👋Hi again,
Welcome to a new edition of the State of Charge Newsletter. A concise monthly overview of the renewable energy transition and the advent of electric mobility.
This month we read about BNEF's top 25 countries for the lithium-ion battery supply chain, a brief history of environmental diplomacy, and we learn how the financial sector is dealing with climate change. 🙌
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SoC Big Story
BNEF’s inaugural ‘Global Lithium-Ion Battery Supply Chain Ranking’ finds that by 2025, China continues to dominate the supply chain while the U.S. and Sweden rise to third and fourth respectively.
China’s success results from its large domestic battery demand, 72GWh, and control of 80% of the world’s raw material refining, 77% of the world’s cell capacity, and 60% of the world’s component manufacturing, according to data from BNEF. But, Europe is catching up grabbing several top spots.
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The State of Charge July 2020
Every month we include an exclusive overview of the latest EV sales statistics from around the world. July has seen a welcome increase in European sales. See previous editions below.
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These statistics only include 100% Electric Vehicles, no hybrids. Statistics are provided by our partner ev-volumes.com. The Electric Vehicle World Sales Database.
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SoC Must Read
Long before the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement, a group of Swedish diplomats gave birth to environmental diplomacy as we know it today. The International Institute for Sustainable Development wrote a great article on how environmental issues became part of the civil discourse in Sweden in the middle of the Cold War. Click on the button to read about a great piece of historical policymaking.
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SoC Good Reads
Cleantechnica provides a nice summary of several research studies conducted as part of the Project on the Energy and Environmental Implications of the Digital Economy. The main topics are sustainability-related use cases of artificial intelligence, blockchain, and sharing platforms.
Speaking of blockchains, Volvo adopted the technology to monitor its battery supply chain.
Hasib, Norma, Faith, Eduardo, Rabita, and Rafael are sharing how extreme heating exacerbates inequality. A great piece by the New York Times.
Scientists from the University of Singapore managed to recover around 90 percent of the cobalt, lithium, nickel, and manganese from electronic waste without producing any further new waste. They did this by forming a paste of crushed batteries, mixing it with powdered orange peel and citric acid, and warming it up at 100 degrees.
A great recap of Tesla Battery day. The future is bright.
Vox put together 10 charts answering 10 questions about the cause of climate change. Supported with data, they explain the complexity of attributing responsibilities for climate change.
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SoC Deep Dive
Some researchers still question the fact that EVs emit fewer greenhouse gasses than their ICE vehicle counterparts. To clarify this matter once and for all, the German Greens Party commissioned a study by Auke Hoekstra and Maarten Steinbuch from the Eindhoven University of Technology.
In the paper, they challenge past studies by pointing out incorrect data and substantial miscalculations. Factories need less and less energy to produce batteries with a longer and longer lifespan. And whilst EV emissions are sometimes being over appraised, fuel production emissions are consistently downplayed. Click ahead to read the report.
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SoC Other News
InsideEVs compiled a list of 20 new electric cars that will be launched in 2021 in the US and Europe. How exciting!
Do you remember Amazon's Climate Pledge Fund? The first recipients have been announced. Rivian and Turntide Technologies (a motor manufacturer) are amongst them.
Lewis Hamilton is forming a racing team to compete in the inaugural series of the all-electric off-road SUV championships set to begin in 2021!!
According to Forbes, Chinese automotives are still mostly focussed on the Chinese EV market and will not massively expand to Europe in the near future. We're not so sure....
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SoC Listen to this
This month we learn about sustainable finance with a podcast from MSCI's ESG Spotlight. The host, Brandan Backer, tells us about David Lunsford and Oliver Marchand's idea of a climate scenario analysis tool. The model forecasts potential future climate change risks and assesses how they could impact companies' earnings. The model was conceived to support institutional investors but can be adopted by companies and governments as well. Have a listen!
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