Clean Energy's Reliance on Dirty Magnets: The Source and a Solution--Dr. Peter Ladwig, Niron Magnetics

As climate change worsens, the need for a transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources gets more urgent.  But clean energy often has its own environmental costs. The risks posed by nuclear reactors and mining lithium for batteries are well known, but our speaker, Dr. Peter Ladwig, a materials scientist, is working on another aspect of the problem: dirty magnets used in the electric motors that power green transportation.  In a "Town Talk" sponsored by Telluride Science, he describes how his company, Niron Magnetics, is working on producing a clean magnet and scaling up production to meet future needs.  Adam Chambers, Telluride Science Board Member, moderated this session. Podcast hosts: Judy Muller and George Lewis

Transcript

Science Straight Up, Season 5, Episode 7

“Clean Energy’s Reliance on Dirty Magnets: The Source and a Solution” 

Peter Ladwig, VP of Nanoparticle Development, Niron Magnetics

(THEME)

(JUDY) From Telluride Science…this is “Science Straight Up.”

(GEORGE) And on this episode…

(PETER) When efficiency matters, when power matters, you need a rare earth magnet today. Unfortunately, rare earths are environmentally damaging.

(JUDY) I’m Judy Muller

(GEORGE) And I’m George Lewis

(SOUND—E.V. CAR NOISES)

(GEORGE) Everybody knows that the big advantage of electric vehicles is that they have no tailpipe emissions.  But the manufacturing of EV’s DOES have environmental consequences because the batteries and the magnets that run the motors make use of rare earth elements. 

(SOUND—Tom Lehrer song “The Elements”) “There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium, And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium…”

(JUDY) You may recall that wonderful Tom Lehrer golden oldie “The Elements.” At a time when magnets are in hot demand, we have to add a few NEW elements to that list.

(PETER) That's neodymium, terbium, and Dysprosium. Now, these are the rare earth elements that really make good magnets.

(JUDY) Dr. Peter Ladwig is vice-president for nanoparticle technology at Niron Magnetics, a company that’s working on developing green magnets that don’t depend on the mining of rare earth elements.  He spoke at one of the “Town Talks” sponsored by Telluride Science.  Each summer, up to 14-hundred leading scientsts gather in Telluride for a series of workshops, brainstorming sessions and one-on-one get-togethers aimed at exchanging cutting edge concepts in science.  The scientists also share their ideas with the community.  Dr. Ladwig’s talk was recorded before a live audience at the Telluride Mountain Village Conference Center.  He spoke of the environmental devastation that can come from mining rare earth elements.

(PETER) When efficiency matters, when power matters, you need a rare earth magnet today. Unfortunately, rare earths are environmentally damaging.One kilogram of neodymium creates 1000 kilograms of waste. And that waste is often found with other heavy elements, which are often radioactive./ And so that's why here in the US, we have said not in our backyard. And a lot of this has been happening overseas.

(GEORGE) And where exactly?  places like Outer Mongolia and Myanmar.  Dr. Ladwig, says the people who have to live near those mining operations have a long list of environmental concerns.

(PETER) We can't plant anything in the fields anymore. Can't catch fish in the streams anymore. Many animals have died by drinking the water because they just let it all wash down. To make things worse, right now, if we look at the supply of rare earths, we have a we have a surplus. We're mining enough rare earths to satisfy our need. But as we start to electrify more, we're going to need more magnets, and a lot more kilograms of magnets. So it's projected that there will be a shortfall of rare earths. Now, how can they project that? Well, turns out that starting a rare earth, mine is not an easy process to do it, especially if you don't want to do it with less waste. It takes years to do that. So this projected shortfall that we will have in the coming years is more than the current supply of rare earths. So it's a problem today, and it's gonna get worse.

Also, it's a geopolitical issue. Right now China controls rare earth supply. And they don't have to control all of the mining. But what they do control is the separation and refining technologies. So if you read the news, you'll see that in response to some of the tariffs that the US has imposed, China in return has now forbidden the sale of rare earth processing technology out of China, they want to maintain their virtual monopoly on rare earths. 

(GEORGE) But then, a researcher at the University of Minnesota, Jian-Ping Wang, hit upon a way of combining iron and nitrogen to create a green super-magnet with no rare earth elements.  Alpha double prime Iron Nitride.  Try saying that ten times in rapid order.  That led to the formation of the startup company Niron Magnetics, eleven years ago. Here’s Niron CEO Andy Blackburn, from one of the company’s promotional videos.

