So the world is going electric.
And batteries will do for electrification
what the refrigerator did for food,
because batteries will allow us
to move clean energy
through time and through space.
And we don't have a problem
with the availability of energy
on this planet.
We have a problem with getting this energy
to where we need it,
and when we need it.
But if we approach battery
manufacturing the wrong way,
we will end up repeating
mistakes from the past,
mistakes that are at the heart
of the climate environmental crisis
that we see today.
And that's what I'm here to explain.
It's all about the way
we are using the Earth's resources.
So historically, and today,
we have been mining oil
from the Earth's crust
with little concern
for the long-term effect.
And this example of how we’ve been
approaching the fossil fuel industry
and how we've been dependent on it,
how we have been extracting oil
where it's economically possible,
refined it, burned it,
and it ends up in the atmosphere --
that's the perfect illustration
of the fundamental,
simple and linear model
that we are working with:
extract, use and discard.
When I was a professor
in environmental engineering,
I used to teach my students
that mistakes are OK,
as long as you learn from your mistakes,
and as long as you take action.
So now, when we are evolving,
when we are changing,
when we are building things from scratch,
we should think twice,
and we should do it right this time.
And what does this mean for batteries?
There are two things
we need to know about batteries.
One is they require enormous amounts
of energy to produce,
and the second is that they are
made from minerals,
minerals that require global mining,
refining and processing,
and long and complex supply chains.
So if we start with energy,
a battery factory is a very large
and complex operation.
It requires large amounts of heat
and electricity to produce.
It starts with a chemical plant;
then follow long coating machines.
After that, we have cell assembly,
which is fine electronics equipment
that require clean and dry rooms.
Now at the end of this process,
each and every battery cell
needs to be charged and discharged
in certain patterns
to gain its properties.
And if we put this kind of factory
under a fossil fuel grid,
we will end up with a carbon footprint,
which is the benchmark today,
which is around 100 kilograms
of carbon dioxide
per kilowatt-hour of produced battery.
And how much is that?
If we take it at scale,
20, 30 years ... of battery manufacturing
will give the total footprint
of about half the size of Germany's.
Now that would be a big mistake.
Luckily, you can slash that footprint
by some 67 percent --
that's two-thirds --
if you put the same operation
on the renewable energy grid,
which we do, in northern Sweden.
That, on the other hand,
leaves us with the remaining footprint,
the last third,
coming entirely from everything
that is outside the factory,
and the lion's part from the supply chain.
And that leads us to the second topic
we have to talk about,
which is the minerals.
So batteries are made from minerals --
for example, nickel, cobalt and lithium --
and the way we approach this
is going to determine
how much we can further slash
that carbon footprint.
Luckily, if we put it
under this renewable grid,
if we approach it the right way,
with sustainable mining
and a lot of recycling,
we can significantly reduce the footprint.
One tonne of battery-grade lithium
requires 750 tonnes of brine
or 250 tonnes of lithium ore.
Same with cobalt --
if you need one tonne
of battery-grade cobalt,
you have to mine 300 tonnes of cobalt ore.
So does this give us a similar situation
to the oil history we have?
No, because the difference
is that when we mine metals,
they are elements.
And if you can get elements back
to their elemental form,
they are just as good as new.
And this is the fundamental difference
between the combustion-engine history
that we're living now
and the new electric vehicle industry.
Because at the end of the life cycle,
you can bring the metals
back from the market,
and you can use them again and again.
So what we have developed at Northvolt
is a recycling process,
where we take the batteries
back from the market,
we discharge them fully,
we take away the aluminum casing,
we take away all the cabling,
and then, we take out
the cells and the modules.
We take those cells and modules,
together with some waste material
we have from the production,
and we throw it into a big shredder.
We chop it up.
We take out the copper foil,
aluminum foil, some plastics.
And then, we are left with something
that we call the black mass.
And this black mass
is a fine black powder.
This fine black powder
consists of everything that we had coated
on the electrodes in the factory.
It's the graphite from the anode,
and it's the nickel, cobalt,
manganese and lithium
from the cathode.
We take this fine powder, the black mass,
we pass it on into
the hydrometallurgical process ...
Hydrometallurgy
means treating metal in liquid.
And what we do
is that we use different pressure changes,
temperature changes and pH
to separate them from one another.
We refine them, so we get them
into the form that we need
for the production --
salts for nickel, cobalt and manganese,
or hydroxides for lithium.
And then, we do like this.
We send them across site,
straight into production.
So what we have
is a circular battery economy.
And this is the fundamental difference
between the combustion-engine industry
and what we are building now.
We should do this not only for batteries.
We should do it for wind turbines,
we should do it for solar panels,
we should do it for all the new industries
that we need for this transformation.
(Applause)
Thank you.
(Applause continues)
And we're going to have to accept mining
as part of this transition, absolutely.
But when we are taking things
from the Earth's crust,
when we are borrowing
from the future generations,
we have to do it responsibly,
and we have to make sure
that we can use these materials
over and over, and over again,
because fundamentally, we can.
And we should not only build
recycling processes
and a port for the materials
when they come to their end of life --
we should also build
accounting and traceability systems
so that each carmaker
can follow up and trace
how much they can further slash
their footprint
by sending the batteries back
at the end of their life.
And why we are doing this --
I'm sure you've already
figured this out --
it's not only environmentally beneficial,
it's also, of course,
economically profitable,
because by doing this,
the material sustains its value
through the lifetime.
And this altogether
may sound a little bit hard,
it may sound a little bit complex,
but if we get this right,
it will be rewarding on so many levels.
And I can tell you
that the young generation
of talented engineers
that we hire today,
they understand all this,
and they ask nothing less from us.
So with that said,
I just want to say
to all of you who listened,
and I also want to say to all the people
who packed their bags
and moved up to the Nordics,
who are fighting every day
to make this happen,
thank you.
(Cheers and applause)