Repurposing EV Batteries at Relyion with Dr. Surinder Singh

Dr. Surinder Singh’s distinguished career has focused on advancing and incubating technologies that address climate emergency with a focus on fundamentals of science, systems engineering, and business models. He is spearheading Relyion Energy Inc’s strategic business development to create second-life sustainable solutions for Lithium-ion batteries.

Previously, Dr. Singh worked as Director of Engineering and Center of Excellence Leader for NICE America Research (that’s the National Institute for Clean and Low-Carbon Energy), an incubator for China Energy (CE), and a program leader at General Electric. China Energy is the world’s largest overall power producer and renewable power producer by assets. He utilizes system-level thinking to address climate change via clean energy technology developments. He has led initiatives funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Department of Energy, General Electric, NICE, and others on low-carbon technologies such as alternative fuel production for transportation with low greenhouse gas emissions; carbon capture and storage (CCS) including direct air capture and Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage for decarbonizing the power sector, biofuels and biochar production, fuel cells, hydrogen, and energy storage. He has led multi-million-dollar programs, developed partnerships with renowned universities and technology developers, and developed calls for proposals for funding programs.

Dr. Singh is mentoring startups in Climate and Energy at Breakthrough Energy, Third Derivative/New Energy Nexus, On Deck, and STEP-TIET Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals Mentor. He has led multiple cross-functional and cross-organizational teams with chemical, mechanical, electrical, electrochemical, chemists, and material scientists backgrounds. He is a seasoned executive who has authored and co-authored 11 publications,  and holds more than 40 patents granted and pending in ClimateTech. His scientific work has been extensively cited. He is also an editor for a renowned scientific journal Sustainable Materials and Technologies. He has a Ph.D. from University of California at Riverside. He is cited in Fortune ' s “Unstoppable World’s Business Minds” and “Are Second Life EV Batteries Game Changers for Microgrid Owners and the Grid?”

Transcript

Gregory A. Williams: 0:10

Thanks for joining us for another episode of climate money watchdog where we investigate and report on how federal dollars are being spent on mitigating climate change and protecting the environment. We are a private, nonpartisan nonprofit organization that does not accept advertisers or sponsors. So we can only do this work with your support. Please visit us at climate money watchdog.org To learn more about us and consider making a donation. My name is Greg Williams and I learned to investigate and report on waste, fraud and abuse in federal spending while working at the project on government oversight or Pogo 30 years ago, I learned to do independent research as well as to work with confidential informants or whistleblowers to uncover things like overpriced spare parts, like the infamous $435 hammers, and weapon systems that didn't work as advertised. I was taught by my co host the inner race war, who founded in 1981, and founded climate money watchdog with me last year, Dina has spent 40 years investigating and sometimes recovering millions of dollars wasted by the Defense Department and other branches of government at Pogo, as an independent journalist, as an author and as a professional investigator. Our guest tonight is Dr. Surinder Singh. surrenders distinguished career has focused on advancing and incubating technologies that address climate emergency with a focus on fundamentals of science, systems engineering, and business models. He is spearheading, rely on an energy incorporated strategic business development to create Second Life sustainable solutions for lithium ion batteries. Previously, Surinder worked as Director of Engineering and Center of Excellence leader for nice America research. That's the National Institute for clean and low carbon energy, an incubator for China energy, and as a program leader at General Electric. China energy is the world's largest overall power producer, and renewable power producer by assets. He utilizes system level thinking to address climate change via clean energy technology developments. He's led initiatives funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA, Department of Energy General Electric nice, and others on low carbon technologies such as alternative fuel production for transportation with low greenhouse gas emissions, carbon capture and storage, including direct air capture and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage for decarbonizing the power sector. Biofuels and bio car production. Fuel cells hydrogen and energy storage is led multimillion dollar programs, developed partnerships with renowned universities and technology developers and develop and developed calls for proposals for funding programs. So, thank you for joining us tonight. And I want to give my co host Dina a few minutes to introduce yourself as well.

