Volt Insight Briefing: US critical mineral talks, Tesla’s magnet risk, and Korea’s battery losses
Your weekly roundup of must-read stories in batteries, clean energy, and critical minerals
Happy Sunday. Each week, I share the most important stories shaping batteries, clean energy, and critical minerals, curated from my reading across the sector.
This week I’m looking at:
Will Washington’s critical-minerals push survive a fraying alliance system?
Why Tesla’s robot ambitions could force it into rare-earth magnets
China gives energy storage a new revenue stream
Table of the week: Korean battery makers are bleeding as US EV demand slows
The US is holding a meeting next week in Washington with allies focused on critical minerals which will include Korea, the UK, Australia, and the DRC. The US will try to secure international agreement on setting up a system of pricing support for rare earth projects outside of China so they can compete with Chinese supply, according to Bloomberg.
The timing is confusing. At Davos, US allies were left “questioning the fraying world order,” according to NPR. Yet only days later, Washington is asking those same allies to coordinate on industrial policy. As Bloomberg put it:
In an interview with Bloomberg News on Thursday, US Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg said he expects a lot of “momentum and excitement” toward “agreeing on a pricing mechanism that we can all coordinate together on in order to ensure price stability for people in the mineral refining and extraction business.”