(BLACKBURN FROM VIDEO) Niron is the only company working on commercializing this kind of new magnetic material which means we would be the sole disrupter in a 22 billion dollar global permanent magnet industry. That’s pretty exciting.

(PETER) So Niron Magnetics was born tried a number of different ways to actually make this material in a tangible way that can be scaled up, struggled and struggled. And then right before the pandemic finally unlocked the science on how to make this material. And from there, it became more of an engineering challenge. Now, there certainly are still scientific challenges. There's room for discovery, but some engineering challenges if they're made with, if you can use scalable processes will yield to effort and that's where we feel we are today. We built a pilot facility so that we can start delivering samples to customers and starting to scale this up. So the 2022 we have our pilot facility and we are really trying to expand to build our first manufacturing facility. So the world is caught on. In 2023, Time Magazine, named Niron as one of their best inventions of 2023 we were named number 22 of 250. green tech companies in 2024. And Fast Company named us to have one of the World changing ideas in climate tech.  Ford, GM, Stellantis, Samsung and a number of others have caught on and given us the support we need to actually make this thing real. Because making a few samples in the lab is great, but you can’t really change the world unless you make tons of this material to displace rare earth. 

What is our vision? We want to be the global leader in powerful rare earth free permanent magnets, we're going to create a secure and reliable supply chain for global electrification, all while protecting the environment. So, to that end, what are we making? What we're making is a particular crystal structure of iron nitride called the alpha double prime phase, this phase does not exist in nature, it is a phase that nature does not prefer, it would rather prefer other compounds of iron nitride, but this particular material would be the,is really the first new magnetic material of any consequence in 40 years, basically since the rare earth magnet was developed.

(GEORGE) And the audience in Telluride had plenty of questions for Dr. Ladwig.  Moderating, Adam Chambers, climate scientist and Telluride Science board member.

(ADAM) How does the magnet startup get funded? You know, I mean, can you take take me through kind of where you are today? And then how do you get to kind of where you need to go?

(PETER) It starts with selling a dream, right, a dream of a rare earth free magnet based on science. And ARPA E, from the Department of Energy, they're willing to invest some money in this. And some venture capital is willing to invest in that. But once you demonstrate that you’ve proven the science, and it's about the engineering, then a whole different slew of investors become interested, Samsung General Motors, a lot of Volvo, a lot of our customers, these are ones that have been publicly announced that are interested in in scaling, scaling us, But we're at the point now, where it really takes They say it takes a village, a village to raise a child, it takes a very large community to create a heavy industry. This isn't software where once you create the program, you can replicate it very cheap, right? This is heavy industry 10,000 tons a year is less than 20 10% of the market. So it's going to take a very big factory and millions of dollars 100 million plus types of dollars to create a factory that's large enough to make these magnets at scale, that are really going to have any tangible viable environmental impact.

(ADAM) Well, I'd like to open up to the audience. Mark's got a question. 

(MARK KOZAK) Do you have? Are you selling any at this point? Do you have any customers? And what is the application? 

(PETER) Yeah. So we have we have customers, we have a long list of customers. And we've been very fortunate that we've been able to basically pick segments like when we go when we talk about audio applications, Samsung  and Harman Kardon auto, we've been able to select customers that we can actually supply with some magnets to entertain certain programs. So we've been very fortunate that most of the interest is inbound, and we've been able to select.

(MARK) Thank you.

(QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE) This is a great talk and I especially appreciate what are the great challenges of this technology. So my question is maybe goes a little bit beyond magnets, given all this problems that your technology is aspiring to overcome, you know, geopolitical issues and environment pollution and the cost of production. What do you think that maybe perhaps we should not put all our hope on electrification and consider other technologies that can provide energy without creating these problems.

(PETER) We certainly can. Certainly, nuclear is out there. But if you're looking at automobiles, there, certainly hydrogen is being looked at. And we're okay with that too. Because it turns out when you want to end up turning that to turning wheels, you need magnets. So we're okay with that as well. But and I am no expert in any of those alternative technologies. I know what's in my lane, and that's making magnets.

(AUDIENCE MEMBER)  Maybe a very chemical question. How do you actually replace the oxygen by the nitrogen? And are you actually able to use molecular nitrogen and start from that?

