Department of Energy Issues Request for Information to Strengthen Battery Critical Materials Supply Chains
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a request for information (RFI) on challenges and opportunities in the upstream and midstream critical-materials battery supply chains.
Critical materials are used in many products important to the American energy economy. For example, critical materials like lithium and cobalt are vital to manufacturing lithium-ion batteries used for electric vehicles and grid energy storage. Demand for these resources continues to grow.
The Trump Administration has made the security of our nation’s critical mineral supplies a top priority. In response to President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order 13817, A Federal Strategy to Ensure Secure and Reliable Supplies of Critical Minerals, DOE is leading the way in reducing our dependence on imported critical materials by both reducing the amount of those materials needed for battery production and recycling materials already in use.
“As the demand for critical materials continues to grow, a secure and domestic upstream supply chain becomes vital,” said Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Daniel R Simmons. “Innovation in our domestic industries and continued investment by DOE programs will help strengthen our country’s ability to manufacture and recycle these materials, and work toward more robust domestic supply chains.”
In this RFI, DOE specifically seeks input on the current state of the battery cathode materials supply chains, as well as opportunities for near-term and long-term research and development (R&D). Responses to the RFI will inform the agenda of the R&D Battery Critical Materials Supply Chain Workshop—tentatively planned for this fall—and the development of the R&D roadmap for the Federal Strategy.
This RFI also supports DOE’s Energy Storage Grand Challenge, which draws on the extensive research capabilities of the DOE National Laboratories, universities, and industry to accelerate the development of energy-storage technologies and sustain American global leadership in the energy storage technologies of the future.
DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office, in collaboration with the Geothermal Technologies Office and Vehicle Technologies Office, issued this RFI. Responses must be submitted no later than 5:00 p.m. ET on July 31, 2020.
Source: energy.gov
