Diversified technical routes can relieve pressure on raw materials

Different from traditional fossil energy power generation, photovoltaic, wind power and electric vehicles in new energy require more metal. Lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese, and graphite are very important for battery efficiency, lifespan and energy intensity. Rare earth permanent magnet materials are essential for wind turbines and electric vehicles. At the "2021 High-level Forum on International Development Trends of New Materials", Xu Shengming, Hu Fangyuan, Yang Quanhong, Gao Hongcai and many other experts paid attention to the shortage of raw materials under the tide of new energy. It is understood that the metal demand for electric vehicles and energy storage batteries will increase by at least 30 times in 2040. Lithium demand will experience the most rapid growth, which will increase by more than 40 times in 2040, followed by graphite, cobalt and nickel, which will increase by about 20-25 times.

my country's lithium resource endowment is slightly poor and the mining technology is immature, and the degree of external dependence is very high. The self-supply rate of raw materials in 2020 is only 32%. Cobalt is a truly scarce resource. In 2020, the world's proven cobalt reserves are about 7.1 million tons, and about 50% are distributed in the Congo (DRC). China's proven cobalt reserves are about 80,000 tons, accounting for only the world's total. Reserves are about 1%. In terms of nickel ore, China’s currently proven nickel ore reserves account for only 3.7% of the global total. It can be said that the resource reserves are seriously insufficient. The rapid increase in demand on the lithium battery side and the expected expansion of production have also exacerbated the tight supply of upstream raw materials. Wind data shows that the current domestic battery-grade lithium carbonate price has exceeded 170,000 yuan/ton, and the cumulative increase year-to-date has exceeded 225%, of which the increase has exceeded 90% in the past two months.

Under such a supply-demand relationship, the joint development of batteries with different technical routes will help ease the pressure on raw materials and avoid being "stuck" in the upstream industrial chain. Take nickel-metal hydride batteries as an example. The raw materials of nickel-metal hydride batteries are mainly nickel and rare earths. my country is the country with the richest rare earth resources in the world. The rare earth reserves are 44 million tons of REO, accounting for 37% of the global reserves. In addition, despite the use of nickel metal, the current recycling technology of nickel-hydrogen batteries is very mature and can be effectively recycled. According to Corun, the nickel-metal hydride battery recycling project has completed technical development and pilot-scale verification, and 24 core patents have been obtained and are being accepted. The recovery rate of nickel, cobalt and manganese can reach more than 98%. This shows that a diversified battery technology route will help ease the pressure on raw materials.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology recently stated that the key task for achieving carbon peak and carbon neutrality is to implement renewable energy substitution actions, greatly increase the proportion of new energy in the energy structure, and build a new power system with new energy as the mainstay. As a ballast stone that promotes the development of the new energy industry, new batteries are an important foundation to support the wide application of new energy in power, transportation, industry, communications, construction, military and other fields, as well as a key support for achieving the goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. one. Diversified battery technology routes will be the only way in the new energy era. The development of advanced nickel-metal hydride batteries with high energy, high power output, wide temperature range, ultra-long life, low self-discharge, and low cost is to broaden its market competitiveness, especially in the subdivision of power batteries and large-scale energy storage The development source power and direction of the application.