Dina Rasor: 3:15

Okay, I'm Dina razor. And so Greg is first job one better hires I've ever had. And we are having a lot of fun doing climate money watchdog because we're taking the skills we've learned from our careers. Greg's partly has worked in the corporate world, but also a lot in the nonprofit world. And I've pretty much been doing the same investigations using whistleblowers and finding out where the government money is and, and things like that for, you know, 40 years I hate to say. But anyway, I climate money watch, we started it because I should say climate money watchdog got a typo, I don't think is we just decided to do this because the environmental movement has just never had this much money. I mean, the in the sense that I talked to some environmentalists, oh, once we get the money, it's going to all be so great, because it's all gonna be environmentalists and it's all gonna be Kumbaya. Nobody will cheat. And I'm like, Okay, I don't think I will keep buying oil out, you know, so I was like, okay, that make it very clear that that's not really going to happen, because as soon as you get that much money, all kinds of sharks show up. So anyway, what we wanted to do in talking to surrender today is we're really interested in these new startup technologies that are coming up from the push the corporate and federal and state push towards climate change, and climate mitigation really, and we want to we want to talk to him today about public input. Private money, and it's new technology. And it's kind of a hard thing we all we all know we have to move. We all know that there's deadlines, we all know that the catastrophe is coming. But when you're spending this money, you also have to have oversight. Because if a program is, could be a really good program, but if it's got fraud, waste or abuse in it, whoever is against that program will then use it to make sure that it's not funded again. So I keep telling them that if you don't want to have them come after you, we've got to put good oversight. So that's what we're doing our little niche here. And what we really want to do is look at technologies, also looking at technologies to see if from a layperson, it makes sense to us. Because some of these some of these projects, I kind of say, I don't know how you're going to want to do it for the amount of money. Or if you have to buy, you know, if you have to put co2 pipelines all over the country to ship the carbon capture. That's not very politically fun. So anyway, that's what we're doing. And so today, I'm gonna start asking him questions. And I think this is a technology that I really do not run into in all my reading, and that is that there's going to be a lot of batteries, from cars and all kinds of things. And then you know, batteries wear out, and they're going to have to be recycled or somehow used again. So my first question is that the lithium ion batteries was what you've been working on, are needed for this huge expansion of, of electric vehicles and battery stacks for homes and businesses. So according to your company website, there'll be 12 million tons of batteries retiring by 2030. How complicated is it to recycle a Lyon battery? And what does that battery recycling industry has done so far and facing this problem?

Dr. Surinder Singh: 7:04

First of all, thanks, Tina, and Greg for having me here. I'm looking forward for the discussion. So as he mentioned, so there's expected 12 million tonnes of lithium ion batteries that are expected to retire by 2030. And every time actually this number, when it gets updated, it always increases. So 12 million number is, I think, the lower estimate with respect to how many tons of batteries will be retiring by 2030. And to start actually, of what I would mention is that what lithium ion technology did, and specifically what EVs did, is really tremendous for decarbonisation of the transportation sector. And we need to decarbonize actually all sectors that are involved with respect to power production, transportation, chemicals, and so on. But one of the challenges associated with the with the lithium ion batteries is that, what do we do with the batteries when they retire? If you look at the battery materials, or other things also that that are getting recycled, there is a very stark contrast between lead acid batteries and lithium ion batteries. The current estimates are that sub 10% of batteries are getting recycled. Whereas more than 99 99% of lead acid batteries are recycled. And there's a number of reasons why that happens. There's technical, technological reasons, business reasons, and policy reasons. And we'll talk about why actually, in the lithium ion case, actually, that number is so low. In addition to recycling, what I also mentioned is that we need to develop full circularity of lithium ion battery technologies. And recycling is a very important component of that. But the other thing that is available in between is that when the easy batteries they retired, they have a very good state of health, that it's also known by S O H. And what that is related to is how much degradation of the batteries has taken place. So when these Evie batteries retired, they have a really good state of health, which is on the order of 70 to 80%. And the analogy that I use is that every time let's say we eat food, or drink coffee and things like that, let's only eat the top, the 20% or 30% of that, and the rest, let's compost it. The thing is that the intention is rarely good, but the execution is really bad. And so what we need to do with the lithium ion batteries is find out how we can utilize these batteries that have such a good state of health still remaining. How do we utilize them to their full true extent and take them to the true end of life and then recycle them?

Gregory A. Williams: 9:51

You may get to this eventually, but at some point, I'd encourage you to describe why something is being retired at 70 or 80%. And What I was going to offer is that there are many of us who buy a new phone when our phone isn't remaining, you know, fully charged the way it once was. And so while we may wait for, you know, 50 or 60%, you know, imagine having a car that needs to get you to and from work, and it can now only get you, you know, three quarters of the way to and from work that's, that's a problem.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 10:23

Yes, absolutely. Greg, you You hit the nail on the head. This is one of the primary reasons that actually everybody who's driving cars, they would want to actually utilize their cars to the full extent. And once you start getting actually less mileage out out of it, then the batteries retire. On top of that, actually, what happens is, in a typical electrical engineering or energy storage system, you're limited by the worst performing component. And as we know, actually different evey battery packs are made up of many, many modules. And on top. Inside of those modules, there are many individual cells. And what happens is that each individual cell degrades at a different rate. Now, there are many studies that have been done with respect to what's the degradation rate of different lithium ion batteries. And one of the most cited actually, a study was done by Emeril where, even if you take a battery from single OEM with a single battery chemistry, coming from a single batch, and put them under testing for, you know, various cycles and various duration of time, under absolutely same conditions of temperature and environmental conditions and so on under the same load curve, what happens is that over 1000s of cycles, each battery cell degrades at a different level. So it's not only the external factors, but there are internal factors that cause this distribution in the degradation. And what happens inside evey battery packs is when the the sales are degrading at a different level, you're going to be limited by the worst performing component. So the full pack is going to behave as if it's formed by the worst performing component. And it won't, the state of health would not be reflective of the true state of health, what is of each individual component. And that's where actually our technology also comes in where we try to take advantage of the full distribution instead of being limited by the worst performing component.

