Archive.fm

Wicked Problems - Climate Tech Conversations

Climate Tech's Poldark

In this two-part episode, host Richard Delevan digs in on critical minerals with Jeremy Wrathall, the founder and CEO of Cornish Lithium. As the UK and other nations navigate their climate goals, we explore how companies like Cornish Lithium are developing sustainable, domestic sources of lithium and other critical minerals essential for the green energy transition. With the recent Labour Party conference and discussions around industrial strategy, this conversation couldn't be more timely.

And we bring back our panel including Ben Cooke, Earth Editor at The Times, Freya Pratty from Sifted, and Ben Kilbey of BOLD VOODOO for insights into policy, energy infrastructure, and the broader European context.

Key Segments:

[00:02:14]

Jeremy explains why Cornish Lithium’s designation as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project is crucial, and how the company aims to supply lithium for EV batteries and grid-scale energy storage.

[00:04:07]

The discussion turns to the broader lithium market, its fluctuations, and the role of UK and European supply chains, especially after challenges faced by companies like Britishvolt and Northvolt.

[00:11:37]

Jeremy and Richard discuss future innovations in battery technology, including solid-state batteries and the importance of securing local, low-carbon sources of critical minerals like lithium.

[00:15:24]

Jeremy touches on the need for governmental support in de-risking critical mineral investments, comparing UK policy to the US Inflation Reduction Act.

[00:18:15]

Insights into European supply chains, partnerships, and the strategic importance of lithium beyond the UK.

[00:26:00]

Richard is joined by Ben Cooke (The Times), Freya Pratty (Sifted), and Ben Kilbey (Bold Voodoo) to analyze Labour's climate policy, UK battery supply chain challenges, and Northvolt's recent setbacks.

Links and Resources:

Subscription Info:

If you're enjoying Wicked Problems - Climate Tech Conversations, make sure to subscribe at wickedproblems.earth for ad-free episodes and early access to new content. Consider supporting the show with a paid subscription to help keep these conversations going.


