dr. Surinder Singh (20:10):
Right, so we launched the company about a
year ago. And within this oneyear, what we've done is set up
systems with various batteriescoming from different OEM so
whether they are in the US, orJapan, China, South Korea, and
so on. And by the way, all ofthese actually batteries are
different. So even though whenwe say lithium ion batteries,
(20:31):
they are not single chemistry.
They could be lithium ion andphosphates or NMC and NCA and so
on, in different shapes andsizes. So what we've done is
actually utilized thesebatteries that come from either
cars or SUVs, or even Evie,basically buses and repurpose
them for on grid and off gridapplications. And on grid and
(20:51):
off grid applications aretremendous. There's many
different use cases in which forbehind of the meter
applications, things such asTime Of Use or demand charge
reduction, which is basicallyelectricity bill reduction, or
for renewable integration. Sofor example, if you have solar,
and you want to utilize therenewable energy that's produced
(21:12):
during the day, but you want toutilize it at night, energy
storage is needed for that, oreven for backup power. So in
California, fires areunfortunately a common thing
that happens almost every year.
And so having backup power,utilizing these stationary
energy storage systems isanother use case. One, go ahead,
Dina Rasor (21:37):
I wanted to add on that for people back east that
don't understand how bad it is.
Because the wires that arecoming over the Sierra mountains
in different parts ofCalifornia, are very old. And
everything, there's been some ofthese horrendous ones like
paradise, which basically tookout a town and is at 87 people
died, pg&e the power company hada 99 year old tower. And now
(22:00):
whenever we get even slightlyhigh winds, I know that you must
have also done this a surrenderis little, little tiny wins,
they are so frayed, they'regonna burn another town down,
they just shut your power off. Imean, they'll just say, Okay,
we're shutting off everybody'spower off. And so people are
really getting motivated now, inCalifornia, because until they
(22:24):
fix these towers and fix all theproblems, which will probably
take years, anytime the powercompany decides to shut it off
for legal reasons. We're allstuck in the dark.
Gregory A. Williams (22:39):
Right? This seems like a great example of
how it sometimes can take acrisis to get people to take
action. But the the more generalissue, as I understand it, is
that while wind and solar do agreat job of producing a lot of
electricity, they don't produceit at all of the times that it's
needed. And so these kinds of,you know, non vehicular
(23:00):
applications of batteries arecritical to building a carbon
free or carbon reduced. Electricelectricity infrastructure.
Dr. Surinder Singh (23:09):
Yes, absolutely. Greg, you said it
perfectly. Just recently,actually, there was a heatwave
also in California. And therewere these PSPs events, again,
just to make sure that the griddoes not fall into a place where
the demand is too high, and thesupply is not there. So in those
cases, also, actually, energystorage systems are really
(23:30):
useful, because you can actuallycharge them during the times of
the day when renewables areproducing at a really high
amount. But the demand is notthere at that time. So they can
you can shift the time at whichthe demand can be supplied by
the energy storage systems thatwere charged you by renewable
energy.
Gregory A. Williams (23:53):
So it's sort of like going back in the
old days were farmers, when theyhad a tractor that wasn't that
much good in the fields anymore,they would just park it
someplace and use the powertakeoff to run all kinds of
machinery around the farm. Okay.
And in fact, the Model T Fordwas specifically designed to be
able to do that. And so it sortof returned to this idea of of
having an energy source that'sinitially for a car or said
(24:14):
energy storage technology. Andthen it gets converted to other
uses.
Dr. Surinder Singh (24:24):
And this is an example where there is an
economic reason to do it afinancial reason to utilize
actually energy where you chargethe batteries when the power
prices are low, and utilize themwhen the power prices are high.
In addition to that, it's notonly a financial reason, but the
co2 reason also very you cancharge the batteries when the
(24:47):
grid carbon footprint is thelowest and discharge your
batteries when actually thecarbon footprint is high so
you're not consuming energy thathas a very high co2 footprint.
Dina Rasor (24:59):
Okay, so you You're you you haven't started a
demonstration plant or anythinglike that you because you've
only had a year but you are youwhat are your plans now? What's
your next next goals in your inyour startup mode?
Dr. Surinder Singh (25:13):
Sure. So in Santa Clara actually, that's
where we are located. We'vebuilt these MVP or minimum
viable products, where we'vetaken batteries from all
different sources and havedemonstrated actually all of
these are most of these usecases. And our next stage is
that actually, we are going tobe piloting our technology at
(25:34):
different sites, includingutilities, and then also for Off
Grid applications. And thosepilots are going to serve the
purpose where we can actuallyget the early adopters to
showcase that this is atechnology that can be really
helpful and not to be fearedoff. With those pilots, we are
also going to get the differentcertifications that required for
full commercialization. And withthe step that is going to get us
(25:58):
ready for the full fullcommercialization in about 18
months. Wow.
Gregory A. Williams (26:04):
So you explained that the selling these
in the retail market in 18months, yes. On the scale of an
individual or a single familyhome or larger scales,
Dr. Surinder Singh (26:15):
even larger scales, actually. So what we've
built is, for example, in ourinitial customer segmentation,
we're targeting CNI sector andthe utilities, and those are
actually larger applicationswhere each system would be on
the order of about 60 to 100kilowatt hours at a small scale,
and actually at a half megawatthour or one megawatt hour for
(26:37):
the on grid scale.
Dina Rasor (26:42):
Okay, that is really ambitious. So where's the
majority of your fun fundingcome from? What percentage is
private and public sources?
Because I saw this, do you havepartners? So, you know,
obviously have partners?
Dr. Surinder Singh (26:57):
Right?
Absolutely. So in our case,we're a US incorporated company.
And our funds are all internal.
And with external funding comingfrom a group called Alliant, so
currently, it's all privatefunding, we do not have any
government grants and so on atthis point.
Dina Rasor (27:16):
So you're gonna be able to, could you go to through
the 18 months and do and get tothe point you are with that with
just private funding, there'sthat much funding available?
Dr. Surinder Singh (27:26):
We are raising our next round, that we
expect to close actually in themiddle of next year. We are
starting early, but yes, we areon the lookout for different
grants that are coming in andwith the bipartisan
infrastructure bill and also thegrowth taking place in the
(27:48):
recycling and repurposing ofbatteries. So we will be
Dina Rasor (27:54):
so you're gonna see you're gonna be applying for
federal grants that are aboutstate of California to since
they started when a countryourselves, we have our own
energy plant.
Dr. Surinder Singh (28:05):
Yes. You see an epic, for example, there. I
think they're doing again, goodwork with respect to looking out
for the needs of Californiacitizens. And so absolutely,
we'll be looking at at those,especially with California now
saying that by 2035 internalcombustion engine cars will be
(28:26):
banned. And so only EVs aregoing to be there. There's many
different use cases that need tobe there for these Evie
batteries. On top of that, weneed to provide an
infrastructure that we can utilthat we can charge the EVS that
are going to be coming on themarket and again, stationary
energy storage can be a cyclicalsolution where once the Evie
(28:49):
batteries retire, you canutilize those batteries to
charge the cars when when it isneeded. So we're on the lookout
for all of these requests forproposals.
Gregory A. Williams (29:00):
So one of the big challenges with Evie
charging is just the amount oftime that it takes and the
traditional electrical powergrid isn't really designed to
deliver you know, huge amountsof energy in a very short period
of time, the way a gas pumpdoes. And a gas pump produces
you know, the equivalent of manyhours of Evie charging in the 10
(29:23):
minutes or so it takes to fill a16 or 20 gallon gas tank. But by
repurposing automotive batterysystems, well are those systems
that you would repurpose morefrequently able to deliver that
kind of, you know, very highspeed discharge?
Dr. Surinder Singh (29:41):
Yes, again, Greg, good point. With respect
to EVs, that is a limitationwhere it takes a lot of time to
charge a charge them. Thealternative is that actually you
can have really high powercoming in to charge these Evie
batteries. But the problemassociated with that is the AC
(30:03):
infrastructure or the grid needsto be updated, which is actually
really old. In most of ourcases, the alternative of using
these retired Evie batteries forstationary energy storage system
is a really good example whereyou can maintain the existing AC
infrastructure to slow chargethe stationary energy storage
systems that can then fastdischarge into the EVS and keep
(30:27):
them for their full utilizationduring throughout the day.
Dina Rasor (30:33):
And in the as far as the federal government's
concerning, you know, these twothe bipartisan infrastructure
law and the inflation ReductionAct, have they I haven't looked
lately I know about eat low, theEvie charging budget, but have
they had a specific budget atall in mind for recycling
(30:53):
batteries?
Dr. Surinder Singh (30:54):
Right. So just recently, actually, I think
last week, there was $2.8billion worth of federal money
that was awarded to differentcompanies with respect to making
sure there is localmanufacturing of lithium ion
batteries that takes place inthe US. In addition to that,
(31:15):
specifically, there's about Ibelieve, $300 million of grants
that are going to be coming out.