Dina Rasor: 12:25

So then gets me right into the next question. So tell me about really rely on where you are in the startup process, why your technology to recycle is new than the other recycling tests. And you know, we already talked about using all that second use batteries, you know, the ones ones that are retired early, but really interested in your company. And I looked through the other companies and they're they seem to be further along and further, doing demonstration plants and things but it they looked at your site, and I could see that you had a way of using the second the second battery life and actually making a better new battery from it that goes longer. So I'll let you take it over. And I'm also really interested on where you are in the startup process.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 13:16

Absolutely. Sounds good Dina? So with respect to rely on our foundation of the technology is that what we started with was that we need to develop Second Life system that maintains the advantage of low cost, in addition to providing the life and the performance, comparable to new battery energy storage systems. So knowing that actually that's what we've developed in terms of the technology. But let me take a step back and explain actually, what what is the traditional way of utilizing these retired batteries. So as I mentioned earlier, the evey battery pack is made up of many different modules. And inside of those modules are individual cells. And when these battery packs retire, their performance is very different. So what the state of the art technology that exists right now is that you disassemble the battery packs into its own modules and components. And then great the battery packs, or the modules and the cells into the goods, the bads and the uglies or you know, tier one, tier two, tier three and so on, where you put similar battery components together and make up a battery pack again and you put into an energy storage system. What ends up happening because of this is even though the technology works so you can cycle the batteries and grate them and put similar ones together, it would work but the drawback is that it is a very time consuming and energy consuming a labor intensive and long process. It can take not only weeks but months also to get these batteries disassembled graded and reassemble due to that the The cost benefit that was there, it ends up costing more in doing all of these methods, and then compare it as a comparable cost. The new battery energy storage systems are actually cheaper rather than the second life battery energy storage systems. In case of rely on, what we do is actually we take these battery packs with the full distribution. So whether if there's a battery, EV battery that is coming with a 90% state of health, or there is a battery that is coming with 40% state of health, we can utilize them as it is, even without knowing and grading the state of health of these different batteries. And the technology, the way it works is based on its physics based, and thermodynamics based algorithms that have been developed over very, very long periods of time, with tremendous amount of data that we have, and are also utilizing the battery parameters that are directly measurable, whereas Soh is an indirectly inferred parameter, which is not directly measured. So what we've done is actually simplified the process considerably. It's very fast, and maintains the economic benefit of these retired batteries so that they can be utilized for their full life.

Gregory A. Williams: 16:15

So you might want to take a moment and explain the difference between a cell a battery and a module.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 16:20

Yes, I think the simplest way to explain this is at the most foundational level, a single cell is the building block of a lithium ion battery inside if that is the anode, and the cathode and electrolyte and so on. But one single cell is actually the building block, you combine single cells into, into a combination of groups. And each battery OEM has actually different number of cells that they put together in terms of different series and parallel configurations to build a block a module, and those modules then become a building block for a full evey battery pack. Let me give an example of Tesla so Tesla has actually 1000s of these individual cylindrical cells that go into the evey battery pack that has certain number of modules, whereas for example, Nissan LEAF which is another evey, battery Evie, that has only about 50 to 100 modules 50 to 100 cells actually rather than actually 1000s of cells as compared to a Tesla so every OEM has their own method to work with how many cells modules that they put together into forming an Eevee battery pack so good you know

Dina Rasor: 17:41

I'm sorry i didn't i How do you end up then doing the recycle your your way of recycling versus what's been done in the past that makes it less expensive, less carbon intensive and all that

Dr. Surinder Singh: 17:57

I would differentiate between actually two two steps one is recycling and second is repurposing so specifically about rely on we do the repurposing so in case of recycling, as I was mentioning, you take the battery down to its material level and separate those out into different components. So the lithium, nickel, cobalt and so on, in and make new batteries out of the the recycled material. Whereas in case of repurposing, what you end up doing is Take for example, if you have batteries that were utilized for the EVs in the transportation sector, you take those batteries in and recurrent configured them for different application without going down to the material level. So we utilize the battery modules and put them in a form factor that can be utilized for stationary energy storage system. And what I mean by stationary energy storage system is the analogy would be what Tesla does for with their powerwall power pack and the mega packs for residential applications or CNI sector or for utility grid scale applications.

Gregory A. Williams: 19:05

So what I think is implied, but it would be great for you to confirm is that in the automotive capacity of battery is worth the most when it has a very high density of energy to weight. Whereas in applications like you know, home energy storage, the amount of ways is essentially insignificant. And so the reduction in in in state of health is a lot less important in that application than it is in the automotive application.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 19:38

That is very true. Exactly. Yes. The automotive standards are actually much higher than the stationary standards in terms of different KPIs key performance indicators. So batteries that retire from the transportation sector are really good for the stationary sector. Okay, I

Dina Rasor: 19:59

think If we got the technical part of what you were talking about how you you know, did it and you repurpose it. So So where are you in the startup process?