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Broadcast on:
26 Sep 2024
Audio Format:
other
Hey I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile we like to do the opposite of what Big Wireless does. They charge you a lot, we charge you a little. So naturally when they announce they'd be raising their prices due to inflation we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you. That's right, we're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com/switch. $45 up front for three months plus taxes and fees promoting for new customers for limited time. Unlimited more than 40 gigabytes per month slows. Full turns at Mint Mobile.com. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible, financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates potential savings will vary not available in all states or situations. Expand the way you work and think with CLOD by anthropic. Whether brainstorming solo or working with a team, CLOD is AI built for you. It's perfect for analyzing images and graphs, generating code, processing multiple languages and solving complex problems. Plus, CLOD is incredibly secure, trustworthy and reliable so you can focus on what matters. Curious? Visit claud.ai and see how CLOD can elevate your work. The thing I take hold of is something that is a bit of a strange name but it probably is accurate. I'm not going to ask you to take off your shirt, Jeremy, to show us. I may be the new holdup but I guarantee I will not take my shirt off. The next 10 years is going to be incredible change and we will look back in 2034 and think what on earth are we doing driving around with a chimney sticking out of the back of their car. Welcome back to Wicked Problems. I am Richard Delavan and I am wearing a hat. I will not be taking questions at this time. We have a great show for you. True part are really relevant for the week that's in it and the air is still abuzz with reactions and fall off from the labor party conference and whether the new government's decisions are really going to put the UK back at the front of the pack for climate tech, encouraging businesses like Cornish Lithium, which is a standout example of a company literally during the hard yards to build a domestic critical mineral supply chain for batteries. But with companies like British Volt going the way the dodo and northfold in Sweden announcing layoffs with major customers in canceling orders, who's going to buy it? That's the question we asked our distinguished panel of observers and experts, including Ben Cook, Earth editor at The Times, Freya Pratty, senior climate tech reporter at sifted.eu and Ben Kilby, who knows a thing or two about a thing or two in this space as the founder of the consultancy Bold Voodoo. So thanks for joining us and make sure you're going to most out of these by subscribing at Wicked Problems.Earth. To get these episodes ad-free into your inbox before anybody else and in a week where even the Guardian is chasing a nonsense story about freebies of clothes and football tickets, now more than ever we think spaces like this one where we can actually cut through the nonsense and talk about what's really going on is important. If you're already a paid subscriber, thank you. And if you're not, the chances are you're not, and you think these are worth your time, please consider helping us to help keep this going. Right, an affecting bowl, and let's kick off my conversation with Jeremy Raffle, founder of Cornish Lithium. Jeremy Raffle, Cornish Lithium, thank you so much for joining us on Wicked Problems. Thank you, Richard. Great to be on the show. So Cornish Lithium has been a company I've been my eye on for really quite some time, not just because I love going to the duchy and hanging out on the south coast, but also the fact that the idea that the mining heritage in Cornwall, that you guys are helping to bring it back, I saw there's a headline in the telegraph referring to you as a high-tech pole dark. So from Rachel Millard from three years ago, which I'm sure she's probably a little bit slightly embarrassed about now, but look, I mean, you guys have had some really interesting news lately have been designated and nationally significant infrastructure project. Tell me about the project, tell me why getting this kind of recognition is significant. Look, I think the high-tech pole dark thing is quite amusing, but remember that pole dark originally in the early 1700s, late 1700s, was feeding copper and tin to the industrial revolution. This is feeding what I think is the irreplaceable, in fact, Volkswagen said it themselves, the irreplaceable element of the renewable position. And we have to have lithium. I mean, lots of people think that you don't go to be hydrogen or it's going to be something else, but let's face facts. If we think about electric cars, OK, they've slowed down a little bit, particularly in the Western world, but overall, they're still growing very, very, very fast, particularly in China. And if you think about maybe there's a switch to hydrogen, some people think about that. There's only six hydrogen charging stations in the UK. There are 74,000 electric vehicle charges stations. So facts. Lithium ion battery or lithium battery is going to be with us for a long time. We are sourcing material for that energy transition. And also, of course, let's not forget that it's great to have renewable power from wind and solar, but it needs to be stored because wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. So you've got to have big batteries. In fact, there's one big battery being sold in Cornwall right now. It's 50 megawatt battery. It's going to store power from solar and wind. So it's going to be lithium ion battery. So it's really, I think that we are, we are rightly, possibly being the poledark that I take poledark is something that is a bit of a strange name, but it probably is accurate. Well, I mean, I'm not going to ask you to take off your shirt, Jeremy, to show us. That's the one thing I got. I say to everybody, maybe the new poledark, but I guarantee I will not take my shirt off. Well, look, so like if you're listening to this on audio only, you'll be disappointed to find out that Jeremy actually has taken off his shirt, his abs. But for those people who are on video, it's actually going on and it's fine. Look, we'll go on because we're talking this week, Jeremy, in a week where the Labor Party conference, new government, 79 days in, has happened and are very much majoring on the energy transition and all the things you're talking about. We're also talking during New York Climate Week, where there's lots happening in terms of the discussion about your sector, both in critical minerals and like the broader infrastructure for the energy transition. But here in the UK, I mean, you guys had received some funding, and again, I can't remember if that's equity or debt or what kind of exactly the structure that was, but the government has actually noticed you guys for a while. This new designation is actually obviously really great to add impetus to that. But what is your view about the current environment in the UK for encouraging a business like yours, you know, doing this kind of extraction for critical minerals? And what would you like to be seeing more of? I believe you had some some colleagues on the ground there in Liverpool at the conference. It's like, are there things that you're hoping to see in terms of changes of policy in the UK to actually help you guys succeed? Look, I think there's a lot going on globally as you refer to the inflation reduction act in the US. The US getting more and more determined to help to secure domestic supplies of lithium, other minerals as well. The FT article referred to nickel as well, recent FT article. And I think in the UK, there's no doubt we came to this very late in the party. The Conservative government did, to be fair, wake up, but they woke up late. And I think one of the ministers actually said to me that we were thinking about that we're fine, we import everything, and then suddenly we realized the inflation reduction act has happened in the US, which is one of our