(PETER) I can't tell you.(LAUGHS) I knew I was gonna get that question. And it's, that's naturally what comes. But that's the secret sauce. And we need to protect that.

(AUDIENCE MEMBER) Yeah, so my question is just purely on the logistics of scaling your, your operations? Yeah, you talked about the size of the facility. So out, do you guys have a projected timeframe, like, Hey, we're in the middle of raising $100 million. So we can build a, you know, mega factory or, and we project that we're going to need 10 In the next 20 years to meet demand? I mean, what, what are those projections look like?

(PETER) Those numbers you put out there are very astute. So we are in the middle of raising money to have to have our first volume factory, that's of any meaningful circumstance. But it's there's what the time it takes to build the factory. But then there's also the time it takes to get in these products. If you want to get into an iPhone with a new material, it's two years minimum, just to go through all of their checks and to get into the program. So that ends up being the long pole in the tent, rather than actually building a factory, assuming you can raise all that money.

(AUDIENCE MEMBER) Hi, I'm, I'm going to ask you a hard question. And I'm sorry for that. But you made it apparent that this is like proprietary technology. And right now, the issues that we're facing, are like, more grave than they've ever been getting more graver and, you know, means something to every one of us on this planet. And if we want to keep industry the way it is, we need to find solutions like these magnets, how do you feel about keeping this proprietary, like it secures funding for your organization? And that's important, and it's hard to get funding? But do you think that it's worth it keeping this thing that could potentially be revolutionary for a huge amount of, you know, industries in the world, and seriously affect the battle that we're facing? How do you feel about that? Keeping that like corporate to one? You know…

(PETER) That's a good question. And that's really just comes down to that's, that's really the way it's done. There's no way that we could do this on our own, we need help we need investors, and those investors require some return. And so that's the deal that you strike, that's the contract that you make. And without that, you're not even you can't even leave the you can't even leave the first square.

(QUESTION FROM AUDIENCE) My understanding of this chemistry is coming from the angle of farming, which also requires a lot of nitrogen. I know that most of the processes that we use to get that nitrogen out of that atmosphere require fossil fuels. I'm curious if you have strategies to source a nitrogen that don't.

(PETER) Yeah, very good question. So again, being from Minnesota, ammonia is probably the most the one that you're thinking of, and it's sprayed on fields and very large amounts to sequester nitrogen. Right. And so there are now we, as far as the, to answer your question, briefly. We don't need to do that. We're not we're not doing that. But there are initiatives such as EERC in North Dakota, I think where they have some projects to produce clean ammonia. And there are other efforts out there to produce clean hydrogen and clean ammonia.

(ADAM) Green ammonia, right? Isn't that what they call it? Do they call it green  ammonia? 

(PETER) Green ammonia, not my field. But yeah, I know it exists. You would know more than I do.

(QUESTION) I have a question about sharing technology. Do you have competitors or There are other companies out there working to build non rare earth magnets?

(PETER) So every once in a while you see a news article if there was someone that in a lab produced particular magnetic material that's only found in meteorites. And they said they cracked that code. They're just last last month, there was a group in the UK that said, they used AI to find a new magnet formulation 200 times faster than Niron did. So they're the reports are out there. But if you really look into them, and see who has a substantial, rare earth three magnet, that's not some lab demonstration, or theoretical demonstration, that actually can give you a physical magnet that you can hold and test. As far as we know, we're the only game in town but people will come.

(ADAM)  So, magnets are a commodity.  Are you price competitive today, feature competitive?

(PETER) We just need the scaling. It is an economy of scale type technology. So if you're making them by the gram, right, you're not going to be price competitive, you really need to build a factory to get that economy of scale, because it is a commodity commodity material. Just think of like steelmaking in a crucible this large versus a crucible crucible the size of this room, very similar.

(QUESTION) Let’s say next five years…how much magnet do you plan to produce? And are you equipped to produce at large scale?

(PETER) It's a good question. So we need some help, in the sense that we need to raise funding to raise to build that factory. But that factory can make a meaningful dent in the rare earth industry within that five-year time horizon.

JUDY) One of the questions was whether Dr. Ladwig’s and his revolutionary new magnets are caught up in a “hype cycle,” a term coined by Gartner Incorporated, a technology research company.