Dr. Surinder Singh: 20:10

Right, so we launched the company about a year ago. And within this one year, what we've done is set up systems with various batteries coming from different OEM so whether they are in the US, or Japan, China, South Korea, and so on. And by the way, all of these actually batteries are different. So even though when we say lithium ion batteries, they are not single chemistry. They could be lithium ion and phosphates or NMC and NCA and so on, in different shapes and sizes. So what we've done is actually utilized these batteries that come from either cars or SUVs, or even Evie, basically buses and repurpose them for on grid and off grid applications. And on grid and off grid applications are tremendous. There's many different use cases in which for behind of the meter applications, things such as Time Of Use or demand charge reduction, which is basically electricity bill reduction, or for renewable integration. So for example, if you have solar, and you want to utilize the renewable energy that's produced during the day, but you want to utilize it at night, energy storage is needed for that, or even for backup power. So in California, fires are unfortunately a common thing that happens almost every year. And so having backup power, utilizing these stationary energy storage systems is another use case. One, go ahead,

Dina Rasor: 21:37

I wanted to add on that for people back east that don't understand how bad it is. Because the wires that are coming over the Sierra mountains in different parts of California, are very old. And everything, there's been some of these horrendous ones like paradise, which basically took out a town and is at 87 people died, pg&e the power company had a 99 year old tower. And now whenever we get even slightly high winds, I know that you must have also done this a surrender is little, little tiny wins, they are so frayed, they're gonna burn another town down, they just shut your power off. I mean, they'll just say, Okay, we're shutting off everybody's power off. And so people are really getting motivated now, in California, because until they fix these towers and fix all the problems, which will probably take years, anytime the power company decides to shut it off for legal reasons. We're all stuck in the dark.

Gregory A. Williams: 22:39

Right? This seems like a great example of how it sometimes can take a crisis to get people to take action. But the the more general issue, as I understand it, is that while wind and solar do a great job of producing a lot of electricity, they don't produce it at all of the times that it's needed. And so these kinds of, you know, non vehicular applications of batteries are critical to building a carbon free or carbon reduced. Electric electricity infrastructure.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 23:09

Yes, absolutely. Greg, you said it perfectly. Just recently, actually, there was a heatwave also in California. And there were these PSPs events, again, just to make sure that the grid does not fall into a place where the demand is too high, and the supply is not there. So in those cases, also, actually, energy storage systems are really useful, because you can actually charge them during the times of the day when renewables are producing at a really high amount. But the demand is not there at that time. So they can you can shift the time at which the demand can be supplied by the energy storage systems that were charged you by renewable energy.

Gregory A. Williams: 23:53

So it's sort of like going back in the old days were farmers, when they had a tractor that wasn't that much good in the fields anymore, they would just park it someplace and use the power takeoff to run all kinds of machinery around the farm. Okay. And in fact, the Model T Ford was specifically designed to be able to do that. And so it sort of returned to this idea of of having an energy source that's initially for a car or said energy storage technology. And then it gets converted to other uses.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 24:24

And this is an example where there is an economic reason to do it a financial reason to utilize actually energy where you charge the batteries when the power prices are low, and utilize them when the power prices are high. In addition to that, it's not only a financial reason, but the co2 reason also very you can charge the batteries when the grid carbon footprint is the lowest and discharge your batteries when actually the carbon footprint is high so you're not consuming energy that has a very high co2 footprint.

Dina Rasor: 24:59

Okay, so you You're you you haven't started a demonstration plant or anything like that you because you've only had a year but you are you what are your plans now? What's your next next goals in your in your startup mode?

Dr. Surinder Singh: 25:13

Sure. So in Santa Clara actually, that's where we are located. We've built these MVP or minimum viable products, where we've taken batteries from all different sources and have demonstrated actually all of these are most of these use cases. And our next stage is that actually, we are going to be piloting our technology at different sites, including utilities, and then also for Off Grid applications. And those pilots are going to serve the purpose where we can actually get the early adopters to showcase that this is a technology that can be really helpful and not to be feared off. With those pilots, we are also going to get the different certifications that required for full commercialization. And with the step that is going to get us ready for the full full commercialization in about 18 months. Wow.

Gregory A. Williams: 26:04

So you explained that the selling these in the retail market in 18 months, yes. On the scale of an individual or a single family home or larger scales,

Dr. Surinder Singh: 26:15

even larger scales, actually. So what we've built is, for example, in our initial customer segmentation, we're targeting CNI sector and the utilities, and those are actually larger applications where each system would be on the order of about 60 to 100 kilowatt hours at a small scale, and actually at a half megawatt hour or one megawatt hour for the on grid scale.