So there's request forinformation that is already out,
where the government is askingfor request for information for
recycling of the batteries,including actually repurposing
also.
Dina Rasor (31:36):
And when you have you applied for government
grants, and things like that, inthe past, in your past, your
past works.
Dr. Surinder Singh (31:45):
Yes. So previously, after my PhD, I was
working for General Electric GE,for close to 10 years. And there
we did apply for actually manydifferent grants, including for
carbon capture, and so onalternative fuels and energy
storage and things like that.
Dina Rasor (32:07):
Okay, so in your you haven't done it yet, but you've
obviously had, you know, we'reknow how it goes, Do you think
that they got this balancing actof gotta get it done fast, that
gotta have oversight, because ifyou spend it wrong, then whoever
has the long match for yourprograms gonna come for you
(32:28):
afterwards? That's just sort ofthe nature of Washington. And
I'm just wondering, wondering ifyou think that the government,
in your experience, thegovernment, and in talking to
other people who are obviouslyapplying for grants have
experience with the federalgovernment yet seems to be put
together? Because I'm gettingI'm starting to read stuff that
(32:51):
people are saying, it's just,they can't get it out the door
fast enough? And because it'sjust a lot of money, it's the
grant process seem overburdensome on or you're worried
about doesn't have enoughoversight, if you have bad
actor, or somewhere in between?
Dr. Surinder Singh (33:12):
That's a very deep question, actually. So
in my opinion, I think withrespect to the scale of funding
that is coming in, I think theclimate change problem is so
big, it's so huge. It's theproblem of our lifetimes. To
address those, we have toaddress it from many different
(33:33):
fronts, different technologies,and so on. So batteries are one
of them. Carbon Capture isanother one, directly capture
and so on. So we have to addressand tackle the problem from many
different fronts. So the scaleof funding that is coming in is
absolutely that is what isneeded, if not more. And so
that's actually on the goodside, with respect to the
(33:55):
timeline, whether they're comingfast and whether the funds are
getting deployed fast. Again, Ithink there's a lot of work to
do over there. Specificallylooking at it as a startup. I
think that's where that's one ofthe challenges that we face is
that if you're wanting todevelop a technology right now,
but there are proposals that arecoming in, you know, once or
(34:18):
twice or three times a year,they are not actually aligned
with the things that you want todevelop. So if, if anything, I
think more frequency of theseproposals would be helpful.
Gregory A. Williams (34:30):
So one thing that occurs to me is, is
that while you haven't beenpursuing funding through
government grants or loanguarantees or things like that,
potentially you benefitindirectly from them, since many
of these are designed to helphomeowners either reduce their
electrical consumption or toacquire renewable energy sources
(34:51):
or renewable energy systems. Andand since you're designing your
products, so they can work inthat way. You're potentially
selling into a pipeline thatitself benefits from these these
government grants.
Dr. Surinder Singh (35:05):
Right?
Absolutely 100% Agreed. So forexample, in the inflation
Reduction Act, one of the thingsthat was modified is that now
standalone energy storagesystems qualify for the credit
it previously they were tied tosolar. So if you deployed solar,
and your energy storage systemwas charged more than 90 95%, by
solar, only, then you qualifiedfor the credit. Whereas with the
(35:28):
IRA, now, you stand alone,energy storage systems qualify.
And that's a that's a bigchange. And that is going to
benefit the consumers, and alsothe companies that are working
in this space tremendously.
Gregory A. Williams (35:43):
So I just want to call back to your
earlier point that, you know,while one might wonder, hey, do
we really want people chargingtheir their, their household
battery systems potentially withwith coal and natural gas,
chances are these systems aregoing to be coupled to demand
management systems that chargethemselves and buy that power
(36:04):
when it's least expensive, whichnowadays tends to be when you
have those renewable energysources online.
Dr. Surinder Singh (36:10):
Right. And actually, it's also not that the
the energy storage systems athomes are charged by coal and
natural gas, that is actuallyone of the points that I wanted
to make. So for example, duringthe day, you have peak solar,
but people are actually at theiroffices and the EVs are not at
(36:32):
their home. So when during theevening time when people come
home, the Evie, start charging,and at that time, actually, the
renewables are going down. So byhaving these stationary energy
storage systems, actually, youget rid of that, because what
you can do is actually chargethese systems during the day
when the peak solar is there.
And when the people come, duringevening hours at home, you
(36:53):
utilize your charger EVs,through your the stationary
energy storage systems that havebeen charged by renewable
energy. So
Dina Rasor (37:06):
you are in process of getting more private money,
right now you've worked in thepast getting government money,
which is harder and which isfaster and slower.
Dr. Surinder Singh (37:19):
Interesting, yes. So both have their pros,
pros and cons, right. And sowith the private money, the
benefit is that actually, if youcan have you have access to that
money, you can move really fast,you can develop the things that
you need to develop really fast.
Whereas with the governmentmoney, it comes, you know, at
(37:43):
various times of the year and invarious cycles. And that might
not completely align with whatyou want to develop. So you need
to have, I believe, actually, asa successful company, and as a
successful startup, you need tohave both streams of funding
sources coming in, so that youcan move fast and at the same
(38:06):
time actually utilize the mosteffective money also, that is
coming from the various grantsfrom the federal or the state
government.
Dina Rasor (38:17):
And then another question this kind of connected
to this. One of the things whenyou finally get to the point
where you're starting to buildplants, and whatever, we had
somebody on last week that wastelling us, it's really hard for
America to do big thingsanymore, because of all, you
know, it's kind of a doubleedged sword, the environmental
(38:37):
is want to move, but they alsowant all their environmental
checks when you do it, get apermit the whole permitting
problem. And then there's alsoproblems of, you know, local
governments and stategovernments and whatever,
there's too many pies, fingersin the thing, and it's much
easier to get things done. Wewere saying in China and Europe,
they're really got fast trends,and we can't seem to get our act
(38:58):
together. And the question isthe fan is American America
still do big things? And I'mjust wondering that when you
start to get to the productionstage and whatever, are you
worried about the permittingprocess that's going to take
could take a long time with toget local and environmental and
all the stuff you have to do tobuild a manufacturing plant?
Dr. Surinder Singh (39:21):
Definitely.
So, that is, again, somethingthat would take time and
permitting is a very strongrequirement to go through the
permitting process, but evenbefore that, actually what we
have to do is get yourcertifications and the NFPA
codes and so on. That isactually something that we are
working on, it definitely issomething that is required
(39:45):
whether it can be streamlinedfurther, you can always wish for
the best right that it can bedone faster and it can be more
simplified. But that issomething that is an important
requirement, I believe.
Gregory A. Williams (39:59):
So thank you Again, something I've
inferred from what you've said.
And what I've read is that byfocusing on the repurposing part
of the equation, you'reaccessing something that are a
way to help the environment thatis much faster than than trying
to have a big impact on therecycling. Part of the equation
recycling, I imagine, involvesmuch more dangerous waste and a
(40:21):
much more elaborate productionfacility than one that is I say,
simply, or relatively anyway,repackaging existing batteries
without pulling them, pullingthem apart to their component.
Materials, washing them,cleaning them, re refining them,
etc.
Dr. Surinder Singh (40:43):
Yes, Greg.
So there's two parts in there,actually. So one of them is the
co2 emissions that take placebecause of manufacturing, or
remanufacturing of batteries.
And there are studies actually,that have been done all over the
world that show that if weutilize the batteries for longer
periods of time and dorepurposing before recycling,
(41:05):
then there is a tremendousamount of co2 that is avoided
based on just the longer life ofbatteries and not not going
through the remanufacturingprocess. And the estimates are
on the order of 50 to 450 tonsof co2 emissions awarded for
every megawatt hours ofbatteries that are repurposed.
(41:25):
And if we look at this scale,and the the amount of batteries
that we are going to beutilizing in our near future,
there are estimates that wecould be awarding a giga tons of
co2 emissions by 2050, for everyyear. That is one point. And
then the second is thatactually, all the materials that
we utilize right now in that gointo the lithium ion batteries,
(41:49):
tremendous amount of these videomaterials are actually mined in
countries such as Chile, Congoand China, that have various
issues with respect togeopolitical risks, as well as
actually other other risksassociated with child labor and
so on. So if we utilize thebatteries for instead of
(42:11):
utilizing them and prematurelykilling them, so as to say, over
10 years, and instead of that,if we utilize them for 30 to 40
years, we are reducing ourdependence on geopolitically
sensitive areas, and alsodependence on countries where
child labor and other issuesare, are prominent.
