Extract rare land of old batteries without going through China

The efforts to electrify the world bring with them a growing demand for materials to make batteries. Materials that, to a large extent, depend on China. In full United States trade war against the Asian countrya solution is gaining strength: old battery mining. And a known name, that of JB Straubel, co -founder of Tesla, leads the race with his company Redwood Materials.

Context. The world needs more batteries. The demand does not stop growing between the electrification of transport, with more than 57 million electric vehicles in circulation, and the energy transition, which requires large storage systems to compensate for the intermittent nature of renewable sources.

The problem, in full tariff climb, is that most of the materials necessary to manufacture these batteries come from China. Especially rare earths, which explains the United States interest in Greenland and the Recent pressures on Ukraine. But these bets to produce materials outside China can take several years.

An alternative. Urban mining. There is a huge amount of batteries already imported in countries such as the United States (electric cars, electric scooters, electric bicycles, consumer electronics) that contain a valuable metal mine.

These materials can be recovered by recycling, which now seems like a very lucrative business. Unlike plastic recycling, which comes out much more expensive than the virgin material, the high value of batteries metals makes its recovery economically viable.

Material redwood. Founded by JB Straubel (Tesla co -founder and one of Elon Musk’s trusted men), Material redwood It is one of the pioneer companies in this field. Your business model focuses on collecting batteries at the end of your useful life and Extract the relevant elements to create new batteries High quality.

A few days ago was associated with Limewhich has a gigantic fleet of bicycles and electric scooters, to recycle its batteries. For Lime, whose batteries usually last about 500 cycles (between five and seven years), this alliance not only solves the problem of what to do with the inventory of old batteries, but also reinforces its sustainable company image.

Almost everything is used. Redwood states that its recovery rate is up to 95-98% of materials To manufacture new batteries. The scale is significant: in 2024, he recycled 20 GWh of old car material, scooters, electronic devices and production residues; enough to produce about 250,000 batteries for electric vehicles.

Together with Redwood, a recycling company, reuse companies have also appeared, Like the Canadian Moment Energy. His proposal is to take advantage of the batteries of withdrawn electric cars that still retain around 80% of their ability to create stationary energy storage systems. Give them a second life.

They have collaborated with companies such as Mercedes-Benz Energy and have just received a subsidy of more than 20 million dollars from the United States Department of Energy to build the first “gigafactoría” of battery reuse in Texas.

Although the recycling process and the logistics of collection of old batteries remain complex and expensive, the high value of the recovered materials, especially now with geopolitical pressure, is promoting these solutions that transform old batteries into a strategic source of resources or reuse for other uses. “Urban Mining” is a way to skip China and, therefore, a lucrative business.

In Xataka | In the middle of the electric car, a Canadian company has smelled money: a battery recycling gigafacto