Dina Rasor: 26:42

Okay, that is really ambitious. So where's the majority of your fun funding come from? What percentage is private and public sources? Because I saw this, do you have partners? So, you know, obviously have partners?

Dr. Surinder Singh: 26:57

Right? Absolutely. So in our case, we're a US incorporated company. And our funds are all internal. And with external funding coming from a group called Alliant, so currently, it's all private funding, we do not have any government grants and so on at this point.

Dina Rasor: 27:16

So you're gonna be able to, could you go to through the 18 months and do and get to the point you are with that with just private funding, there's that much funding available?

Dr. Surinder Singh: 27:26

We are raising our next round, that we expect to close actually in the middle of next year. We are starting early, but yes, we are on the lookout for different grants that are coming in and with the bipartisan infrastructure bill and also the growth taking place in the recycling and repurposing of batteries. So we will be

Dina Rasor: 27:54

so you're gonna see you're gonna be applying for federal grants that are about state of California to since they started when a country ourselves, we have our own energy plant.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 28:05

Yes. You see an epic, for example, there. I think they're doing again, good work with respect to looking out for the needs of California citizens. And so absolutely, we'll be looking at at those, especially with California now saying that by 2035 internal combustion engine cars will be banned. And so only EVs are going to be there. There's many different use cases that need to be there for these Evie batteries. On top of that, we need to provide an infrastructure that we can util that we can charge the EVS that are going to be coming on the market and again, stationary energy storage can be a cyclical solution where once the Evie batteries retire, you can utilize those batteries to charge the cars when when it is needed. So we're on the lookout for all of these requests for proposals.

Gregory A. Williams: 29:00

So one of the big challenges with Evie charging is just the amount of time that it takes and the traditional electrical power grid isn't really designed to deliver you know, huge amounts of energy in a very short period of time, the way a gas pump does. And a gas pump produces you know, the equivalent of many hours of Evie charging in the 10 minutes or so it takes to fill a 16 or 20 gallon gas tank. But by repurposing automotive battery systems, well are those systems that you would repurpose more frequently able to deliver that kind of, you know, very high speed discharge?

Dr. Surinder Singh: 29:41

Yes, again, Greg, good point. With respect to EVs, that is a limitation where it takes a lot of time to charge a charge them. The alternative is that actually you can have really high power coming in to charge these Evie batteries. But the problem associated with that is the AC infrastructure or the grid needs to be updated, which is actually really old. In most of our cases, the alternative of using these retired Evie batteries for stationary energy storage system is a really good example where you can maintain the existing AC infrastructure to slow charge the stationary energy storage systems that can then fast discharge into the EVS and keep them for their full utilization during throughout the day.

Dina Rasor: 30:33

And in the as far as the federal government's concerning, you know, these two the bipartisan infrastructure law and the inflation Reduction Act, have they I haven't looked lately I know about eat low, the Evie charging budget, but have they had a specific budget at all in mind for recycling batteries?

Dr. Surinder Singh: 30:54

Right. So just recently, actually, I think last week, there was $2.8 billion worth of federal money that was awarded to different companies with respect to making sure there is local manufacturing of lithium ion batteries that takes place in the US. In addition to that, specifically, there's about I believe, $300 million of grants that are going to be coming out. So there's request for information that is already out, where the government is asking for request for information for recycling of the batteries, including actually repurposing also.

Dina Rasor: 31:36

And when you have you applied for government grants, and things like that, in the past, in your past, your past works.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 31:45

Yes. So previously, after my PhD, I was working for General Electric GE, for close to 10 years. And there we did apply for actually many different grants, including for carbon capture, and so on alternative fuels and energy storage and things like that.

Dina Rasor: 32:07

Okay, so in your you haven't done it yet, but you've obviously had, you know, we're know how it goes, Do you think that they got this balancing act of gotta get it done fast, that gotta have oversight, because if you spend it wrong, then whoever has the long match for your programs gonna come for you afterwards? That's just sort of the nature of Washington. And I'm just wondering, wondering if you think that the government, in your experience, the government, and in talking to other people who are obviously applying for grants have experience with the federal government yet seems to be put together? Because I'm getting I'm starting to read stuff that people are saying, it's just, they can't get it out the door fast enough? And because it's just a lot of money, it's the grant process seem over burdensome on or you're worried about doesn't have enough oversight, if you have bad actor, or somewhere in between?

Dr. Surinder Singh: 33:12

That's a very deep question, actually. So in my opinion, I think with respect to the scale of funding that is coming in, I think the climate change problem is so big, it's so huge. It's the problem of our lifetimes. To address those, we have to address it from many different fronts, different technologies, and so on. So batteries are one of them. Carbon Capture is another one, directly capture and so on. So we have to address and tackle the problem from many different fronts. So the scale of funding that is coming in is absolutely that is what is needed, if not more. And so that's actually on the good side, with respect to the timeline, whether they're coming fast and whether the funds are getting deployed fast. Again, I think there's a lot of work to do over there. Specifically looking at it as a startup. I think that's where that's one of the challenges that we face is that if you're wanting to develop a technology right now, but there are proposals that are coming in, you know, once or twice or three times a year, they are not actually aligned with the things that you want to develop. So if, if anything, I think more frequency of these proposals would be helpful.

