One Big Thing: America’s Trillion-Dollar Renewable Dream is Coming Due.
By: Armand Yerjanian
Tags: Energy, Investment, Battery, Assets, Wealth

Alas! The first edition of the Asset of the Week. My Kindle contains such works as “Linden’s Handbook of Batteries, 4th Edition” , “The Powerhouse”, “The Great Race”; and on my desk is “The Grid”.

Tl;dr: I’m a lover of batteries, not just a hater of Elon Musk. But… its obvious.

Batteries are the new oil 🔋 The U.S. is all in on lithium batteries. So who wins on the flop? Which asset classes will benefit the most?

Photo by Tyler Lastovich on Unsplash

Batteries are so common today that they’re almost invisible to us. It’s become so common that there’s a global shortage of lithium, cobalt, and nickel used in batteries. To make things worse, these things are only mined in a few places, and labor and human rights abuses are common.

That makes finding new mineral sources and designing batteries that use less of these materials pretty urgent.

What do we know so far: Right now, the US is a small player in the global battery industry. China dominates both battery manufacturing and mineral supply chains. On its current trajectory, the US is expected to be able to supply less than half the projected demand for lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles on its roads by 2028.

To tackle this problem head on The Biden Administration has laid out a plan to achieve carbon-pollution-free electricity by 2035, & puts the US on a path to achieve net-zero emissions, economy-wide, by no later than 2050 (E.O.,14008,)

How to pick winners within the global battery industry?

Invest in assets that have secure reliable access to raw and refined materials with a healthily investment in R&D to discover alternatives to commercialize. Invest in assets that are growing a domestic materials-processing supply-chain competitive advantage able to meet US battery manufacturing demand. Invest in assets that are pushing legislators to create new policy frameworks in electrode, cell, and pack manufacturing. Invest in assets focused on recycling of lithium-ion cells to mitigate materials scarcity and enhance environmental sustainability. Invest in assets that have superior battery technology leadership and management experience. This space is niche and unsexy.

Invest in established global lithium-alternative mining, processing and manufacturing firms in Europe & Asia. (Hydrogen fuel cells, Lithium-sulfur batteries, Graphene supercapacitors, Redox flow batteries, Aluminum-graphite batteries, Bioelectrochemical batteries, Powered roads,Thin-film batteries,Solid-state batteries)

The Big Money: The DOE plans to distribute $17 billion in loans for EV manufacturing facilities in the US.

The Department of Defense (DOD) has announced an investment in the expansion of the largest rare earth element mining and processing company outside of China to provide the raw materials necessary to help combat the climate crisis.

to provide the raw materials necessary to help combat the climate crisis. More importantly, the federal government has put aside $87 million in grants for state-level apprenticeship programs that will help create workforce’s for new domestic supply chains.

What are some of the top assets in the global materials & battery industry?