Dina Rasor (42:32):
And that also, that would also include the
environmental problems, because,you know, especially when you go
to these other countries, youknow, they will, like sort of
like Chevron Denham in centralSouth America, they just leave
the mess behind, you know, theyjust do it don't do the
environmental things. And, and Iknow that they're talking about
(42:54):
doing it and doing some lithiumin, in Nevada, so you're saying
that it's better it's better torepurpose these things before
they're completely thank God,it's very complicated to take it
apart and put it back togetheror to try to make it you know,
try to what do you do when abattery is totally dead? Can you
(43:16):
really recycle? You know, it'sjust lived out its life, can you
really recycle? How much of itcan you recycle of the chemicals
and the things that you wouldnot want to have to dispose of?
Dr. Surinder Singh (43:27):
Right, so in a typical recycling process, so
one of the first steps that isdone is actually shred the
battery evey battery packs downto its smallest components. And
after the shredding and so on,you reach a point where it's
called an intuitively blackmass, and that black mass is a
(43:47):
mixture of you know, manydifferent materials, and that
black mass can do be easilyshipped to various places in the
country or, you know, outside ofthe country, to the recyclers
where they separate out thatblack bass into different you
know, components such as thelithium, nickel and cobalt and
so on. Those purified materialsthen can be sent to these new
(44:09):
battery manufacturers. There aredifferent methodologies used for
recycling such as Pyrometallurgyand hieromonk hydrometallurgy.
And both of those have their ownpros and cons. In case of
Pyrometallurgy, for example, youcannot recover the lithium that
is wasted. Whereas, in case ofhydrometallurgy, you can
(44:31):
actually make the most amount ofmaterials. Also in case of
Pyrometallurgy. Again, there arevarious debates going on. That
Pyrometallurgy itself has largeco2 emissions, because actually
you're kind of burning thebatteries to recover the
different materials.
Gregory A. Williams (44:46):
I see. So there's no way to physically
separate the materials throughcentrifuges are similar things.
Dr. Surinder Singh (44:54):
You'll first have to actually get down to the
point where you can actuallyutilize different methodologies
to separate These materials out,but if you see how these lithium
ion batteries are manufacturedprismatic cells, pouch cells and
you know cylindrical cells,first you have to crush them to
get to the point so that you canstart the the leaching process
(45:15):
or the separation process andthings like that.
Dina Rasor (45:20):
Okay, I'm going to just ask you this question just
in case you run into it. Myfather was an engineering
physicist for years and energy,and energy, thermo thermodynamic
energy and also batteries. And,and so I have a, I have just
(45:40):
enough knowledge to bedangerous. But one of the things
when he used to get governmentcontracts a lot for his various
thermionic conversion program isstuff he would see in the field.
Okay, lots of people trying tomake different amount of
conversion with different kindsof metals, you know, and then
(46:01):
whatever, he would see some thatwould just kind of become into
favor or come into being like afad. You know, this is the thing
that maybe it's the first onethat comes out everybody's wild.
And there's, there's politiciansconnected to it that are going
to help. And everybody it'sbecomes everybody's fad. And it
(46:21):
would be very frustrating forhim. And also with me, working
on the Pentagon, the Pentagonwould fall in love with a
weapons system that couldn'tpass its test, but they've
already fallen in love with it.
So they're going to keep fundingit. Is there anything like that
you're seeing in batteryrecycling? Is there kind of
competing competing groups andissues that you could see one
because of its, you don't haveto name names, but if you can
(46:43):
see one that has politicalconnections, or, you know,
they've hired somebody's stafferfrom the Congress, or whatever,
that can become boondoggles,because it's really basically a
failed concept. But it's gotpolitical juice.
Dr. Surinder Singh (47:06):
I don't know actually, if, if it is directly
answering your question. But oneof the things that we are number
of things that we've alreadyspoken about is the technology
technology reasons and thebusiness reasons why repurposing
and recycling is hard. But wehaven't spoken about the policy
reasons, right. And this iswhere I think we need to improve
(47:28):
because the policy at this pointdoes not exist, where we enforce
people to actually recycle orrepurpose lithium ion batteries.
We spoke about lead acidbatteries, why 99% of those are
recycled. And the reason forthat is because the policy is
there, enforcement is there.
Whereas in case of lithium ion,it's a nascent industry, and the
policies are, I think they havea long way to catch up to
(47:52):
enforcing and making sure thatthis is something that actually
people do. And not only peoplebut actually companies do that
they're enforced to do therecycling and repurposing of
Evie batteries. And there's alot of ketchup to do over there.
Gregory A. Williams (48:08):
So for those of us not familiar, can
you describe just what themechanisms are that that
enforced lead acid batteryrecycling? Is it the the extra
fee that we pay when we get anew car battery that we get back
when we return it? But are thereother important elements to
that?
Dr. Surinder Singh (48:24):
Yes, it's exactly that. So it's, you know,
lead acid batteries when we,when we purchase them. And we
can after they're utilized, wecan go back to actually where we
purchased them from and get themoney back. So this is something
that is non existent for lithiumion batteries. You know, right
now people don't even knowactually what to do with the
(48:45):
batteries when they retire. Eventhe OEMs and other people are
still trying to figure out as tohow to do this. The second thing
I associated with this isactually the transportation of
lithium ion batteries. There isagain, a lot of missing
understanding with respect tohow lithium ion batteries can be
moved across from one place toanother, including the evey
(49:07):
battery packs. So for example,you can move an old Tesla from,
let's say, from California toNorth Carolina. But if you're
moving an Eevee battery packthat has been taken out of a
Tesla from in the sametransportation regions, you have
to have a hazmat for that. Andso I think it's, again, a
(49:30):
nascent problem where peoplestill have to figure out what is
the right way to handle theselithium ion batteries and the
policy has to catch up to it. Sothere's a lot of scope for this
improvement in terms of ensuringthat the OEMs take certain
burden of it with respect to howto make sure that recycling and
(49:50):
repurposing take place. Thetransportation of these
batteries is also a challenge sowe need to figure out how to do
that most effectively withoutcreating problems.
Dina Rasor (50:00):
So, I think a big problem this is with all the
different states and trying toget the government to the
federal government to come upwith a standard, and they're
going to staff and challengeforever. But I'm just wondering
is since since California is sofar ahead and getting electric
cars, I mean, I think it's like6%, nationwide, don't, I'm
(50:24):
pulling these off top, my headand 18% in California, all the
new cars that are being beingsold. So we are valid for the
granting it. And there seems tobe a real interest in
California, there always hasbeen to be sort of the cutting
edge of, you know, coming upwith things like the Energy Star
appliances were done when I wasin college, and they were
(50:47):
California thing until they gotadopted nationally. So you think
do you think that Californiawould be in the position to try
to get their own standards forhow you ship it, what you do
with it? And maybe in what youdo if you haven't recycled here,
and then that can become atemplate for easier template for
the rest of the country?
Dr. Surinder Singh (51:05):
Right. So actually, California, just about
maybe two years ago, came upwith a B 2832. Bill, where the
recommendations were asked fromvarious sources as to how do we
actually develop a policy whererecycling and repurposing could
be enforced whether from aconsumer standpoint or from the
(51:26):
OEM standpoint and so on. Therewere a number of recommendations
that were made. And I believe,actually, California is going to
take, again, a leadingopposition with respect to
developing a policy, EuropeanUnion, actually, last year
already went through, went aheadwith that. And so California at
this time, might not be thefirst one, but we are in the
(51:48):
world, but we will still do it.
Dina Rasor (51:51):
Greg keeps saying he's challenged to find that New
York was another big thing, whatNew York might be doing that
California is not likeCalifornia is just put so much
money into it. I am just amazedthat, you know, we're in a
country by ourselves. So yeah,well, is there anything else
you'd like to add about thetechnology that you'd like
(52:12):
people to know that we haven'ttouched on?
Dr. Surinder Singh (52:16):
Overall, I would just say that lithium ion
batteries have been tremendous,again, for at various fronts, we
just need to ensure that we usethem in the right manner. And so
let's not just prematurelykilled the batteries and, you
know, not utilize them for theirtrue state of health and true
(52:38):
life. And so let's actuallydevelop technologies and utilize
them for as long as possible.
Dina Rasor (52:44):
And if you just came up with another question, if you
if you do, if you do use themand wear them all the way down,
and you try to use them inonline mode all the way down,
then you try to get rid of them.
What happens if you would justtake these batteries? And, you
know, do what they did? Do?
(53:07):
Companies sometimes do and thatis burying them in the ground
somewhere, put them in a, youknow, they what, what, what
would happen if these thingswere like badly stored or
abandoned, which might be a bigpollution problem.
Dr. Surinder Singh (53:22):
safety risks come in, you know, when we see
in the news that actually thereare lithium ion batteries or EVs
that catch fire. So if you dumpthem into various locations,
that it's not safe for theenvironment for because of
various reasons, including thatthese batteries can actually
catch fire and cause problems.
If there
Dina Rasor (53:47):
were if even if you have a hybrid like I do in a
Prius, and that car getsabandoned and everything you
don't put the battery in the carcrush it right, because they can
explode, right? So they'd be allthe people the hybrids are
putting all these cars injunkyards. You know, I just
wonder who knows not to do that.