Gregory A. Williams: 34:30

So one thing that occurs to me is, is that while you haven't been pursuing funding through government grants or loan guarantees or things like that, potentially you benefit indirectly from them, since many of these are designed to help homeowners either reduce their electrical consumption or to acquire renewable energy sources or renewable energy systems. And and since you're designing your products, so they can work in that way. You're potentially selling into a pipeline that itself benefits from these these government grants.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 35:05

Right? Absolutely 100% Agreed. So for example, in the inflation Reduction Act, one of the things that was modified is that now standalone energy storage systems qualify for the credit it previously they were tied to solar. So if you deployed solar, and your energy storage system was charged more than 90 95%, by solar, only, then you qualified for the credit. Whereas with the IRA, now, you stand alone, energy storage systems qualify. And that's a that's a big change. And that is going to benefit the consumers, and also the companies that are working in this space tremendously.

Gregory A. Williams: 35:43

So I just want to call back to your earlier point that, you know, while one might wonder, hey, do we really want people charging their their, their household battery systems potentially with with coal and natural gas, chances are these systems are going to be coupled to demand management systems that charge themselves and buy that power when it's least expensive, which nowadays tends to be when you have those renewable energy sources online.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 36:10

Right. And actually, it's also not that the the energy storage systems at homes are charged by coal and natural gas, that is actually one of the points that I wanted to make. So for example, during the day, you have peak solar, but people are actually at their offices and the EVs are not at their home. So when during the evening time when people come home, the Evie, start charging, and at that time, actually, the renewables are going down. So by having these stationary energy storage systems, actually, you get rid of that, because what you can do is actually charge these systems during the day when the peak solar is there. And when the people come, during evening hours at home, you utilize your charger EVs, through your the stationary energy storage systems that have been charged by renewable energy. So

Dina Rasor: 37:06

you are in process of getting more private money, right now you've worked in the past getting government money, which is harder and which is faster and slower.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 37:19

Interesting, yes. So both have their pros, pros and cons, right. And so with the private money, the benefit is that actually, if you can have you have access to that money, you can move really fast, you can develop the things that you need to develop really fast. Whereas with the government money, it comes, you know, at various times of the year and in various cycles. And that might not completely align with what you want to develop. So you need to have, I believe, actually, as a successful company, and as a successful startup, you need to have both streams of funding sources coming in, so that you can move fast and at the same time actually utilize the most effective money also, that is coming from the various grants from the federal or the state government.

Dina Rasor: 38:17

And then another question this kind of connected to this. One of the things when you finally get to the point where you're starting to build plants, and whatever, we had somebody on last week that was telling us, it's really hard for America to do big things anymore, because of all, you know, it's kind of a double edged sword, the environmental is want to move, but they also want all their environmental checks when you do it, get a permit the whole permitting problem. And then there's also problems of, you know, local governments and state governments and whatever, there's too many pies, fingers in the thing, and it's much easier to get things done. We were saying in China and Europe, they're really got fast trends, and we can't seem to get our act together. And the question is the fan is American America still do big things? And I'm just wondering that when you start to get to the production stage and whatever, are you worried about the permitting process that's going to take could take a long time with to get local and environmental and all the stuff you have to do to build a manufacturing plant?

Dr. Surinder Singh: 39:21

Definitely. So, that is, again, something that would take time and permitting is a very strong requirement to go through the permitting process, but even before that, actually what we have to do is get your certifications and the NFPA codes and so on. That is actually something that we are working on, it definitely is something that is required whether it can be streamlined further, you can always wish for the best right that it can be done faster and it can be more simplified. But that is something that is an important requirement, I believe.

Gregory A. Williams: 39:59

So thank you Again, something I've inferred from what you've said. And what I've read is that by focusing on the repurposing part of the equation, you're accessing something that are a way to help the environment that is much faster than than trying to have a big impact on the recycling. Part of the equation recycling, I imagine, involves much more dangerous waste and a much more elaborate production facility than one that is I say, simply, or relatively anyway, repackaging existing batteries without pulling them, pulling them apart to their component. Materials, washing them, cleaning them, re refining them, etc.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 40:43

Yes, Greg. So there's two parts in there, actually. So one of them is the co2 emissions that take place because of manufacturing, or remanufacturing of batteries. And there are studies actually, that have been done all over the world that show that if we utilize the batteries for longer periods of time and do repurposing before recycling, then there is a tremendous amount of co2 that is avoided based on just the longer life of batteries and not not going through the remanufacturing process. And the estimates are on the order of 50 to 450 tons of co2 emissions awarded for every megawatt hours of batteries that are repurposed. And if we look at this scale, and the the amount of batteries that we are going to be utilizing in our near future, there are estimates that we could be awarding a giga tons of co2 emissions by 2050, for every year. That is one point. And then the second is that actually, all the materials that we utilize right now in that go into the lithium ion batteries, tremendous amount of these video materials are actually mined in countries such as Chile, Congo and China, that have various issues with respect to geopolitical risks, as well as actually other other risks associated with child labor and so on. So if we utilize the batteries for instead of utilizing them and prematurely killing them, so as to say, over 10 years, and instead of that, if we utilize them for 30 to 40 years, we are reducing our dependence on geopolitically sensitive areas, and also dependence on countries where child labor and other issues are, are prominent.

