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Comment by lnsru | Hacker News Reader

I am just curious about manufacturing capacity of these green energy gadgets in Western World. When I look at the parts for my solar installation everything is made in Asia. My system is rather simple: 4-6 panels each ~400 Wp and stupid single phase inverter. That battery production isn’t a thing in the West is already well known fact. In my eyes this green energy transition totally depends on factories in Asia. And builds strong dependence since nothing can be made domestically (at least no mainstream solar panels/electronics in Germany).

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> That battery production isn’t a thing in the West is already well known fact.

Er, no. 13 large new battery factories are expected to come online in the US in the next 3 years.[1] General Motors is building four. Ford is building three. SK Innovations is building two. Stellantis (Fiat, Chrysler, etc.) is building two. Volkswagen and Toyota are building one each. This doesn't include Tesla, which isn't saying. China's ambassador to the United States is now complaining about the US cutting China out of the battery supply chain.[2]

[1] https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/US-Ramps-Up-Batte... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-15/china-s-e...

The EV components’ raw materials (battery materials and rare earths) are largely controlled by China [1][2]. They may not control the chain end to end, but they have a strangle hold specifically on raw material processing/refinement.

Many of the EU/U.S. battery factories will import lithium chemicals from China, at least for this decade.

[1]IEA 2022 report, see page 5 on battery materials supply chain share by country: https://www.iea.org/reports/global-supply-chains-of-ev-batte...

[2]WSJ article on China’s monopoly on rare earths: https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-set-to-create-new-state-o...

The big rare earths mine at Mountain Pass, CA is back online.[1]

The MP Materials magnet plant in Texas is supposed to start delivering to GM in 2023.[2] Although Google Earth shows a vacant lot at the announced location. Groundbreaking was a few months ago.

Australia is the largest producer of lithium ore. Over 50% of world production. China is down around 6%.

Lithium Americas finally got approval this year to build an open-pit lithium mine in Thacker Pass, Nevada. Supposedly construction should be starting about now.[3]

Things are moving forward in this area.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_mine

[2] https://mpmaterials.com/articles/mp-materials-begins-constru...

[3] https://www.lithiumamericas.com/usa/thacker-pass/

My point wasn’t about the sourcing of natural resource.

It’s about the steps within supply chain, most of Australia’s lithium is refined/processed in China[1].

It will take roughly a decade for other countries to ramp and move back down the learning curve for refining/processing capacity at market cost. China’s control over this bottleneck step won’t change for this decade, as they continue to consolidate state investments.

Yes countries are catching up in sourcing natural resources, but the processing into chemicals and then components are still mostly done in China. For example, most battery cathode materials are made in East Asia, and battery factories import them.

[1] “Most Australian lithium is exported to China, accounting for over 85% of total value in each month of 2021 and over 94% in each month of 2022 (year to date). In June 2022, $1,128m worth of lithium was exported to China, accounting for 97% of the total lithium exports for that month (Figure 4).” https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/insights-australian-exports-...

Lithium refining technology suppliers:

- Metso:Outotech (Finland) - mostly does dry source minerals.

- SaltWorks (Canada) - mostly does wet source (brines) minerals. They claim a near closed-cycle process for water, rather than needing vast amounts of fresh water.

US Plants under construction or proposed.

- Silver Peak, NV [1]

- Proposed Tesla lithium plant in Texas.[2]

- Miner Piedmont plant in Tennessee,[3]

China currently has about 80% of world lithium refining capacity, but that's rapidly changing. China is a net lithium importer. The big mining countries are Australia and Chile. China is under 10% in lithium ores. New refining plants are being built in Australia, too. Pilbara Minerals in Australia claims to have the largest single lithium mine in the world. They are expanding into refining.[4] The Kermerton plant in Australia, which cut production in half in 2020 due to low lithium prices, is going back to full production and looking at expansion.[5]

The price of lithium has gone up about 8x in the last few years. So everybody in the industry is now expanding. Expect a capacity glut 3-4 years out.

[1] https://archive.ph/2DDdw/again?url=https://www.reuters.com/b...

[2] https://www.freightwaves.com/news/tesla-proposes-texas-lithi...

[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/01/miner-piedmont-unveils-plans...

[4] https://www.miningmagazine.com/plant/news/1409915/lithium-re...

[5] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-16/lithium-expansion-aga...

[6] https://www.dailymetalprice.com/metalpricecharts.php?c=li&u=...

Battery production capacity is becoming more decentralized, as countries with large production capabilities stay somewhat stagnant but other countries build factories. China's percentage of world battery production is expected to drop over the next few years while most other countries are expected to increase production capacity.[1] See Tesla's investment in the gigafactory or Panasonic's investment in battery manufacturing in Kansas for examples of this happening. Germany specifically, since you mention it, is expected to surge quite a bit in the global battery market.

1: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1249871/share-of-the-glo...

P.S. I suggest opening the statista link in a private tab, I just noticed the second time you visit it you are paywall blocked.

yeah that and pretty much every computer in the world

But the machines that make "computers" are designed and produced in Europe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding

If you know how to make the tool, you probably know how to make the product.

Only theoretically. In practice, it takes a lot of know-how unseen by the public to make a product in a manner that is price-competitive against other players in the market.

Europe is obviously technologically capable of building chips and assembling functioning laptops that are ready for consumption, since as you pointed out they are capable of making the machines that make the chips; but that's still a long way from saying that they can start churning out Macbook Airs.

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