Because it's, it's, you know,it's a technology that people
(54:11):
don't really understand. AndI've heard I've heard people
say, you know, oh, my gosh, theycrushed my Prius, it'll blow up.
Because if you don't take so youreally have to take these
batteries out. When you wreck acar, when you disintegrate a
car, smash a car up for thing,you can't leave them, you they
just can't be laying around.
(54:32):
They're not like, you know, it'snot like, Well, you didn't drain
the oil out. So there's a littlebit of oil in the soil. I mean,
when these things pollute, theyprobably pollute pretty badly
right.
Dr. Surinder Singh (54:42):
And that's why actually so decarbonisation
is really important and attachedto decarbonisation is the
sustainability and circularityand so we have to do that with
lithium ion batteries.
Dina Rasor (54:54):
Are we having Superfund sites with batteries?
Gregory A. Williams (54:59):
Well, More Superfund sites of veterans.
Yeah. As somebody who thumbedhis way through the national
priorities list from time totime, I can assure you there's
no shortage of hazardous wastesites of all shapes and sizes.
But doctor saying I want tothank you for joining us. This
(55:22):
has been a very informativeepisode that we've recorded and
I certainly hope you have theopportunity to meet with you
again. Thank you
Thanks for joining us for another episode
of climate money watchdog wherewe investigate and report on how
federal dollars are being spenton mitigating climate change and
protecting the environment. Weare a private, nonpartisan
nonprofit organization that doesnot accept advertisers or
sponsors. So we can only do thiswork with your support. Please
(00:30):
visit us at climate moneywatchdog.org To learn more about
us and consider making adonation. My name is Greg
Williams and I learned toinvestigate and report on waste,
fraud and abuse in federalspending while working at the
project on government oversightor Pogo 30 years ago, I learned
to do independent research aswell as to work with
confidential informants orwhistleblowers to uncover things
(00:53):
like overpriced spare parts,like the infamous $435 hammers,
and weapon systems that didn'twork as advertised. I was taught
by my co host the inner racewar, who founded in 1981, and
founded climate money watchdogwith me last year, Dina has
spent 40 years investigating andsometimes recovering millions of
(01:14):
dollars wasted by the DefenseDepartment and other branches of
government at Pogo, as anindependent journalist, as an
author and as a professionalinvestigator. Our guest tonight
is Dr. Surinder Singh.
surrenders distinguished careerhas focused on advancing and
incubating technologies thataddress climate emergency with a
focus on fundamentals ofscience, systems engineering,
(01:36):
and business models. He isspearheading, rely on an energy
incorporated strategic businessdevelopment to create Second
Life sustainable solutions forlithium ion batteries.
Previously, Surinder worked asDirector of Engineering and
Center of Excellence leader fornice America research. That's
(01:57):
the National Institute for cleanand low carbon energy, an
incubator for China energy, andas a program leader at General
Electric. China energy is theworld's largest overall power
producer, and renewable powerproducer by assets. He utilizes
system level thinking to addressclimate change via clean energy
technology developments. He'sled initiatives funded by the
(02:21):
Defense Advanced ResearchProjects Agency or DARPA,
Department of Energy GeneralElectric nice, and others on low
carbon technologies such asalternative fuel production for
transportation with lowgreenhouse gas emissions, carbon
capture and storage, includingdirect air capture and bioenergy
with carbon capture and storagefor decarbonizing the power
(02:42):
sector. Biofuels and bio carproduction. Fuel cells hydrogen
and energy storage is ledmultimillion dollar programs,
developed partnerships withrenowned universities and
technology developers anddevelop and developed calls for
proposals for funding programs.
(03:05):
So, thank you for joining ustonight. And I want to give my
co host Dina a few minutes tointroduce yourself as well.
Dina Rasor (03:15):
Okay, I'm Dina razor. And so Greg is first job
one better hires I've ever had.
And we are having a lot of fundoing climate money watchdog
because we're taking the skillswe've learned from our careers.
Greg's partly has worked in thecorporate world, but also a lot
in the nonprofit world. And I'vepretty much been doing the same
(03:35):
investigations usingwhistleblowers and finding out
where the government money isand, and things like that for,
you know, 40 years I hate tosay. But anyway, I climate money
watch, we started it because Ishould say climate money
watchdog got a typo, I don'tthink is we just decided to do
(03:56):
this because the environmentalmovement has just never had this
much money. I mean, the in thesense that I talked to some
environmentalists, oh, once weget the money, it's going to all
be so great, because it's allgonna be environmentalists and
it's all gonna be Kumbaya.
(04:17):
Nobody will cheat. And I'm like,Okay, I don't think I will keep
buying oil out, you know, so Iwas like, okay, that make it
very clear that that's notreally going to happen, because
as soon as you get that muchmoney, all kinds of sharks show
up. So anyway, what we wanted todo in talking to surrender today
(04:39):
is we're really interested inthese new startup technologies
that are coming up from the pushthe corporate and federal and
state push towards climatechange, and climate mitigation
really, and we want to we wantto talk to him today about
(04:59):
public input. Private money, andit's new technology. And it's
kind of a hard thing we all weall know we have to move. We all
know that there's deadlines, weall know that the catastrophe is
coming. But when you're spendingthis money, you also have to
have oversight. Because if aprogram is, could be a really
(05:20):
good program, but if it's gotfraud, waste or abuse in it,
whoever is against that programwill then use it to make sure
that it's not funded again. So Ikeep telling them that if you
don't want to have them comeafter you, we've got to put good
oversight. So that's what we'redoing our little niche here. And
what we really want to do islook at technologies, also
(05:41):
looking at technologies to seeif from a layperson, it makes
sense to us. Because some ofthese some of these projects, I
kind of say, I don't know howyou're going to want to do it
for the amount of money. Or ifyou have to buy, you know, if
you have to put co2 pipelinesall over the country to ship the
carbon capture. That's not verypolitically fun. So anyway,
(06:06):
that's what we're doing. And sotoday, I'm gonna start asking
him questions. And I think thisis a technology that I really do
not run into in all my reading,and that is that there's going
to be a lot of batteries, fromcars and all kinds of things.
And then you know, batterieswear out, and they're going to
(06:28):
have to be recycled or somehowused again. So my first question
is that the lithium ionbatteries was what you've been
working on, are needed for thishuge expansion of, of electric
vehicles and battery stacks forhomes and businesses. So
according to your companywebsite, there'll be 12 million
(06:49):
tons of batteries retiring by2030. How complicated is it to
recycle a Lyon battery? And whatdoes that battery recycling
industry has done so far andfacing this problem?
Dr. Surinder Singh (07:04):
First of all, thanks, Tina, and Greg for
having me here. I'm lookingforward for the discussion. So
as he mentioned, so there'sexpected 12 million tonnes of
lithium ion batteries that areexpected to retire by 2030. And
every time actually this number,when it gets updated, it always
increases. So 12 million numberis, I think, the lower estimate
(07:27):
with respect to how many tons ofbatteries will be retiring by
2030. And to start actually, ofwhat I would mention is that
what lithium ion technology did,and specifically what EVs did,
is really tremendous fordecarbonisation of the
transportation sector. And weneed to decarbonize actually all
sectors that are involved withrespect to power production,
(07:50):
transportation, chemicals, andso on. But one of the challenges
associated with the with thelithium ion batteries is that,
what do we do with the batterieswhen they retire? If you look at
the battery materials, or otherthings also that that are
getting recycled, there is avery stark contrast between lead
(08:13):
acid batteries and lithium ionbatteries. The current estimates
are that sub 10% of batteriesare getting recycled. Whereas
more than 99 99% of lead acidbatteries are recycled. And
there's a number of reasons whythat happens. There's technical,
technological reasons, businessreasons, and policy reasons. And
(08:34):
we'll talk about why actually,in the lithium ion case,
actually, that number is so low.
In addition to recycling, what Ialso mentioned is that we need
to develop full circularity oflithium ion battery
technologies. And recycling is avery important component of
that. But the other thing thatis available in between is that
when the easy batteries theyretired, they have a very good
(08:57):
state of health, that it's alsoknown by S O H. And what that is
related to is how muchdegradation of the batteries has
taken place. So when these Eviebatteries retired, they have a
really good state of health,which is on the order of 70 to
80%. And the analogy that I useis that every time let's say we
(09:18):
eat food, or drink coffee andthings like that, let's only eat
the top, the 20% or 30% of that,and the rest, let's compost it.
The thing is that the intentionis rarely good, but the
execution is really bad. And sowhat we need to do with the
lithium ion batteries is findout how we can utilize these
batteries that have such a goodstate of health still remaining.
(09:41):
How do we utilize them to theirfull true extent and take them
to the true end of life and thenrecycle them?