Dina Rasor: 42:32

And that also, that would also include the environmental problems, because, you know, especially when you go to these other countries, you know, they will, like sort of like Chevron Denham in central South America, they just leave the mess behind, you know, they just do it don't do the environmental things. And, and I know that they're talking about doing it and doing some lithium in, in Nevada, so you're saying that it's better it's better to repurpose these things before they're completely thank God, it's very complicated to take it apart and put it back together or to try to make it you know, try to what do you do when a battery is totally dead? Can you really recycle? You know, it's just lived out its life, can you really recycle? How much of it can you recycle of the chemicals and the things that you would not want to have to dispose of?

Dr. Surinder Singh: 43:27

Right, so in a typical recycling process, so one of the first steps that is done is actually shred the battery evey battery packs down to its smallest components. And after the shredding and so on, you reach a point where it's called an intuitively black mass, and that black mass is a mixture of you know, many different materials, and that black mass can do be easily shipped to various places in the country or, you know, outside of the country, to the recyclers where they separate out that black bass into different you know, components such as the lithium, nickel and cobalt and so on. Those purified materials then can be sent to these new battery manufacturers. There are different methodologies used for recycling such as Pyrometallurgy and hieromonk hydrometallurgy. And both of those have their own pros and cons. In case of Pyrometallurgy, for example, you cannot recover the lithium that is wasted. Whereas, in case of hydrometallurgy, you can actually make the most amount of materials. Also in case of Pyrometallurgy. Again, there are various debates going on. That Pyrometallurgy itself has large co2 emissions, because actually you're kind of burning the batteries to recover the different materials.

Gregory A. Williams: 44:46

I see. So there's no way to physically separate the materials through centrifuges are similar things.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 44:54

You'll first have to actually get down to the point where you can actually utilize different methodologies to separate These materials out, but if you see how these lithium ion batteries are manufactured prismatic cells, pouch cells and you know cylindrical cells, first you have to crush them to get to the point so that you can start the the leaching process or the separation process and things like that.

Dina Rasor: 45:20

Okay, I'm going to just ask you this question just in case you run into it. My father was an engineering physicist for years and energy, and energy, thermo thermodynamic energy and also batteries. And, and so I have a, I have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. But one of the things when he used to get government contracts a lot for his various thermionic conversion program is stuff he would see in the field. Okay, lots of people trying to make different amount of conversion with different kinds of metals, you know, and then whatever, he would see some that would just kind of become into favor or come into being like a fad. You know, this is the thing that maybe it's the first one that comes out everybody's wild. And there's, there's politicians connected to it that are going to help. And everybody it's becomes everybody's fad. And it would be very frustrating for him. And also with me, working on the Pentagon, the Pentagon would fall in love with a weapons system that couldn't pass its test, but they've already fallen in love with it. So they're going to keep funding it. Is there anything like that you're seeing in battery recycling? Is there kind of competing competing groups and issues that you could see one because of its, you don't have to name names, but if you can see one that has political connections, or, you know, they've hired somebody's staffer from the Congress, or whatever, that can become boondoggles, because it's really basically a failed concept. But it's got political juice.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 47:06

I don't know actually, if, if it is directly answering your question. But one of the things that we are number of things that we've already spoken about is the technology technology reasons and the business reasons why repurposing and recycling is hard. But we haven't spoken about the policy reasons, right. And this is where I think we need to improve because the policy at this point does not exist, where we enforce people to actually recycle or repurpose lithium ion batteries. We spoke about lead acid batteries, why 99% of those are recycled. And the reason for that is because the policy is there, enforcement is there. Whereas in case of lithium ion, it's a nascent industry, and the policies are, I think they have a long way to catch up to enforcing and making sure that this is something that actually people do. And not only people but actually companies do that they're enforced to do the recycling and repurposing of Evie batteries. And there's a lot of ketchup to do over there.

Gregory A. Williams: 48:08

So for those of us not familiar, can you describe just what the mechanisms are that that enforced lead acid battery recycling? Is it the the extra fee that we pay when we get a new car battery that we get back when we return it? But are there other important elements to that?

