Mining big oil’s big data for big battery

Mining big oil’s big data for big battery

It’s easy to conclude oil and batteries don’t mix, as the latter power the electric vehicles challenging the former’s grip on getting around. There’s more complexity beneath the surface. For example, the company that first commercialised the lithium-ion battery in the late 1970s before abandoning it was none other than Exxon Mobil. Four decades on, big oil could provide another big, if not obvious, boost to the battery revolution. Newer energy technologies, such as wind and solar power and batteries, may not require tankers of fuel to work, but they do need minerals of all types to build them. Large rechargeable batteries, in particular, use a range of metals, with lithium being the obvious one. Another is cobalt, used in the cathodes of lithium-ion batteries for its high energy density and thermal stability. More than 40 per cent of refined cobalt sulfate goes into batteries for vehicles and stationary storage today, and that proportion will rise, especially if decarbonisation efforts intensify, as they must. Considering a net-zero scenario in its latest long-term electric vehicles outlook, Bloomberg NEF concluded that known reserves of cobalt would be exhausted by the mid-2040s. The price has almost doubled this year. In response, battery developers