Gregory A. Williams (09:51):
You may get to this eventually, but at some
point, I'd encourage you todescribe why something is being
retired at 70 or 80%. And What Iwas going to offer is that there
are many of us who buy a newphone when our phone isn't
remaining, you know, fullycharged the way it once was. And
so while we may wait for, youknow, 50 or 60%, you know,
(10:13):
imagine having a car that needsto get you to and from work, and
it can now only get you, youknow, three quarters of the way
to and from work that's, that'sa problem.
Dr. Surinder Singh (10:23):
Yes, absolutely. Greg, you You hit
the nail on the head. This isone of the primary reasons that
actually everybody who's drivingcars, they would want to
actually utilize their cars tothe full extent. And once you
start getting actually lessmileage out out of it, then the
batteries retire. On top ofthat, actually, what happens is,
in a typical electricalengineering or energy storage
(10:45):
system, you're limited by theworst performing component. And
as we know, actually differentevey battery packs are made up
of many, many modules. And ontop. Inside of those modules,
there are many individual cells.
And what happens is that eachindividual cell degrades at a
different rate. Now, there aremany studies that have been done
(11:06):
with respect to what's thedegradation rate of different
lithium ion batteries. And oneof the most cited actually, a
study was done by Emeril where,even if you take a battery from
single OEM with a single batterychemistry, coming from a single
batch, and put them undertesting for, you know, various
(11:27):
cycles and various duration oftime, under absolutely same
conditions of temperature andenvironmental conditions and so
on under the same load curve,what happens is that over 1000s
of cycles, each battery celldegrades at a different level.
So it's not only the externalfactors, but there are internal
factors that cause thisdistribution in the degradation.
(11:50):
And what happens inside eveybattery packs is when the the
sales are degrading at adifferent level, you're going to
be limited by the worstperforming component. So the
full pack is going to behave asif it's formed by the worst
performing component. And itwon't, the state of health would
not be reflective of the truestate of health, what is of each
(12:11):
individual component. And that'swhere actually our technology
also comes in where we try totake advantage of the full
distribution instead of beinglimited by the worst performing
component.
Dina Rasor (12:25):
So then gets me right into the next question. So
tell me about really rely onwhere you are in the startup
process, why your technology torecycle is new than the other
recycling tests. And you know,we already talked about using
all that second use batteries,you know, the ones ones that are
retired early, but reallyinterested in your company. And
(12:48):
I looked through the othercompanies and they're they seem
to be further along and further,doing demonstration plants and
things but it they looked atyour site, and I could see that
you had a way of using thesecond the second battery life
and actually making a better newbattery from it that goes
(13:10):
longer. So I'll let you take itover. And I'm also really
interested on where you are inthe startup process.
Dr. Surinder Singh (13:16):
Absolutely.
Sounds good Dina? So withrespect to rely on our
foundation of the technology isthat what we started with was
that we need to develop SecondLife system that maintains the
advantage of low cost, inaddition to providing the life
and the performance, comparableto new battery energy storage
(13:36):
systems. So knowing thatactually that's what we've
developed in terms of thetechnology. But let me take a
step back and explain actually,what what is the traditional way
of utilizing these retiredbatteries. So as I mentioned
earlier, the evey battery packis made up of many different
modules. And inside of thosemodules are individual cells.
And when these battery packsretire, their performance is
(14:00):
very different. So what thestate of the art technology that
exists right now is that youdisassemble the battery packs
into its own modules andcomponents. And then great the
battery packs, or the modulesand the cells into the goods,
the bads and the uglies or youknow, tier one, tier two, tier
(14:21):
three and so on, where you putsimilar battery components
together and make up a batterypack again and you put into an
energy storage system. What endsup happening because of this is
even though the technology worksso you can cycle the batteries
and grate them and put similarones together, it would work but
the drawback is that it is avery time consuming and energy
(14:43):
consuming a labor intensive andlong process. It can take not
only weeks but months also toget these batteries disassembled
graded and reassemble due tothat the The cost benefit that
was there, it ends up costingmore in doing all of these
methods, and then compare it asa comparable cost. The new
(15:07):
battery energy storage systemsare actually cheaper rather than
the second life battery energystorage systems. In case of rely
on, what we do is actually wetake these battery packs with
the full distribution. Sowhether if there's a battery, EV
battery that is coming with a90% state of health, or there is
a battery that is coming with40% state of health, we can
(15:28):
utilize them as it is, evenwithout knowing and grading the
state of health of thesedifferent batteries. And the
technology, the way it works isbased on its physics based, and
thermodynamics based algorithmsthat have been developed over
very, very long periods of time,with tremendous amount of data
that we have, and are alsoutilizing the battery parameters
(15:52):
that are directly measurable,whereas Soh is an indirectly
inferred parameter, which is notdirectly measured. So what we've
done is actually simplified theprocess considerably. It's very
fast, and maintains the economicbenefit of these retired
batteries so that they can beutilized for their full life.
Gregory A. Williams (16:15):
So you might want to take a moment and
explain the difference between acell a battery and a module.
Dr. Surinder Singh (16:20):
Yes, I think the simplest way to explain this
is at the most foundationallevel, a single cell is the
building block of a lithium ionbattery inside if that is the
anode, and the cathode andelectrolyte and so on. But one
single cell is actually thebuilding block, you combine
single cells into, into acombination of groups. And each
(16:45):
battery OEM has actuallydifferent number of cells that
they put together in terms ofdifferent series and parallel
configurations to build a blocka module, and those modules then
become a building block for afull evey battery pack. Let me
give an example of Tesla soTesla has actually 1000s of
these individual cylindricalcells that go into the evey
(17:07):
battery pack that has certainnumber of modules, whereas for
example, Nissan LEAF which isanother evey, battery Evie, that
has only about 50 to 100 modules50 to 100 cells actually rather
than actually 1000s of cells ascompared to a Tesla so every OEM
(17:28):
has their own method to workwith how many cells modules that
they put together into formingan Eevee battery pack so good
you know
Dina Rasor (17:41):
I'm sorry i didn't i How do you end up then doing the
recycle your your way ofrecycling versus what's been
done in the past that makes itless expensive, less carbon
intensive and all that
Dr. Surinder Singh (17:57):
I would differentiate between actually
two two steps one is recyclingand second is repurposing so
specifically about rely on we dothe repurposing so in case of
recycling, as I was mentioning,you take the battery down to its
material level and separatethose out into different
components. So the lithium,nickel, cobalt and so on, in and
(18:21):
make new batteries out of thethe recycled material. Whereas
in case of repurposing, what youend up doing is Take for
example, if you have batteriesthat were utilized for the EVs
in the transportation sector,you take those batteries in and
recurrent configured them fordifferent application without
(18:41):
going down to the materiallevel. So we utilize the battery
modules and put them in a formfactor that can be utilized for
stationary energy storagesystem. And what I mean by
stationary energy storage systemis the analogy would be what
Tesla does for with theirpowerwall power pack and the
mega packs for residentialapplications or CNI sector or
(19:02):
for utility grid scaleapplications.
Gregory A. Williams (19:05):
So what I think is implied, but it would
be great for you to confirm isthat in the automotive capacity
of battery is worth the mostwhen it has a very high density
of energy to weight. Whereas inapplications like you know, home
energy storage, the amount ofways is essentially
(19:28):
insignificant. And so thereduction in in in state of
health is a lot less importantin that application than it is
in the automotive application.
Dr. Surinder Singh (19:38):
That is very true. Exactly. Yes. The
automotive standards areactually much higher than the
stationary standards in terms ofdifferent KPIs key performance
indicators. So batteries thatretire from the transportation
sector are really good for thestationary sector. Okay, I
Dina Rasor (19:59):
think If we got the technical part of what you were
talking about how you you know,did it and you repurpose it. So
So where are you in the startupprocess?
Dr. Surinder Singh (20:10):
Right, so we launched the company about a
year ago. And within this oneyear, what we've done is set up
systems with various batteriescoming from different OEM so
whether they are in the US, orJapan, China, South Korea, and
so on. And by the way, all ofthese actually batteries are
different. So even though whenwe say lithium ion batteries,
(20:31):
they are not single chemistry.
They could be lithium ion andphosphates or NMC and NCA and so
on, in different shapes andsizes. So what we've done is
actually utilized thesebatteries that come from either
cars or SUVs, or even Evie,basically buses and repurpose
them for on grid and off gridapplications. And on grid and
(20:51):
off grid applications aretremendous. There's many
different use cases in which forbehind of the meter
applications, things such asTime Of Use or demand charge
reduction, which is basicallyelectricity bill reduction, or
for renewable integration. Sofor example, if you have solar,
and you want to utilize therenewable energy that's produced
(21:12):
during the day, but you want toutilize it at night, energy
storage is needed for that, oreven for backup power. So in
California, fires areunfortunately a common thing
that happens almost every year.
And so having backup power,utilizing these stationary
energy storage systems isanother use case. One, go ahead,
Dina Rasor (21:37):
I wanted to add on that for people back east that
don't understand how bad it is.
