DOE explores battery materials funding

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) has issued a request for information (RFI) on the development and implementation of a $675 million Critical Materials Research, Development, Demonstration, and Commercialization Program.

Funded by the 2021 Infrastructure Law, the program will address what DOE calls “vulnerabilities in the domestic critical materials supply chain, which are both an economic disadvantage and an impediment to the clean energy transition.”

Critical materials the DOE identifies include rare-earth elements, lithium, nickel, and cobalt. These metals, the agency says, “are required for manufacturing many clean energy technologies, including batteries, electric vehicles (EVs), wind turbines and solar panels.”

The program is being designed to advance domestic sourcing and production, likely tying into an earlier announcement to bolster the markets for EV and alternative energy sources overall.

“We can follow through on President Biden’s clean energy commitments and make our nation more secure by increasing our ability to source, process, and manufacture critical materials right here at home,” says U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is supporting DOE’s effort to invest in the building blocks of clean energy technologies, which will revitalize America’s manufacturing leadership and bring along the benefits of good paying jobs.”

The DOE says global demand for battery-related critical materials is expected to increase by from 400 percent to 600 percent over the next several decades. For certain materials, such as lithium and graphite used in EV batteries, demand is expected to increase by as much as 4,000 percent, adds the agency.

DOE’s strategy calls for increased domestic raw materials production and manufacturing capacity, designed to reduce America’s dependence on foreign sources of critical materials. The agency includes “circular economy approaches” in a list of techniques it aspires to develop.

“The Critical Materials Research Program will expand on DOE’s decade-long history of investment in critical materials supply chains, which includes fundamental research on materials science, separation science, and geoscience; public-private partnerships, such as the [Iowa-based] Critical Materials Institute; and efforts to validate and commercialize new technologies through demonstration projects,” the DOE states.

The RFI issued by the Critical Materials Research Program is soliciting feedback “from industry, academia, research laboratories, government agencies, state and local coalitions, labor unions, tribes, community-based organizations, and others, on the structure of these programs, timing and distribution of funds, and selection criteria,” the DOE writes.

Comments to be received have a deadline of 5 p.m. Eastern time Sept. 9, 2022, and can be submitted to CriticalMaterialsProgramRFI@ee.doe.gov.