China already dominates the processing of more than half of the world’s lithium, a critical material for EV batteries.It is now set to call the shots in what comes next: sodium-ion batteries.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/9610729

Snip:

China already dominates the processing of more than half of the world’s lithium, a critical material for EV batteries. It is now set to call the shots in what comes next: sodium-ion batteries.

Their appeal lies in the fact that they can reduce reliance on expensive and strategically important critical minerals such as lithium, graphite, nickel and cobalt.

Sodium is cheap and found almost everywhere - including ordinary salt and seawater. Sodium-ion batteries can use hard carbon made from biomass and industrial waste.

[…]

China’s battery industry spent a decade perfecting lithium-ion manufacturing at global scale, and is now applying the same industrial approach: supply-chain integration, rapid iteration, cost discipline and policy coordination - to sodium-ion.