Because the wires that arecoming over the Sierra mountains
in different parts ofCalifornia, are very old. And
everything, there's been some ofthese horrendous ones like
paradise, which basically tookout a town and is at 87 people
died, pg&e the power company hada 99 year old tower. And now
(22:00):
whenever we get even slightlyhigh winds, I know that you must
have also done this a surrenderis little, little tiny wins,
they are so frayed, they'regonna burn another town down,
they just shut your power off. Imean, they'll just say, Okay,
we're shutting off everybody'spower off. And so people are
really getting motivated now, inCalifornia, because until they
(22:24):
fix these towers and fix all theproblems, which will probably
take years, anytime the powercompany decides to shut it off
for legal reasons. We're allstuck in the dark.
Gregory A. Williams (22:39):
Right? This seems like a great example of
how it sometimes can take acrisis to get people to take
action. But the the more generalissue, as I understand it, is
that while wind and solar do agreat job of producing a lot of
electricity, they don't produceit at all of the times that it's
needed. And so these kinds of,you know, non vehicular
(23:00):
applications of batteries arecritical to building a carbon
free or carbon reduced. Electricelectricity infrastructure.
Dr. Surinder Singh (23:09):
Yes, absolutely. Greg, you said it
perfectly. Just recently,actually, there was a heatwave
also in California. And therewere these PSPs events, again,
just to make sure that the griddoes not fall into a place where
the demand is too high, and thesupply is not there. So in those
cases, also, actually, energystorage systems are really
(23:30):
useful, because you can actuallycharge them during the times of
the day when renewables areproducing at a really high
amount. But the demand is notthere at that time. So they can
you can shift the time at whichthe demand can be supplied by
the energy storage systems thatwere charged you by renewable
energy.
Gregory A. Williams (23:53):
So it's sort of like going back in the
old days were farmers, when theyhad a tractor that wasn't that
much good in the fields anymore,they would just park it
someplace and use the powertakeoff to run all kinds of
machinery around the farm. Okay.
And in fact, the Model T Fordwas specifically designed to be
able to do that. And so it sortof returned to this idea of of
having an energy source that'sinitially for a car or said
(24:14):
energy storage technology. Andthen it gets converted to other
uses.
Dr. Surinder Singh (24:24):
And this is an example where there is an
economic reason to do it afinancial reason to utilize
actually energy where you chargethe batteries when the power
prices are low, and utilize themwhen the power prices are high.
In addition to that, it's notonly a financial reason, but the
co2 reason also very you cancharge the batteries when the
(24:47):
grid carbon footprint is thelowest and discharge your
batteries when actually thecarbon footprint is high so
you're not consuming energy thathas a very high co2 footprint.
Dina Rasor (24:59):
Okay, so you You're you you haven't started a
demonstration plant or anythinglike that you because you've
only had a year but you are youwhat are your plans now? What's
your next next goals in your inyour startup mode?
Dr. Surinder Singh (25:13):
Sure. So in Santa Clara actually, that's
where we are located. We'vebuilt these MVP or minimum
viable products, where we'vetaken batteries from all
different sources and havedemonstrated actually all of
these are most of these usecases. And our next stage is
that actually, we are going tobe piloting our technology at
(25:34):
different sites, includingutilities, and then also for Off
Grid applications. And thosepilots are going to serve the
purpose where we can actuallyget the early adopters to
showcase that this is atechnology that can be really
helpful and not to be fearedoff. With those pilots, we are
also going to get the differentcertifications that required for
full commercialization. And withthe step that is going to get us
(25:58):
ready for the full fullcommercialization in about 18
months. Wow.
Gregory A. Williams (26:04):
So you explained that the selling these
in the retail market in 18months, yes. On the scale of an
individual or a single familyhome or larger scales,
Dr. Surinder Singh (26:15):
even larger scales, actually. So what we've
built is, for example, in ourinitial customer segmentation,
we're targeting CNI sector andthe utilities, and those are
actually larger applicationswhere each system would be on
the order of about 60 to 100kilowatt hours at a small scale,
and actually at a half megawatthour or one megawatt hour for
(26:37):
the on grid scale.
Dina Rasor (26:42):
Okay, that is really ambitious. So where's the
majority of your fun fundingcome from? What percentage is
private and public sources?
Because I saw this, do you havepartners? So, you know,
obviously have partners?
Dr. Surinder Singh (26:57):
Right?
Absolutely. So in our case,we're a US incorporated company.
And our funds are all internal.
And with external funding comingfrom a group called Alliant, so
currently, it's all privatefunding, we do not have any
government grants and so on atthis point.
Dina Rasor (27:16):
So you're gonna be able to, could you go to through
the 18 months and do and get tothe point you are with that with
just private funding, there'sthat much funding available?
Dr. Surinder Singh (27:26):
We are raising our next round, that we
expect to close actually in themiddle of next year. We are
starting early, but yes, we areon the lookout for different
grants that are coming in andwith the bipartisan
infrastructure bill and also thegrowth taking place in the
(27:48):
recycling and repurposing ofbatteries. So we will be
Dina Rasor (27:54):
so you're gonna see you're gonna be applying for
federal grants that are aboutstate of California to since
they started when a countryourselves, we have our own
energy plant.
Dr. Surinder Singh (28:05):
Yes. You see an epic, for example, there. I
think they're doing again, goodwork with respect to looking out
for the needs of Californiacitizens. And so absolutely,
we'll be looking at at those,especially with California now
saying that by 2035 internalcombustion engine cars will be
(28:26):
banned. And so only EVs aregoing to be there. There's many
different use cases that need tobe there for these Evie
batteries. On top of that, weneed to provide an
infrastructure that we can utilthat we can charge the EVS that
are going to be coming on themarket and again, stationary
energy storage can be a cyclicalsolution where once the Evie
(28:49):
batteries retire, you canutilize those batteries to
charge the cars when when it isneeded. So we're on the lookout
for all of these requests forproposals.
Gregory A. Williams (29:00):
So one of the big challenges with Evie
charging is just the amount oftime that it takes and the
traditional electrical powergrid isn't really designed to
deliver you know, huge amountsof energy in a very short period
of time, the way a gas pumpdoes. And a gas pump produces
you know, the equivalent of manyhours of Evie charging in the 10
(29:23):
minutes or so it takes to fill a16 or 20 gallon gas tank. But by
repurposing automotive batterysystems, well are those systems
that you would repurpose morefrequently able to deliver that
kind of, you know, very highspeed discharge?
Dr. Surinder Singh (29:41):
Yes, again, Greg, good point. With respect
to EVs, that is a limitationwhere it takes a lot of time to
charge a charge them. Thealternative is that actually you
can have really high powercoming in to charge these Evie
batteries. But the problemassociated with that is the AC
(30:03):
infrastructure or the grid needsto be updated, which is actually
really old. In most of ourcases, the alternative of using
these retired Evie batteries forstationary energy storage system
is a really good example whereyou can maintain the existing AC
infrastructure to slow chargethe stationary energy storage
systems that can then fastdischarge into the EVS and keep
(30:27):
them for their full utilizationduring throughout the day.
Dina Rasor (30:33):
And in the as far as the federal government's
concerning, you know, these twothe bipartisan infrastructure
law and the inflation ReductionAct, have they I haven't looked
lately I know about eat low, theEvie charging budget, but have
they had a specific budget atall in mind for recycling
(30:53):
batteries?
Dr. Surinder Singh (30:54):
Right. So just recently, actually, I think
last week, there was $2.8billion worth of federal money
that was awarded to differentcompanies with respect to making
sure there is localmanufacturing of lithium ion
batteries that takes place inthe US. In addition to that,
(31:15):
specifically, there's about Ibelieve, $300 million of grants
that are going to be coming out.
So there's request forinformation that is already out,
where the government is askingfor request for information for
recycling of the batteries,including actually repurposing
also.
Dina Rasor (31:36):
And when you have you applied for government
grants, and things like that, inthe past, in your past, your
past works.
Dr. Surinder Singh (31:45):
Yes. So previously, after my PhD, I was
working for General Electric GE,for close to 10 years. And there
we did apply for actually manydifferent grants, including for
carbon capture, and so onalternative fuels and energy
storage and things like that.
Dina Rasor (32:07):
Okay, so in your you haven't done it yet, but you've
obviously had, you know, we'reknow how it goes, Do you think
that they got this balancing actof gotta get it done fast, that
gotta have oversight, because ifyou spend it wrong, then whoever
has the long match for yourprograms gonna come for you
(32:28):
afterwards? That's just sort ofthe nature of Washington. And
I'm just wondering, wondering ifyou think that the government,
in your experience, thegovernment, and in talking to
other people who are obviouslyapplying for grants have
experience with the federalgovernment yet seems to be put
together? Because I'm gettingI'm starting to read stuff that
(32:51):
people are saying, it's just,they can't get it out the door
fast enough? And because it'sjust a lot of money, it's the
grant process seem overburdensome on or you're worried
about doesn't have enoughoversight, if you have bad
actor, or somewhere in between?