Dr. Surinder Singh: 48:24

Yes, it's exactly that. So it's, you know, lead acid batteries when we, when we purchase them. And we can after they're utilized, we can go back to actually where we purchased them from and get the money back. So this is something that is non existent for lithium ion batteries. You know, right now people don't even know actually what to do with the batteries when they retire. Even the OEMs and other people are still trying to figure out as to how to do this. The second thing I associated with this is actually the transportation of lithium ion batteries. There is again, a lot of missing understanding with respect to how lithium ion batteries can be moved across from one place to another, including the evey battery packs. So for example, you can move an old Tesla from, let's say, from California to North Carolina. But if you're moving an Eevee battery pack that has been taken out of a Tesla from in the same transportation regions, you have to have a hazmat for that. And so I think it's, again, a nascent problem where people still have to figure out what is the right way to handle these lithium ion batteries and the policy has to catch up to it. So there's a lot of scope for this improvement in terms of ensuring that the OEMs take certain burden of it with respect to how to make sure that recycling and repurposing take place. The transportation of these batteries is also a challenge so we need to figure out how to do that most effectively without creating problems.

Dina Rasor: 50:00

So, I think a big problem this is with all the different states and trying to get the government to the federal government to come up with a standard, and they're going to staff and challenge forever. But I'm just wondering is since since California is so far ahead and getting electric cars, I mean, I think it's like 6%, nationwide, don't, I'm pulling these off top, my head and 18% in California, all the new cars that are being being sold. So we are valid for the granting it. And there seems to be a real interest in California, there always has been to be sort of the cutting edge of, you know, coming up with things like the Energy Star appliances were done when I was in college, and they were California thing until they got adopted nationally. So you think do you think that California would be in the position to try to get their own standards for how you ship it, what you do with it? And maybe in what you do if you haven't recycled here, and then that can become a template for easier template for the rest of the country?

Dr. Surinder Singh: 51:05

Right. So actually, California, just about maybe two years ago, came up with a B 2832. Bill, where the recommendations were asked from various sources as to how do we actually develop a policy where recycling and repurposing could be enforced whether from a consumer standpoint or from the OEM standpoint and so on. There were a number of recommendations that were made. And I believe, actually, California is going to take, again, a leading opposition with respect to developing a policy, European Union, actually, last year already went through, went ahead with that. And so California at this time, might not be the first one, but we are in the world, but we will still do it.

Dina Rasor: 51:51

Greg keeps saying he's challenged to find that New York was another big thing, what New York might be doing that California is not like California is just put so much money into it. I am just amazed that, you know, we're in a country by ourselves. So yeah, well, is there anything else you'd like to add about the technology that you'd like people to know that we haven't touched on?

Dr. Surinder Singh: 52:16

Overall, I would just say that lithium ion batteries have been tremendous, again, for at various fronts, we just need to ensure that we use them in the right manner. And so let's not just prematurely killed the batteries and, you know, not utilize them for their true state of health and true life. And so let's actually develop technologies and utilize them for as long as possible.

Dina Rasor: 52:44

And if you just came up with another question, if you if you do, if you do use them and wear them all the way down, and you try to use them in online mode all the way down, then you try to get rid of them. What happens if you would just take these batteries? And, you know, do what they did? Do? Companies sometimes do and that is burying them in the ground somewhere, put them in a, you know, they what, what, what would happen if these things were like badly stored or abandoned, which might be a big pollution problem.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 53:22

safety risks come in, you know, when we see in the news that actually there are lithium ion batteries or EVs that catch fire. So if you dump them into various locations, that it's not safe for the environment for because of various reasons, including that these batteries can actually catch fire and cause problems. If there

Dina Rasor: 53:47

were if even if you have a hybrid like I do in a Prius, and that car gets abandoned and everything you don't put the battery in the car crush it right, because they can explode, right? So they'd be all the people the hybrids are putting all these cars in junkyards. You know, I just wonder who knows not to do that. Because it's, it's, you know, it's a technology that people don't really understand. And I've heard I've heard people say, you know, oh, my gosh, they crushed my Prius, it'll blow up. Because if you don't take so you really have to take these batteries out. When you wreck a car, when you disintegrate a car, smash a car up for thing, you can't leave them, you they just can't be laying around. They're not like, you know, it's not like, Well, you didn't drain the oil out. So there's a little bit of oil in the soil. I mean, when these things pollute, they probably pollute pretty badly right.

Dr. Surinder Singh: 54:42

And that's why actually so decarbonisation is really important and attached to decarbonisation is the sustainability and circularity and so we have to do that with lithium ion batteries.

Dina Rasor: 54:54

Are we having Superfund sites with batteries?

Gregory A. Williams: 54:59

Well, More Superfund sites of veterans. Yeah. As somebody who thumbed his way through the national priorities list from time to time, I can assure you there's no shortage of hazardous waste sites of all shapes and sizes. But doctor saying I want to thank you for joining us. This has been a very informative episode that we've recorded and I certainly hope you have the opportunity to meet with you again. Thank you