allies. And then we had the EU critical minerals act and we were facing off against not a great relationship with China and suddenly realized we're on our own. And on our own, we are, because of Brexit as well. So I think what's happening here is a realization that to secure a, to actually capitalize on the energy transition, we need to re-industrialize. We've got the Labour Party government talking more and more about an industrial strategy. Thank goodness for that. At last. And that energy, that industrial strategy will, I'm sure, involve in hearing focus on offshore wind, they will focus on all there's an energy future, eternity sources, and therefore we'll have to focus on electric vehicle manufacture and critical minerals by definition, because we're going away from an era of burning stuff like burning fossil fuels to an era which is going to be dedicated, what is going to be, which will hinge around interaction between atoms, lithium, sulfur, phosphate, whatever it is in that battery. And those minerals don't grow on trees, they have to be extracted from the ground. That's that's simple as that. And people say, well, what about recycling? Well, we've been using copper for 4,000 years, it's about 24 million tons of copper used a year and only about 60% possibly a little bit more a little bit less is recycled, even now. So we're going to have to extract it. And I think the UK government recognizes that and recognizes that we have got the right geology here and we've proved that we've proved that you can extract lithium from the ground economically, everyone asks if we need a special price now, not necessarily, to lithium is a little bit depressed at the moment, but it's buried in mind, it was massively higher. Yeah, I wanted to ask about this, because again, like I so we've had Ernest Shider from Rogers who wrote The War Below, a big book on critical minerals came out, I think last year or earlier this year, we've had folks from Visinobi, who of course, I don't know, a m but certain deal and battery kind of storage systems both for charging and for stationary storage for grid, as well as some others who are so listeners will be okay with your space to some extent, as well as a cobalt refiner trying to reonsure stuff to the states. But you mentioned the variability and the volatility of price of lithium. So I guess my question is in terms of the project itself, obviously, there are many flavors of lithium, like you guys are, as I understand it, the main project that you guys are on is kind of mining it out of the rock, as opposed to doing something with with seawater, which might expand your capacity. But how much does the variability and the price affect kind of where you guys see the opportunity, because again, it's I mean, I would not have your risk appetite for wanting to get into a mineral sector where one day it can be, I'm not I'm making this up. Let's just see, it's 100. And like the next day, it could be 20 in terms of the price you could actually get per ton of the stuff. So like, how do you cope with that? It's very difficult. I think it's the only and I've been doing commodities all my life pretty much. The only commodity which has been more volatile is oil, which went during golf price, and that went shut through the roof. We saw lithium price go from $6,000 a ton to $84,000 a ton in a year. And then two years later, we're sort of back down to $10,000, $12,000 a ton. It's very difficult to secure finance in that sort of environment, because nobody wants to build a lithium mine when the price is down. Everyone wants to build a brown lithium mine when the price is up, which is precisely the wrong way around. You should build a lithium mine when the price is down. So you can take advantage of the price when it comes up. So it's very difficult to get your head around that. And I'd answered it in a different way, because the same problem is true of offshore wind, onshore wind, hydrogen. A lot of the UK government took a policy of creating contracts for difference for hydrogen and onshore wind. Now, whether that could happen in lithium, I would like that to have that in critical minerals. Because you then, if the price is volatile, the government shares some of the pain. If the price goes up and through the roof, the government seems to share the gain. So, yeah. That's really interesting. I've actually heard that proposal before in terms of the idea of extending it to that. I mean, again, it makes sense in the broad spectrum of the idea that governments have encouraged for security supply reasons, production of fossil fuels in the past, the idea that lithium would be crucial for securing future supply chains makes complete sense. But I want to ask you about just in terms of the market space, because I'm, I mean, look, it's not been a great couple of years. And obviously, this week we had 1600 jobs that were eliminated from North Volt in Sweden. We had British Volt as a UK national champion, potentially. And we've had Ben Kilby on the show before, and he'll be on, I think, again, after this interview, who bears the scars of experience. Exactly. But I guess my question is this. I mean, like, Jeremy, who's going to buy the lithium you're going to take out of the ground? And why should the UK government secure supply? Okay. Long question there. Who's going to buy the lithium? Well, just two hours drive up the road, we've got the Agritus, Jaguar, Land Rover, new battery factory being built right now, under actually being built. That will be up to 40 gigawatts of capacity, which looks, which will require 40,000 tons of lithium carbon equivalent. So it's all LFP. It could be, it could be, but it will require a lot of lithium, whether it's LFP, whether it's solid state, semi solid state. That's the technology which really excites me, it's solid state. And you need. I want to come to that later, definitely. Yeah, that's true. It's CATL's announcement for sure. Oh, yeah, that's really exciting. So yeah, but it could be LFP, it could be all sorts of battery chemistry. But anyway, it's going to need that much lithium. So I think that the most important thing is, if Britain is not to fall behind in the race for electric vehicles, which it cannot afford to do, because it's such a big percentage of our GDP, it's about 4% of our GDP, it employs directly in India, at least six to 800,000 jobs. It's a symbol of national pride, but we love our Landrovers and our Rolls Royces and stuff like that. So we can't afford to let that go. Of course, that's exactly what China wants. It wants us to become completely dependent on their electric vehicles. But we don't want that. So if that's going to happen, we do need access to those raw materials, and we need access to low carbon techniques to manufacture them. So we're not driving around using material that's been processed in Chinese and fossil fuels and exported over the sea to fossil fuels and as a high carbon footprint, and also it's not secure. So I think that we, so going back to the British fault, going back to North fault, North fault, unfortunately, really had a difficult time. They overextended themselves, I think it's fair to say, in branching out into other things, which in my view, stick to the knitting, do what you say when you're doing the tin, and British fault, again, we're going to the government saying if you don't put your hand in your pocket, well, the project will fail. What we've successfully done so far with our project is to go to the government, but we've already secured the capital, we got the government along for the ride. So that government funding from the UKIB, which was equity, crowded in, a lot of funding from energy minerals group from the US and tech met from Dublin. So really, it's not just going to the government of the bacon bowl, let's say, look, if you want to come along for the ride, that's great. Otherwise, we'll have funded ourselves. I think that's possibly where possibly where British fault fell down, and it was just a massive, massive amount of money. It's 1.4 billion dollars. And, and, and, and, and all faults even more, our requirements are much, much more than that, and, and much