Dr. Surinder Singh (33:12):
That's a very deep question, actually. So
in my opinion, I think withrespect to the scale of funding
that is coming in, I think theclimate change problem is so
big, it's so huge. It's theproblem of our lifetimes. To
address those, we have toaddress it from many different
(33:33):
fronts, different technologies,and so on. So batteries are one
of them. Carbon Capture isanother one, directly capture
and so on. So we have to addressand tackle the problem from many
different fronts. So the scaleof funding that is coming in is
absolutely that is what isneeded, if not more. And so
that's actually on the goodside, with respect to the
(33:55):
timeline, whether they're comingfast and whether the funds are
getting deployed fast. Again, Ithink there's a lot of work to
do over there. Specificallylooking at it as a startup. I
think that's where that's one ofthe challenges that we face is
that if you're wanting todevelop a technology right now,
but there are proposals that arecoming in, you know, once or
(34:18):
twice or three times a year,they are not actually aligned
with the things that you want todevelop. So if, if anything, I
think more frequency of theseproposals would be helpful.
Gregory A. Williams (34:30):
So one thing that occurs to me is, is
that while you haven't beenpursuing funding through
government grants or loanguarantees or things like that,
potentially you benefitindirectly from them, since many
of these are designed to helphomeowners either reduce their
electrical consumption or toacquire renewable energy sources
(34:51):
or renewable energy systems. Andand since you're designing your
products, so they can work inthat way. You're potentially
selling into a pipeline thatitself benefits from these these
government grants.
Dr. Surinder Singh (35:05):
Right?
Absolutely 100% Agreed. So forexample, in the inflation
Reduction Act, one of the thingsthat was modified is that now
standalone energy storagesystems qualify for the credit
it previously they were tied tosolar. So if you deployed solar,
and your energy storage systemwas charged more than 90 95%, by
solar, only, then you qualifiedfor the credit. Whereas with the
(35:28):
IRA, now, you stand alone,energy storage systems qualify.
And that's a that's a bigchange. And that is going to
benefit the consumers, and alsothe companies that are working
in this space tremendously.
Gregory A. Williams (35:43):
So I just want to call back to your
earlier point that, you know,while one might wonder, hey, do
we really want people chargingtheir their, their household
battery systems potentially withwith coal and natural gas,
chances are these systems aregoing to be coupled to demand
management systems that chargethemselves and buy that power
(36:04):
when it's least expensive, whichnowadays tends to be when you
have those renewable energysources online.
Dr. Surinder Singh (36:10):
Right. And actually, it's also not that the
the energy storage systems athomes are charged by coal and
natural gas, that is actuallyone of the points that I wanted
to make. So for example, duringthe day, you have peak solar,
but people are actually at theiroffices and the EVs are not at
(36:32):
their home. So when during theevening time when people come
home, the Evie, start charging,and at that time, actually, the
renewables are going down. So byhaving these stationary energy
storage systems, actually, youget rid of that, because what
you can do is actually chargethese systems during the day
when the peak solar is there.
And when the people come, duringevening hours at home, you
(36:53):
utilize your charger EVs,through your the stationary
energy storage systems that havebeen charged by renewable
energy. So
Dina Rasor (37:06):
you are in process of getting more private money,
right now you've worked in thepast getting government money,
which is harder and which isfaster and slower.
Dr. Surinder Singh (37:19):
Interesting, yes. So both have their pros,
pros and cons, right. And sowith the private money, the
benefit is that actually, if youcan have you have access to that
money, you can move really fast,you can develop the things that
you need to develop really fast.
Whereas with the governmentmoney, it comes, you know, at
(37:43):
various times of the year and invarious cycles. And that might
not completely align with whatyou want to develop. So you need
to have, I believe, actually, asa successful company, and as a
successful startup, you need tohave both streams of funding
sources coming in, so that youcan move fast and at the same
(38:06):
time actually utilize the mosteffective money also, that is
coming from the various grantsfrom the federal or the state
government.
Dina Rasor (38:17):
And then another question this kind of connected
to this. One of the things whenyou finally get to the point
where you're starting to buildplants, and whatever, we had
somebody on last week that wastelling us, it's really hard for
America to do big thingsanymore, because of all, you
know, it's kind of a doubleedged sword, the environmental
(38:37):
is want to move, but they alsowant all their environmental
checks when you do it, get apermit the whole permitting
problem. And then there's alsoproblems of, you know, local
governments and stategovernments and whatever,
there's too many pies, fingersin the thing, and it's much
easier to get things done. Wewere saying in China and Europe,
they're really got fast trends,and we can't seem to get our act
(38:58):
together. And the question isthe fan is American America
still do big things? And I'mjust wondering that when you
start to get to the productionstage and whatever, are you
worried about the permittingprocess that's going to take
could take a long time with toget local and environmental and
all the stuff you have to do tobuild a manufacturing plant?
Dr. Surinder Singh (39:21):
Definitely.
So, that is, again, somethingthat would take time and
permitting is a very strongrequirement to go through the
permitting process, but evenbefore that, actually what we
have to do is get yourcertifications and the NFPA
codes and so on. That isactually something that we are
working on, it definitely issomething that is required
(39:45):
whether it can be streamlinedfurther, you can always wish for
the best right that it can bedone faster and it can be more
simplified. But that issomething that is an important
requirement, I believe.
Gregory A. Williams (39:59):
So thank you Again, something I've
inferred from what you've said.
And what I've read is that byfocusing on the repurposing part
of the equation, you'reaccessing something that are a
way to help the environment thatis much faster than than trying
to have a big impact on therecycling. Part of the equation
recycling, I imagine, involvesmuch more dangerous waste and a
(40:21):
much more elaborate productionfacility than one that is I say,
simply, or relatively anyway,repackaging existing batteries
without pulling them, pullingthem apart to their component.
Materials, washing them,cleaning them, re refining them,
etc.
Dr. Surinder Singh (40:43):
Yes, Greg.
So there's two parts in there,actually. So one of them is the
co2 emissions that take placebecause of manufacturing, or
remanufacturing of batteries.
And there are studies actually,that have been done all over the
world that show that if weutilize the batteries for longer
periods of time and dorepurposing before recycling,
(41:05):
then there is a tremendousamount of co2 that is avoided
based on just the longer life ofbatteries and not not going
through the remanufacturingprocess. And the estimates are
on the order of 50 to 450 tonsof co2 emissions awarded for
every megawatt hours ofbatteries that are repurposed.
(41:25):
And if we look at this scale,and the the amount of batteries
that we are going to beutilizing in our near future,
there are estimates that wecould be awarding a giga tons of
co2 emissions by 2050, for everyyear. That is one point. And
then the second is thatactually, all the materials that
we utilize right now in that gointo the lithium ion batteries,
(41:49):
tremendous amount of these videomaterials are actually mined in
countries such as Chile, Congoand China, that have various
issues with respect togeopolitical risks, as well as
actually other other risksassociated with child labor and
so on. So if we utilize thebatteries for instead of
(42:11):
utilizing them and prematurelykilling them, so as to say, over
10 years, and instead of that,if we utilize them for 30 to 40
years, we are reducing ourdependence on geopolitically
sensitive areas, and alsodependence on countries where
child labor and other issuesare, are prominent.
Dina Rasor (42:32):
And that also, that would also include the
environmental problems, because,you know, especially when you go
to these other countries, youknow, they will, like sort of
like Chevron Denham in centralSouth America, they just leave
the mess behind, you know, theyjust do it don't do the
environmental things. And, and Iknow that they're talking about
(42:54):
doing it and doing some lithiumin, in Nevada, so you're saying
that it's better it's better torepurpose these things before
they're completely thank God,it's very complicated to take it
apart and put it back togetheror to try to make it you know,
try to what do you do when abattery is totally dead? Can you
(43:16):
really recycle? You know, it'sjust lived out its life, can you
really recycle? How much of itcan you recycle of the chemicals
and the things that you wouldnot want to have to dispose of?
Dr. Surinder Singh (43:27):
Right, so in a typical recycling process, so
one of the first steps that isdone is actually shred the
battery evey battery packs downto its smallest components. And
after the shredding and so on,you reach a point where it's
called an intuitively blackmass, and that black mass is a
(43:47):
mixture of you know, manydifferent materials, and that
black mass can do be easilyshipped to various places in the
country or, you know, outside ofthe country, to the recyclers
where they separate out thatblack bass into different you
know, components such as thelithium, nickel and cobalt and
so on. Those purified materialsthen can be sent to these new
(44:09):
battery manufacturers. There aredifferent methodologies used for
recycling such as Pyrometallurgyand hieromonk hydrometallurgy.
