Given the magnitude of the battery material demand growth across all scenarios, global production capacity for Li, Co, and Ni (black lines in Fig. 3) will have to increase drastically (see Supplementary Tables 9 and 10). For Li and Co, demand could outgrow current production capacities even before 2025. For Ni, the situation appears to be less dramatic, although by 2040 EV batteries alone could consume as much as the global primary Ni production in 2019. Other battery materials could be supplied without exceeding existing production capacities (Supplementary Tables 9 and 10), although supplies may still have to increase to meet demands from other sectors5,9. The known reserves for Li, Ni, and Co (black lines in Fig. 4) could be depleted before 2050 in the SD scenario and for Co also in the STEP scenario. For all other materials known reserves exceed demand from EV batteries until 2050 (Supplementary Table 5). In 2019 around 64% of natural graphite and 64% of Si are produced in China32, which could create vulnerabilities to supply reliability33. However, synthetic graphite has begun to dominate the LIB graphite anode market (56% market share in 2018) due to its superior performance and decreasing cost over natural graphite17. Thus, among EV battery materials Co and Li, and to a lesser extent Ni and graphite, can be considered to be most critical concerning the upscaling of production capacities (see Supplementary Table 9), reserves and other supply risks, which confirms previous findings5,9,10,33,34 even without taking into consideration the potential additional demand from heavy-duty vehicles15 and other sectors16. In contrast to Li and Ni, Co reserves are also geographically more concentrated and partly in conflict areas35, thus increasing potential supply risks5. Battery manufacturers are already seeking to decrease their reliance on cobalt, e.g., by lowering the Co content of NCM batteries; however, as shown in Fig. 3, an absolute decoupling is unlikely to occur in the coming decades. Shortages could also occur at a regional level, such as the access to Li and Ni for Europe10. Obviously, it is possible that the outlined supply risks change, e.g., with the discovery of new reserves36.
Global Batteries In Medical Devices Market 2020 - 2025 | Industry Analysis And Forecast
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