PERSPECTIVES

What is Hotter, The Electric Vehicle Market or the Lithium-Ion Battery that Powers it?

BY NICHOLAS ALBERGO, P.E., DEE, D. WRE, F. ASCE, F. EWRI GHD Services, Tampa, FL

As Hurricane Ian pummeled southwest Florida in late September 2022, few were likely concerned with the status or condition of electric vehicles (EVs) beyond the owners.

But then electric vehicles that were flooded and damaged by the storm began catching fire without warning. Firefighters reported using 8,000 to 12,000 gallons of water to put out the fires, more than 10 times as much as a gasoline engine-based vehicle. Worse yet, some EVs re-ignited after the flames were extinguished.

The culprit was saltwater. The flooding created a chain reaction in some EV engines and batteries, making the parts more likely to catch fire.

Lithium-ion vehicle battery fires have been observed rapidly igniting and igniting several weeks after battery damage. The timing of the fire initiation is specific to the battery design, chemistry and damage to the battery pack. As EVs grow in popularity, this is a potential threat that EVs and EV battery manufacturers will manage. A key method for achieving this is by applying passive fire protection materials.

A traditional EV battery consists of many cells combined to form a module; these are integrated inside the battery enclosure to create a pack. This gives several opportunities for the application of fire protection materials. Materials can be applied around the pack, inside the enclosure, beneath the lid, around the modules, and between the cells.

The goal for battery designers is to have a material that can sit between the cells and stop a thermal runaway event from propagating from one cell to another. The material needs a low thermal conductivity and strong flame resistance to do this. But this is easier said than done when improving energy density and reducing costs.

Safety remains a high priority amongst all manufacturers; thus, they have a vested interest in tackling the problem now. A key methodology to achieving this is by replacing old functional materials with ones that can carry out that function while also providing fire protection. I am certain that the industry will identify the right balance of materials that are thermally and electrically insulating, lightweight, conformable, easy to work with, low cost and able to provide fire protection.

What I remain less sure about is the broader picture.

The Biden Administration is concerned that global supply chains can quickly be affected by regulatory changes, trade restrictions, or political instability in a small number of countries. There is no question that North America needs lithium mines to compete with China’s electric vehicle battery chain dominance. Otherwise, it is shifting from U.S. reliance on Middle East oil to U.S. reliance on China’s lithium and cobalt refining.

President Biden is allocating billions of dollars to cultivate the U.S. battery supply chain and wean the auto industry from relying on China. These Federal initiatives aim to incentivize domestic manufacturing and mining, build a robust battery supply chain in North America, and lessen the industry’s dependence on overseas supply chains that could be subject to disruptions. The question is how, considering the myriad of technical and regulatory challenges.

From the perspective of a global energy shift to electric propulsion, the elephant in the room remains that the production of the requisite minerals required is dominated by a handful of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, many with track records of human rights and environmental abuses. As a result, there is a desire for the U.S. to shoulder more of the burden for the minerals it consumes.

Current and proposed incentives offered by the federal government are not likely to provide any relief regarding battery manufacturing or recycling in America. That’s mainly because of the bill's requirement that an electric vehicle contains a battery built in North America with minerals mined or recycled on the continent. This presents a dilemma.

Environmentalists in the United States do not see the mining and processing of these materials as “green.” They use the nation’s laws and regulations to delay or remove lithium mining and processing projects. Meanwhile, the price of lithium has increased fivefold since mid-2021.

I envision a collision due to recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules; the Biden Administration attempts to wean the U.S. from foreign dependence and EV industry concerns regarding minimizing the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) costs of acquiring essential EV materials.

Lithium, indispensable to the EV industry, has become a national health-based concern. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has provided initial results of a review of 1,464 publicsupply wells and 1,676 domestic-supply wells distributed across 33 principal aquifers in the U.S., indicating the widespread presence of lithium in U.S. source waters.

Based on sampling data to date, the USGS reports that “45% of public-supply wells and about 37% of U.S. domestic supply wells have concentrations of lithium that could present a potential human-health risk.”

This places the U.S. growth of the EV manufacturing industry in a precarious position as provisional standards become law. Understanding how these regulations unfold will be critical to the industry, as potential liability concerns and costly decisions about an overall growth strategy must be made in the next few years.

Whatever the drawbacks, the acquisition of lithium, no matter where it is found, probably won’t slow down. Battery technology may not be benign, but we have much greater control over how we generate electrons than we do over where we get our oil. Not only does our dependence on gas and diesel engines harm the climate and our lungs, but it’s also a significant national security risk. We continue to export billions of dollars annually to countries that don’t share our ideals.

I am confident that with the money spent to promote a robust domestic EV market – and the availability of the best technological human intellectual capacity on the planet – the industry will prevail and flourish.

We may have some bumps and bruises along the way. We may have to endure for a bit longer before we can meet a “no risk” threshold for battery safety.

But it will happen.

NICHOLAS ALBERGO, P.E., DEE, D. WRE, F. ASCE, F. EWRI, is a Professional Engineer who serves as a Senior Advisor to GHD Services, one of the largest engineering consulting firms in the world. He also serves on the engineering faculty at the University of South Florida and is a founding Diplomate of the American Academy of Water Resources Engineers and a Fellow in the American Society of Civil Engineers. He can be reached at nicholas.albergo@ghd.com.