(GARTNER AUDIO) There is hype and there is reality and with our hype cycles, you have the insights to make smarter decisions.

(JUDY) A hype cycle runs like this. There’s a peak of inflated expectations, where it looks like the new technology will save the world.

(SOUND—ding)  

(JUDY) Then a trough of disillusionment when it doesn’t deliver on all its promises.

(SOUND—buzzer)

(JUDY) And then a slope of enlightenment when people discover what the new technology can actually accomplish…

(SOUND—ding)

 Followed by a plateau of productivity when it’s widely adopted. 

(SOUND—ta-daa)

(PETER) I would actually say if you're looking at the hype cycle, and you have the peak of inflated expectations in the valley of disillusionment, right. So you're I think that's what you're referring to have we have we reached that point, I think we're out of that, that valley. And we're at the point now, where we're on the, what do they call it the the slope of reality, I forget that hype cycle, but they call it so but it is scaling up these technologies is a substantial engineering effort. The science is unlocked, we know how to produce it, we can produce a meaningful magnet. But to produce that at scale cheaply, we know the direction we need to go to, but the let's say the particular processes that we use, we know they are scalable, for example, every every step of these processes, we can point to other industries that use that type of reactor to do something at a very large scale. So we have the right process technologies that are scalable, we have the recipe, let's say, but it is not trivial to take it from here to that very large scale, it'll be a significant engineering effort.

(QUESTION) Do you have any particular location you have in mind for the first plant? And are there parts of the country that you think would be better for your plants than other parts of the country?

(PETER) That's a good question. So the, there's this plant one, and then there's plant two. And I really don't know if I'm, this is not my I'm the scientist. Right. So I don't know if I'm stepping out of my bounds of what I can and can't say. But I will say there is a site selection process that involves a lot of different factors. Accessibility of labor, the cost of electricity. The are you located on we're going to need boxcars of iron coming in, right. So your access to scrap iron your location to a railroad tie? The availability of a highly educated workforce as another state incentives always come into play? Right. So there's a number of factors that determine that.

(ADAM) You can't, you can't make it snow in the winter. But you can help with our snowmaking machines, I suppose, right? There's probably magnets in those. And then summer there's there's the you know, air filtration. I really like your environmental mission on the moving toward clean magnets and and away from dirty magnets. And then there's a security issue here. Have you all thought about kind of the security issue? Or has the United States thought about the security as a world talked about this? Magnet security over time? It seems like there's been a little bit of that. But is there any any any more to tell on that front?

(PETER) It's kind of interesting in the sense that neurons been around for a decade and for most of its existence, no one cared, right? And then once you crack the code, now suddenly all these questions are coming, right? How do you protect all this technology? And and also foster it right? How much do I say it talks like this to educate people versus keeping it all internal? That's, that's a difficult balance. And we're really kind of struggling with that right now, as we grow. One of the things that you mentioned, it's just I don't think we realize how much power is consumed by just moving liquids. 10% of power is consumed with pumps, basically moving liquids from or fluids from one area to another 10%. That's huge.

(ADAM) Well, there might be a role for magnets in there or might be alright, Peter. Well, I tell you, Telluride, let's let's give Peter a thank you.  (APPLAUSE)

 (PETER) All right. Thank you so much. (APPLAUSE)

(ELEMENTS SONG PLAYS AGAIN) 

(GEORGE) And a big thank you to Telluride Science and to board member Adam Chambers for moderating. A magnetic personality if ever there was one.  Also thanks to our sponsors, Alpine Bank and the Telluride Mountain Village Owners Association for making all this possible. 

Our audio engineer for this Town Talk was Dean Rolley.  Mark Kozak is Executive Director of Telluride Science and Cindy Fusting is Managing Director.

(JUDY) Annie Carlson runs donor relations and Sara Friedberg is lodging and operations manager. For more information, to hear all our podcasts, and if you want to donate to the cause, go to telluride science-dot-o.r.g.  I’m Judy Muller.

(GEORGE)  And I’m George Lewis, inviting you to join us next time on Science Straight Up. And one additional thank you: to Tom Lehrer for putting his song “The Elements” in the public domain so we could use it freely. 

 (ELEMENTS SONG ) “These are the only ones of which the news has come to Ha'vard, And there may be many others but they haven't been discavard.”(MUSIC CODA TO END)