more bite size. And let's talk a little bit about that, because again, we're, we're again, I set the scene, we're talking in a week where lots of discussions are happening around what policies should be. You guys have been an early beneficiary. I think you were the first investment from UKIB, if I'm not mistaken, or one of the first in that particular domain. And so I saw a report, I think, again, you flag this, the idea that the UKIB has a lot of more kind of dry powder, but hasn't deployed it in the space. People are talking about a national wealth fund putting another 7 billion into play by this new government. So, but I guess the question is like, the numbers are great, like super big numbers, but is the structure wrong? Is the idea that like, are the things that could be learned from what's happening in the States or what's happening in other jurisdictions in terms of the idea that how that money could be otherwise allocated to make it more attractive for project finance, for investors, for what does that mean for you? I think, I think that we can take a leaf out of the book of the Department of Energy in the US only last week, where they put in the allocated 225 million twice to two projects, lithium projects in the US, to enable capital formation to occur. So, they said, we will shoulder some of the burden along with others in standard lithium's case, equinor out of Norway, in terra-volta's case, energy middle script, same shareholders, we've got. So, to enable what we call capital formation, it's very scary for most investors to go into what is a very long-term industry. You don't get any return for years, and most people want to return in three months. So, it's that capital formation, which are the government putting money in via grants, via equity, via whatever, helps to make that capital formation and those investors to come in knowing that they've got big shoulders as well to lean on. So, I mean, I wanted to come back to something I touched on before, which is basically the off-takers, customers, right? So, you mentioned Jaguar, right, the plant up the road, but given the struggles that the sector is going through, I guess the question is, is there any concern if we're trying to envision a world where the, again, we'll maybe ask you about this in a second, but this announcement this week about the mineral security partnership, which is going to have the idea of a counterbalance to China being able to have alternative sources of critical minerals in the supply chains, and hopefully you guys play an important kind of node in that story. But the question is like, again, the demand within that space, I mean, for you, for that to be successful in your mind, you mentioned Brexit, is it enough to have a domestic supply chain? Is it enough to have domestic off-takers, or do we need to be thinking about carve-outs for accessing, if we want to make the argument that basically this is so important that we need to make sure that we, as a block, as the MSP, can access at a very low trade barrier, offering commodities within that space, which would include essentially tariff-free provision of that commodity to Europe, to North America, to Japan, to South Korea, et cetera, wherever else that, and India, wherever else that partnership is going to extend, is that where your head goes, in terms of what's required to actually make it sing, or if we all are stuck in this domestic supply chain only, is there enough custom for you here to make that work? I think it's a mix, Richard. I think I don't think we're going to be able to, by 2030, supply more than 50% of the domestic requirement for the UK. Therefore, we are going to be still dependent on imports. Look at Japan. Japan is going to be totally dependent on imports. Taiwan, Korea, the same, and actually, Europe doesn't produce a single kilo, or very, very little, domestically supplied lithium right now. There is, interestingly, already a company called Levitonhelm in Basingstoke in the UK, which is actually bringing in raw materials from Chile and elsewhere and refining them, and have been doing it for years under the radar screen for interesting to have them here, and we just announced a partnership with them last week. So, I think the thing is that every ton of material that we import, we are exporting the economic activity in creating that material here to somewhere else. Exporting that job, that economic value add to China, which we happily do, most of the stuff we buy is from China now. But I think it's going to be a mix, where you can get domestic security, you should, and that's what the US is trying to do. That's what the EU is trying to do, but I can't think of this very few lithium deposits I can think of in Europe, which are actually going to work. There's a couple, maybe three, but there's a very, very challenging indeed. But yeah, it's a mix. I mean, in my view, if you've got the right geology, you should aspire to produce it as best you can. Otherwise, your economically dependent on somebody else, and you're exporting the opportunity to somebody else. What's the cost difference between the extraction that you're doing and the extraction in somewhere like Chile? Because obviously, it's a huge factor, right? There is a massive factor. I think that it's probably unfair, it's not the right word. Chile's been extracting lithium for decades because they have a geographical advantage. They've got these massive salt pans up in the Atacama Desert, which are being, you know, you've been, lithium's been extracted there for very cheap because they've got high amounts of sunshine. They've got very low rainfall to really try and compare yourself with Chile. It's going to be difficult. But we are using what's called a new technology for our brine operations, where roughly the company is 50/50 between hard rock, as you mentioned, and brine, which is subterranean. So they're called DLE, is that right? Yeah, we'll be using direct lithium extraction DLE to extract lithium from that brine. That is still very much in its infancy in terms of commercial extraction. When I started the company, there were two technologies. There's now all over 50. So we're getting there very, very, very fast. And we think we will be well within the middle of the cost curve, the existing cost curve, right, with that DLE right now. But the cost curve is still being formed. We're going, at the moment this year, we're about 1 million tonnes of demand for lithium 1.2. In six years now, nearly five years, we're going to need to go to three million tonnes, possibly even higher, in terms of demand for lithium. Where's that two million ton delta going to come from? It's going to hold you. Cost curve is going to be built out. And at the moment, those minds are simply not being built, because at the moment, it's very difficult to attract capital. So, I mean, if I'm hearing you right, what you're saying is that, essentially, if, you know, Britain wants to be any kind of seat of the table in this game, that like they need to understand the economics of this over the long term, to build scale, to be able to invest in technologies. And so therefore, like, but there are also strategic reasons that are not necessarily like lowest cost kind of thing initially, which says that it's worth their while to make sure that there is domestic supply of this critical mineral, and particularly because the chemistry wars seem to be favoring lithium a lot more now, in the last couple of years, poor Northvolt MMC based, you know, bless them. But, you know, lithium LFP seems to be, gosh, kind of headed in the right direction. So essentially, your argument is that the reason that it's both strategic from a national perspective and from this MSP block perspective is that like, there are just only so many sources of supply. And we have to make it work in places that we can feel secure that we're going to get it from. Is that right? Exactly true. And if you think about the chemistry you refer to P and other battery chemistries, what is coming? And if people only get your car 300, 300 miles, I was thinking. Well, let's talk about that, because like, I want to ask you about the