Britain’s battery strategy

Britain is aiming to have a globally competitive battery supply chain by 2030, according to the government’s “Battery Strategy” – the first document of its kind, which outlines the UK’s plan to reduce dependance on Chinese-made batteries. 

While its release may not be generating many headlines, don’t underestimate its importance. Batteries will play an essential role in our energy transition and, in the coming decades, bolstering our domestic supply will be critical for Britain’s economic security. 

Indeed, if the automotive industry is to go electric, we will need a staggering number of batteries. 

Up until now, engines have been the most important part of vehicles. In the electric era, the most valuable part of a car will be the battery, which accounts for as much as 50% of an EV’s total value. 

The Battery Strategy includes £2 billion of funding to support the manufacturing and development of zero emission vehicles and their batteries – funding which helped to secure a commitment from Nissan over the weekend to build three electric car models at its Sunderplant plant, alongside a gigafactory, otherwise known as a very large manufacturing facility for making batteries.

We cannot depend on foreign countries for batteries, and not only because it would mean missing out on the bulk of the economic opportunity posed by the EV industry. Additionally, it would leave us vulnerable to trade wars and reliant on hostile nations, or indeed one particular hostile nation. The Battery Strategy contains a stark graph, revealing the staggering rise in UK imports of batteries from China. 

Aside from being the largest global producer of EVs, Beijing accounts for the bulk of global battery-cell production capacity as well as 80% of the world’s total output of raw materials for advanced batteries. 

And as Iain Martin wrote previously in Reaction, the export restrictions China whacked on gallium and germanium over the summer – metals which are key components in EVs – already illustrate the dangers of relying on a hostile state to achieve Britain’s legally binding net zero targets. 

Of course, it’s one thing building a factory for batteries and another ensuring we have a decent supply of the raw materials they are composed of. That said, the Battery Strategy does highlight that critical minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite are increasingly being sourced or processed in the UK. Lithium, for instance, is being extracted from a type of granite which sits beneath much of Cornwall. 

As the paper rightly points out, with one of these aforementioned materials the UK has a competitive advantage. 

Britain is one of the world’s biggest producers of graphite coke, which goes into battery anodes. 

Graphite coke – a processed form of crude oil, much of it coming from the North Sea – helps both phones and electric cars to charge rapidly. And the Humber refinery in Lincolnshire happens to be the only hub producing it in Europe. 

While much is said about the lithium and cobalt inside batteries, far less is said about graphite coke. And yet, as Ed Conway, author of Material World, points out, without it, batteries simply wouldn’t function and cleaner energy would remain a pipe dream. 

Why, then, does graphite coke remain a fairly unknown substance? And why is the government not keener to highlight an area where it has a genuine edge in battery production?

Perhaps, as Conway suggests, it’s because no-one much likes discussing the fact that you need crude oil to make the batteries required to power our green energy transition. 

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