And both of those have their ownpros and cons. In case of
Pyrometallurgy, for example, youcannot recover the lithium that
is wasted. Whereas, in case ofhydrometallurgy, you can
(44:31):
actually make the most amount ofmaterials. Also in case of
Pyrometallurgy. Again, there arevarious debates going on. That
Pyrometallurgy itself has largeco2 emissions, because actually
you're kind of burning thebatteries to recover the
different materials.
Gregory A. Williams (44:46):
I see. So there's no way to physically
separate the materials throughcentrifuges are similar things.
Dr. Surinder Singh (44:54):
You'll first have to actually get down to the
point where you can actuallyutilize different methodologies
to separate These materials out,but if you see how these lithium
ion batteries are manufacturedprismatic cells, pouch cells and
you know cylindrical cells,first you have to crush them to
get to the point so that you canstart the the leaching process
(45:15):
or the separation process andthings like that.
Dina Rasor (45:20):
Okay, I'm going to just ask you this question just
in case you run into it. Myfather was an engineering
physicist for years and energy,and energy, thermo thermodynamic
energy and also batteries. And,and so I have a, I have just
(45:40):
enough knowledge to bedangerous. But one of the things
when he used to get governmentcontracts a lot for his various
thermionic conversion program isstuff he would see in the field.
Okay, lots of people trying tomake different amount of
conversion with different kindsof metals, you know, and then
(46:01):
whatever, he would see some thatwould just kind of become into
favor or come into being like afad. You know, this is the thing
that maybe it's the first onethat comes out everybody's wild.
And there's, there's politiciansconnected to it that are going
to help. And everybody it'sbecomes everybody's fad. And it
(46:21):
would be very frustrating forhim. And also with me, working
on the Pentagon, the Pentagonwould fall in love with a
weapons system that couldn'tpass its test, but they've
already fallen in love with it.
So they're going to keep fundingit. Is there anything like that
you're seeing in batteryrecycling? Is there kind of
competing competing groups andissues that you could see one
because of its, you don't haveto name names, but if you can
(46:43):
see one that has politicalconnections, or, you know,
they've hired somebody's stafferfrom the Congress, or whatever,
that can become boondoggles,because it's really basically a
failed concept. But it's gotpolitical juice.
Dr. Surinder Singh (47:06):
I don't know actually, if, if it is directly
answering your question. But oneof the things that we are number
of things that we've alreadyspoken about is the technology
technology reasons and thebusiness reasons why repurposing
and recycling is hard. But wehaven't spoken about the policy
reasons, right. And this iswhere I think we need to improve
(47:28):
because the policy at this pointdoes not exist, where we enforce
people to actually recycle orrepurpose lithium ion batteries.
We spoke about lead acidbatteries, why 99% of those are
recycled. And the reason forthat is because the policy is
there, enforcement is there.
Whereas in case of lithium ion,it's a nascent industry, and the
policies are, I think they havea long way to catch up to
(47:52):
enforcing and making sure thatthis is something that actually
people do. And not only peoplebut actually companies do that
they're enforced to do therecycling and repurposing of
Evie batteries. And there's alot of ketchup to do over there.
Gregory A. Williams (48:08):
So for those of us not familiar, can
you describe just what themechanisms are that that
enforced lead acid batteryrecycling? Is it the the extra
fee that we pay when we get anew car battery that we get back
when we return it? But are thereother important elements to
that?
Dr. Surinder Singh (48:24):
Yes, it's exactly that. So it's, you know,
lead acid batteries when we,when we purchase them. And we
can after they're utilized, wecan go back to actually where we
purchased them from and get themoney back. So this is something
that is non existent for lithiumion batteries. You know, right
now people don't even knowactually what to do with the
(48:45):
batteries when they retire. Eventhe OEMs and other people are
still trying to figure out as tohow to do this. The second thing
I associated with this isactually the transportation of
lithium ion batteries. There isagain, a lot of missing
understanding with respect tohow lithium ion batteries can be
moved across from one place toanother, including the evey
(49:07):
battery packs. So for example,you can move an old Tesla from,
let's say, from California toNorth Carolina. But if you're
moving an Eevee battery packthat has been taken out of a
Tesla from in the sametransportation regions, you have
to have a hazmat for that. Andso I think it's, again, a
(49:30):
nascent problem where peoplestill have to figure out what is
the right way to handle theselithium ion batteries and the
policy has to catch up to it. Sothere's a lot of scope for this
improvement in terms of ensuringthat the OEMs take certain
burden of it with respect to howto make sure that recycling and
(49:50):
repurposing take place. Thetransportation of these
batteries is also a challenge sowe need to figure out how to do
that most effectively withoutcreating problems.
Dina Rasor (50:00):
So, I think a big problem this is with all the
different states and trying toget the government to the
federal government to come upwith a standard, and they're
going to staff and challengeforever. But I'm just wondering
is since since California is sofar ahead and getting electric
cars, I mean, I think it's like6%, nationwide, don't, I'm
(50:24):
pulling these off top, my headand 18% in California, all the
new cars that are being beingsold. So we are valid for the
granting it. And there seems tobe a real interest in
California, there always hasbeen to be sort of the cutting
edge of, you know, coming upwith things like the Energy Star
appliances were done when I wasin college, and they were
(50:47):
California thing until they gotadopted nationally. So you think
do you think that Californiawould be in the position to try
to get their own standards forhow you ship it, what you do
with it? And maybe in what youdo if you haven't recycled here,
and then that can become atemplate for easier template for
the rest of the country?
Dr. Surinder Singh (51:05):
Right. So actually, California, just about
maybe two years ago, came upwith a B 2832. Bill, where the
recommendations were asked fromvarious sources as to how do we
actually develop a policy whererecycling and repurposing could
be enforced whether from aconsumer standpoint or from the
(51:26):
OEM standpoint and so on. Therewere a number of recommendations
that were made. And I believe,actually, California is going to
take, again, a leadingopposition with respect to
developing a policy, EuropeanUnion, actually, last year
already went through, went aheadwith that. And so California at
this time, might not be thefirst one, but we are in the
(51:48):
world, but we will still do it.
Dina Rasor (51:51):
Greg keeps saying he's challenged to find that New
York was another big thing, whatNew York might be doing that
California is not likeCalifornia is just put so much
money into it. I am just amazedthat, you know, we're in a
country by ourselves. So yeah,well, is there anything else
you'd like to add about thetechnology that you'd like
(52:12):
people to know that we haven'ttouched on?
Dr. Surinder Singh (52:16):
Overall, I would just say that lithium ion
batteries have been tremendous,again, for at various fronts, we
just need to ensure that we usethem in the right manner. And so
let's not just prematurelykilled the batteries and, you
know, not utilize them for theirtrue state of health and true
(52:38):
life. And so let's actuallydevelop technologies and utilize
them for as long as possible.
Dina Rasor (52:44):
And if you just came up with another question, if you
if you do, if you do use themand wear them all the way down,
and you try to use them inonline mode all the way down,
then you try to get rid of them.
What happens if you would justtake these batteries? And, you
know, do what they did? Do?
(53:07):
Companies sometimes do and thatis burying them in the ground
somewhere, put them in a, youknow, they what, what, what
would happen if these thingswere like badly stored or
abandoned, which might be a bigpollution problem.
Dr. Surinder Singh (53:22):
safety risks come in, you know, when we see
in the news that actually thereare lithium ion batteries or EVs
that catch fire. So if you dumpthem into various locations,
that it's not safe for theenvironment for because of
various reasons, including thatthese batteries can actually
catch fire and cause problems.
If there
Dina Rasor (53:47):
were if even if you have a hybrid like I do in a
Prius, and that car getsabandoned and everything you
don't put the battery in the carcrush it right, because they can
explode, right? So they'd be allthe people the hybrids are
putting all these cars injunkyards. You know, I just
wonder who knows not to do that.
Because it's, it's, you know,it's a technology that people
(54:11):
don't really understand. AndI've heard I've heard people
say, you know, oh, my gosh, theycrushed my Prius, it'll blow up.
Because if you don't take so youreally have to take these
batteries out. When you wreck acar, when you disintegrate a
car, smash a car up for thing,you can't leave them, you they
just can't be laying around.
(54:32):
They're not like, you know, it'snot like, Well, you didn't drain
the oil out. So there's a littlebit of oil in the soil. I mean,
when these things pollute, theyprobably pollute pretty badly
right.
Dr. Surinder Singh (54:42):
And that's why actually so decarbonisation
is really important and attachedto decarbonisation is the
sustainability and circularityand so we have to do that with
lithium ion batteries.
Dina Rasor (54:54):
Are we having Superfund sites with batteries?
Gregory A. Williams (54:59):
Well, More Superfund sites of veterans.
Yeah. As somebody who thumbedhis way through the national
priorities list from time totime, I can assure you there's
no shortage of hazardous wastesites of all shapes and sizes.
But doctor saying I want tothank you for joining us. This
(55:22):
has been a very informativeepisode that we've recorded and
I certainly hope you have theopportunity to meet with you
again. Thank you
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