CATL, right? So, but anyway, finish your point. Sorry. So, I mean, I think the chemistry chemistries are changing. And really, I think it's important that we do, if we are going to stick with current battery chemistries, we need to try and build out a secure supply if we can. Going to the next point is that the difficult thing is to pre-charge what is happening with battery chemistries coming rapidly down the pipe. And that is solid state, which will be transformative. Now, the raw materials for solid state are different and ultra-pure lithium chloride is needed, which is exactly what we produce from our brain, ultra-pure lithium chloride. So, happy days for you then. Oh, it's great. You know, it's me. And just to be super clear, like solid state, I mean, as I understand it, you can tell me if I'm wrong here, but like to you, the expert, I'm not. But like my understanding is that solid state, what it offers as a potential possibility is just like it does in batteries, in laptop batteries, like super fast charging, longer battery life, and a vehicle that translates into longer range. Is that right? Yeah. I think that MG, which obviously Chinese, but they are bringing out a 600-mile range car with a 10-minute charging time later this year or early next. Really? There's an LFP car in China, which you can buy apparently in Holland right now. It's got a thousand kilometers range, and it charges really quickly. And interestingly, even when I've asked our team who just recently bought a new electric car, he said he used to get to exit the services, have time to go and visit this facility, get himself a bacon roll in the coffee, do a few emails, and he plugged his car in. He had to go straight back and take it off. It's too fast. So, so quick. So, it's happening very, very fast. And battery technology, battery chemistry is evolving very, very quickly. It's interesting. I went to Cambridge University to visit the new Henry Royce battery suite, and most of the students are working on solid state. So, it's coming quick. Really interesting. Okay. And then final thing before I let you go, because just to geek out on this for a second, because I love the fact that you're so into this, and like I feel like I've kind of read in, but slightly, in like 10% as you are, it's like CATL, the Chinese manufacturer, one of the dominant kind of manufacturers on the world of battery packs, and cells announced that they had like this within 10 years, they say they're going to have something with a 600,000 mile life on a battery, which they're going to warrant, I guess, going forward, which is like insane, which is like, what's the, I mean, the average life of an ICE engine car is, I mean, good day, 150, 200k before you have to swap out an engine major component. But the idea that like you're going to be able to get 600,000 kilometers out or miles out of the battery pack is just nuts. So it feels like, right? I think there's a guy I'm pretty sure there's a guy who's driving around in the Tesla that's done a million, a million miles. I know it's staggering. This thing just carry on going. But I'm not surprised to hear that CATL would do that. It's going to be amazing. The next 10 years, it's going to be incredible change. And we will look back in 2034 and think what on earth we're doing driving around with a chimney sticking out of the back of their car. Exactly. So exciting. Jeremy, we wish you the best for the future and there's so much more I could ask you about, but we really kept you over time more than I promised. So like, I'm super grateful you could join us. And I hope you'll come back to update us on your progress. It'll be a great pleasure. Thanks Richard. It's great to be on this show. Many thanks to Jeremy for coming on the show and... This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it at progressive.com. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates potential savings will vary not available in all states. Expand the way you work and think with Claude by anthropic. Whether brainstorming solo or working with the team, Claude is AI built for you. It's perfect for analyzing images and graphs, generating code, processing multiple languages, and solving complex problems. Plus, Claude is incredibly secure, trustworthy, and reliable, so you can focus on what matters. Curious? Visit claud.ai and see how Claude can elevate your work. Next up, we've got our panel discussion. Lots of lively stuff happening this week. Hope you enjoy it. Gosh, so privileged we could get this assembled such a distinguished panel with me to talk about the events of this week and some of the things in the news and some things coming up. Ben Cook, earth editor at the Times, Freya Pratty, a climate tech reporter amongst other amazing things that sifted the FT-backed publication covering startups and Ben Kilby, communications expert extraordinaire. Thank you all for coming on the program. Great to be here. Good to be here. So, Ben Cook, we wanted to come to you first. I think that you have, like myself, been keeping a very close eye on some comments this week. As listeners may know, we were in Liverpool over the weekend and early in the week at the conference, Labour Party, new thing, but actually Ed Miliband, for those people who are super energy geeks, kind of trailed some of their thoughts and comments at a speech that he gave at the Energy UK conference last week, and I know you were focusing on very laser-like. So, Ben, what was your take on Ed Miliband s comments there? So, what Livy caught my eye in Ed Miliband s speech to Energy UK last week was where he said, we re going to take on the obstructionists, we re going to take on the blockers to roll out wind and solar across the country as quickly as we can. Now, what I thought was interesting about that was Ed Miliband s quite deftly overlooked, exactly who those obstructionists are. And, of course, those obstructionists are normal people who are in community groups up and down the land, who do not want wind farms and solar farms disrupting their views. And the reason why that interested me, the reason why I'm overlooking that interestingly, is that I think it really gets to a dilemma, Labour, I think, will increasingly find themselves in. But they re really talking some quite aggressive talk along the renewables rollout. They want to triple solar by 2030, double unsure wind. And on the whole, these things are popular. But the people with whom they re unpopular really, really oppose these wind farms and solar farms, as in mid-wales last week speaking to some people who do not want the Wagner Hills to be filled with wind farms. And they said that they felt they were not getting any current reward or any sufficient reward for hosting this infrastructure. So, I think Labour really have a question facing them of exactly how they re going to live up to their manifesto commitment to reward communities who host all these new turbines and panels and pylons and so on. And for me, that was a glaring omission, both in Ed Miliband s speech and at Labour Council. So, I didn t come across any concrete proposals for how they might reward these communities, whether, for instance, they would offer them discounts on their energy bills, which is one measure which has been talked about, but no decision has been made. So, yeah, that s what calls my lead this week. And I think that came up definitely, I think, across conversations that I had had when I was in Liverpool, as well as even in public on that, the panel discussion that we had of like, again, like, I think lots of people heard the Ed Miliband s speech in Energy UK, as well as some previous verbiage from him and Chris Stark and others. It s like, yeah, so the messages we re going to lower bills. Yeah, but when, when is that going to happen and for whom? And we ve had folks like Greg Jackson from Octopus, like Basie saying, well, the only way that s going to happen for local communities who are actually going to sponsor and host these things is going to be local pricing. And the industry s like, yeah, we re not going to talk about that just now. So, yeah, lots of lots can be spilled between cup and lip, as they say. So, we will see how some of the policy stuff actually gets decided. We just played my interview with the founder and CEO of Cornish Lithium, who have government backing and support to be able to actually, you know, dig up both hard rock lithium and they have some ambitions to do things with Brian and whatever other kinds of lithium that might be there in Cornwall kind of reviving the mining industry there, as the idea that this could be the anchor for a big effort to bolster the supply chain, both in the UK and more broadly in Europe. And like my question to him, as people would have heard, is we ve had some, some rough stuff lately in Europe, right? We ve had British Vault, which we can discuss and I hope we will with Ben Kilby is willing to go there. Like, what happened with that? And, but North Vault at the moment, will the European champion for battery production has also had an interesting week where they ve had to announce layoffs. Jeremy from Cornish Lithium had some thoughts about like, why that would be in their ambitions and maybe they spread themselves too thin too quickly. And now they have to retrench. But Freya, you ve been following North Vault for really quite some time. So, can you give us some insights about like, from your reporting about like, what, first of all, just to recap for listeners who might not be following in as laser like, as you were I, like, what's been happening with North Vault and why does it matter? Yeah, so a few weeks, I mean, they ve been whispers of trouble for quite a while. They then in July announced a strategic review of their sites. I think that the idea of spreading themselves too thin was starting to come about then. There was this need to focus in on one factory, the factory in Sweden, which is what they ve then announced that they re going to do. So, last week they announced the closure of a cathode plant in Sweden and some R&D facility in America. And they haven t said anything about they ve got factories in the works in Germany and Canada. We still don t know what s going to happen with them. But all focus is now on the main plant in Sweden. And they teased last week that there would be some layoffs. This week we found out it s about 20% of the workforce. It s 1,600 people. But yeah, it s a big change from they are, as you said, the kind of poster child of climate tech. They re the best funded. They re the golden child. So, it s a big switch around. And again, because you ve been covering the company so closely and again, like you said, like they were the poster child for so long. I mean, again, I suppose we ll be keeping a very eager eye out for you reporting because you ve developed so many good sources there over the years. But can you give us any early hints about things you re hearing? I mean, again, like so, there are various theories. Like one is doing too much too quickly diversifying, spreading your bets too much. Another is that their bet on battery chemistry relies on nickel, manganese and cobalt, the NMC thing. And essentially that seems as a battery chemistry to have been slightly gone out of favor in favor of cheaper technologies that might be less dependent on places where they re hard to source these minerals. Like are there any other things that you re hearing or in the ether about like why they hit the wall or like what the strategic review might actually reveal in terms of like what they can do about it, like pivoting entirely on a battery chemistry seems like that'd be pretty tough. Yeah, so the big challenge they ve had was when BMW cancelled this $2 billion order, they ve now gone for a South Korean provider, I think it is. And the big question now is BMW s order was very small compared to someone like Volkswagen. I think I think that s a $14 billion order. So if that falls behind or is cancelled, that s when things get really tricky. Then now the question is on all the way it s been talked about in the press, Northwell haven t come out and sort of come down on either side on this is who s going to give them the money to carry on for a bit. There s talk of Volkswagen, but they have their own problems. There s talk of Goldman Sachs because they re one of the biggest shareholders, the Swedish government ruled out direct help. So it s kind of a waiting game to see who put their hat in the ring to help. But falling behind on these off takes because off takes are incumbents taking a real bet. And I think if one car company sees one full behind it, it s a real turn. And not just for Northwell, I speak to so many smaller companies that are trying to get off take agreement signed and that BMW order has scuppered it for them as well. It s kind of faith in a wider industry that s at stake. That s not real answer, but that s the kind of question people seem to be asking this week. No, it s super valuable. I mean, interesting. I mean, is it, I can t remember now, but is it LG or like what was the South Korean company that s actually scoop that up? I think that is right. Wait, let me check. I think you re right. I think that s right. It wasn t the quiz. The other thing I m now focused on is there s so much public money wrapped up in Northwell, in equity, loans and debt agreements. I don t think anyone fully kind of written out how much that s worth its billions and it s all under different agreements. So, there s a lot of pressure in Quebec now, the government to state exactly how much they ve handed over and what the conditions for more are. So, I think that s the next question is like the taxpayer money here. I even saw like, there s even like, again, a migrant rights group in Sweden. That s actually quite concerned because so many people were given visas to come over to Sweden, to work at Northwell, whose jobs now seem to be in peril and given the amount of debt, like there s some questions around that. So, obviously, we hope for the best for anybody who upended their life to go and work towards that goal at Northwell. But, Crikey, yeah, I mean, suppose it s always important, I think, that on shows like this, that we remind ourselves that it s not just kind of dollars and cents and like what happens with Goldman Sachs or anybody else, like there are real people who decided to buy into the vision, change their life, move to a different country, put themselves at risk by doing this as anybody who has ever worked in a startup, no, sometimes that works out, but sometimes it doesn t, but the question is like, what happens after that? So, we will keep an eye on that. So, following on from something Jeremy said about like, again, like my question to him was like, where is going to be the buyers, the offtakers, as Freya rightly is keeping track of in a supply chain? So, if you re digging up lithium in Cornwall, a couple of years ago, you would have said like, yeah, British fault is going to be like my main customer, hooray, because they re going to be a national champion. And then some other stuff happens. So, Ben Kilby, I m sorry to poke some stick in perhaps an old wound, but you who were involved with British fault might have better view than most. So, I guess what s the view about, I m not going to ask you to rehash everything that happened there, but like essentially like, post that, what is the view about the viability of a domestic supply chain and ecosystem for producing batteries, including the lithium that s Jeremy s going to like mine. Again, you ve got a range of clients across different things in the supply chain. Like, what s, what are you hearing? What s your take? Well, thank you for poking the old wound. I think you remember the first time we spoke, I said, it s amazing how much progress I ve made since January 2023, but the first thing anyone ever wants to speak about is my time of British fault. But it s been, to go to Freya s point around, there s been whispers for some time of issues at North fault. When we were up and running at British fault, there were whispers then that they re taken in Chinese machinery, and we re having complications with that machinery. Fast forward to this week, I was at UK Bic kind of jawling the crown of the UK battery ecosystem. The incubator for peoples technology before getting to Gigafactory Scale, which British fault we use in a lot of, we were speaking about this and many other things, and the complexities of making batteries. But the question I asked to John T, who was hosting some training for two days, was about the machinery. So we d heard that North fault had taken in some machinery from the Chinese, and then said the machinery was substandard. And then another iteration of that narrative was that North fault had then tried to do things with the machinery that weren t necessarily in the structure of a manual, and therefore, so you never really know anything unless you re behind the closed door. What it proves is the complexities of making batteries, and just ahead of this call you asked me, I think you were asking there as well about North fault and its issues. You can t boil the ocean. Let s stream it right the way back to the earliest business plans. There was advice that you could build two gigafactories, one in Canada, one in the UK before even having the money to do it, or having built any gigafactories. What I learned at UK BIP this week was something that I thought about, and we used to, the strategy was that British fault could make customized cell ingredients. So the earliest stage of battery cell production, which is incredibly complex, is the mixing. So making, mixing your slurry s to put your two batteries to be rolled out. UK BIP, which is a very small facility, it said if it runs its machines for one week, it takes another week to clean it. So you think about makes it, so the point of it being is you can t really pinpoint one problem. For North fault, it s obviously tried to be vertically integrated because that s the way Tesla did things, and I think some of the senior management came from that background. I think Peter Colson is Ex Tesla. So perhaps the vision was right, and Goldman, a leading investment bank, has bought into that vision. But realistically, making batteries is so complex and so difficult that trying to do all those things at once is a recipe for disaster. And it is, I just want to say it was heartbreaking when British fault, it was the poster child in the UK for around a year, as some great times, and it was crisis management for a year. But really for me, below that C-suite, the real people in there that people have forgotten about, who move from all over the world. And I spoke to some reason, they ve got jobs that are still located in parts of the country that they don t really want to be in. We shouldn t just think about, I gave a quote to Argus Media, saying, I was just calling out, before you make batteries, you shouldn t really be making cute videos to get your priorities right. But then I realised that realistically, that could be misinterpreted, because I remember the heartache for people at British fault. So to the people that have lost their jobs, my heart does go out to you, because it s horrific. But the nuts and bolts of how that business went wrong, it also has tried to do something that the Chinese and Asia are far ahead of us in. And if you look at a company in a bet, for instance, in Slovakia, they have decided to partner with Goshen. Now, the sensible move here is to not see China as a huge threat when it comes to batteries, but maybe start to learn from them like they learn from us. When we were pioneering lithium-ion batteries in the 80s. Well, I think we ve moved to the point where this is going to be probably a live issue that crosses over from everybody in VC to investment, to what s happening in technology, to politics, about how do you actually cope with this? So Ben, to get back to your point, in conversations that you re having across the board, one of the things that appears to me is going to be a challenge for this new government, is balancing the wonky kind of like, yeah, we need this stuff, supply chains, with how do you convince people that there s benefit for them or their community coming down the line that would allow them to be able to sign off and support some of the things that might be short-term sacrifices in order to be able to actually get these longer-term gains. I mean, to Ben s, Kilby s point, CATL, I heard from Laurent Segalin, like, how many employees were there in Northfold? 6,000. Are there, right, before the new layoffs? How many employees just in R&D are there in CATL in China? And I guess it s 18,000. Well, just R&D, right? So like, and so the question is like, what do you do about that? Like, is it insane to try and actually do something that goes head-to-head with somebody who you, for no fault of their own because of R in the West kind of dawdling, left the field to other people for 20 years, and so that s why they have a massive advantage. So like, it s a really tough story to sell, though, to Joe Soap in Mid Wales about like, why? Like, yeah, sorry, we fucked everything up, guys, but yeah, we should knuckle down now and pay higher prices and not important BYD EVs that will cost half the price of an industrial internal combustion engine vehicle and last for 10, 20 years. What do you think, Ben? I think that if the question is, can the UK sell a manufacturing base around Metro, on which to build a political coalition, which were out to advance the net-zero transition, it s all quite that we ve lost the race overall, right? I mean, there are industries where we are losing the race and the battery industry is definitely one of those, but the net-zero transition is going to require technological change and some re-shoring in many, many industries, and there are other vice versa spots, right? I was in Port Talbot earlier this year, where they are going to build a tremendous amount of floating offshore wind, grazing the port to do that, and with any luck, they will be using steel from the new Port Talbot clean steelworks, which the government has agreed to. And so I think there are really positive stories out there of green re-industrialization, but yeah, you re right. I mean, in many industries, we have just doodles along, even an offshore wind. If we do manage to make a lot of these turbines in Port Talbot, it will be a reversal of the status quo right now, which is that most of these rings are made in Scandinavia. So we re losing out even to our next-door neighbors, let alone to Chellia. Well, we'll definitely talk about that some more. I want to just end, because again, I'm very conscious that I've actually kept you over time for all the time I asked for, for you folks, so thank you so much for doing this. But like I want it before we go, for each of you, like I want to ask you, starting with you Freya, perhaps, what story you're keeping an eye on coming up, and then also whether there's something you'd like to plug, because I think there might be some things coming up for each of you on the call that might be of interest to our listeners that they might want to get involved with. So Freya? True, yeah. What am I interested? I'm interested at the moment in this company, Lightyear, they made solar-powered cars, which got them quite a bit of press. They then went bankrupt, or part of the company went bankrupt, but they're now back and they're working on these like next-gen solar panels. This is like a year ago, they went bankrupt, they've just come back like last few weeks with this new funding announcement for the new solar panels, and I heard of another company kind of pivoted. So I'm interested in this idea of this moment being when climate tech companies pivoted a bit, and perhaps the business models that get them there in the end are coming out in this circumstance. So I'm thinking a bit about that at the moment. And yes, I do want to plug something. Sifted has an event next week on the 2nd and 3rd in London, and the first day in particular, there's a lot of climate discussions, so come along. That's my plug. We'll put a link to that where you can take us in the show notes, obviously, so thank you Freya for coming on. So Ben Kilby, I want to come back to you in terms of like something you're keeping your eye on, in terms of a story for the next kind of week or so, and then as there, and again, free slots to plug anything you'd like. Well, I'll always plug the trends as your friend. That's where you can get all of your energy transition goodness. But I would like to say that I think with the north alt narrative, we kind of touched on a few negatives. There is plenty of market share for batteries, and as regulation comes into play, where you need rules of origin, traceability, sustainability, net zero, we will learn, we will evolve. Next-gen batteries will be made locally, GDI. One of the companies that I'm partnered with, they are making silicone anode, 100% silicone anode. They're a US company, they've come to Europe because of the existing supply change, including Flank and AGC. And also, I'd just like to say, I've just got on my other screen, favorite social media open LinkedIn. And I just read something, so the visionaries at Octopus, Octopus Energy, Greg Jackson and Octopus EV, Fiona Howarth. So they've actually got an installation here. A UK home can have zero energy bills with a heat pump, solar and some smart automation. We're aiming to build 100,000 zero bills homes by 2030. So there are loads of positives for this country. We've got a new government, it's very proactive, especially in the renewable sector. The only thing I've slightly disappointed was it didn't mention EVs at its conference, which is a key part of its manifesto. I hate to correct you there, Ben, but again, like, so you probably have a chance to hear the episode that came out earlier today yet. But in the supercut, at least one speaker from the podium in the ACC in Liverpool actually did, and we put that in the supercut, tout the fact that he had been a speaker before and a delegate before, but had never before driven his EV to come to conference. And so he, but also he noted, as you did, that like, why are we not talking about this? And he was the first one to mention it. So I think both slight correction, but also, I think in the spirit of what you're saying, I think that's probably absolutely correct. So super interesting. And we will definitely come back to that. And yeah, we'd love to get the only on the show sometime. So if you can help us out, that would be awesome. And Ben Cook of the Times, Ben, what are you watching? What are you going to be reporting on next couple of weeks? And also, I believe, because again, careful readers and listeners to this show, we'll know that we have taken a bit of, well, a little bit of a deal with you guys and helping to promote your event coming up. So what story are you watching? And then tell us about the event. Well, in terms of what I'm working on right now, we're actually working on series of articles about Labour's net zero in, in trade, if you like, all the stuff it has to be getting on with to get to speaker and climate goals. So I feel like my attention is currently scattered here that are everywhere between Green Steel, whether we can install enough charges for heavy electric weather, the government is doing anything at all about the risk of golf speed collapse, which is a lovely. Oh, yeah, I hold that thought, there's a chap who we've had on the show before called Dr. Anatol Leven, who had the piece in the Guardian about exactly this couple of days ago. We're speaking to him tomorrow to tape an episode where he'll be talking more about that. He's actually like a political scientist and security guy. It seems scary stuff, which we can talk about. But yeah, in terms of what I would like to to promote, I've been helping organize a thing called the Times Summit, which will be happening in London on October 15. It's going to be, I suppose, largely business conference covering everything from how the energy industry is changing and working with the government to fulfill its 20, 30, the energy goal to what businesses are up to and over energy to make sure their workforces are keeping pace with the demand for green skills, and we'll also be hearing from an amazing range of speakers like Steve Reed, the Environment Secretary, and Michael Leiblike, the energy analyst, and Freddie Otto, the Climate Scientist. And so I'm really excited to see it all come together and it would be really good to see some of your listeners here, if they fancy it. Well, of course, you too, Richard. Well, thank you. As we've done before, a previous newsletter, an episode, we will definitely put links in the show notes to where people can acquire tickets to that. I'm not sure if this is true or not, whether early birth tickets are still available, but yeah, so we'll definitely put the links back up and hopefully they will be. But look, thank you all so much. Such a busy week. I hope we can get you all back to talk more. There's so many things I would have liked to have covered that we didn't have time for. So Ben Kilby of Bold Voodoo. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you very much. I'm just going to close out with something that I nearly forgot that Ben reminded me, Ben with the hair reminded me about collapse of ecosystems. I think I flagged it to Ben previously on WhatsApp. Fashion dense, the human swan is now flights of the vulture, which will highlight how vultures in India, their decimation is basically caused a huge issue with rats, rabid dogs infects in humans and our one bird can make such a difference to entire ecosystem. Ben, I will flag it to you again, I'll give you a call. It's super interesting. I think you'll love it. Sorry. There you go. You heard it at first before Ben even reports on it, but Freya, thank you for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. Hope we'll get you back soon. And then Ben Cook from The Times. Again, super excited about both of your events coming up. And again, I look forward to hearing more about the flight of the vultures, Ben Kilby. Thank you all for coming and we will be back soon. Thank you for having us, keep up the great work. If you enjoyed this conversation, please share it and leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or Spotify. It helps others find the show. For an ad-free experience, consider becoming a paid subscriber at wickedproblems.earth. You'll get our newsletter, show notes, and exclusive content. WickedProblems explores the intersection of people, politics, technology, and capital, and whether it creates a future you'd want to live in. WickedProblems is written and edited by Richard Delavan, with production assistance from me, Theodore Delavan. Special thanks to SunChama for our phenomenal theme music. Thanks for listening. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try it at progressive.com. Progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates, not available in all states or situations, prices vary based on how you buy. Expand the way you work and think with Claude by Anthropic. Whether brainstorming solo or working with the team, Claude is AI built for you. It's perfect for analyzing images and graphs, generating code, processing multiple languages, and solving complex problems. Plus, Claude is incredibly secure, trustworthy, and reliable, so you can focus on what matters. Curious? Visit claud.ai and see how Claude can elevate your work. You've got enough on your plate. Monday meals shouldn't be one of them. Get an endless variety of the freshest, best-tasting food from award-winning chefs delivered to your door with Cook Unity, all at a fraction of the cost and time you're spending now. Cook Unity offers hundreds of meals prepared by their roster of all star chefs. Simply choose from their innovative variety or let them surprise you. Menus are updated weekly, and new chefs are always joining the team, so you'll have fun discovering new favorites while avoiding the dreaded dinner run. No cleanup or meal planning. Just easy and effortless meals delivered fully cooked that heat up in as little as five minutes. Speaking of easy, Cook Unity is flexible and commitment-free. Skip deliveries, pause, or cancel anytime. Take a load off and leave your meal prep to Cook Unity. Affordable food crafted by award-winning chefs delivered straight to your door. Go to cookunity.com/podcast or enter code podcast before checkout for 50% off your first week. You