JB Straubel sits down with CNBC’s Phil LeBeau at Redwood Materials.
Redwood Materials, the battery and e-waste recycling startup based by former Tesla CTO JB Straubel, introduced Tuesday that it has closed a $1 billion funding spherical to develop operations within the U.S.
The firm takes spent electrical car batteries, breaks them down, and makes use of the metals from them —together with nickel, copper, cobalt, and lithium — to supply new parts that may go into electrical car batteries.
One of Redwood’s main targets is to supply battery parts domestically to scale back a number of the international commerce and geopolitical dangers across the electrical car business. Redwood additionally goals to make use of as a lot recycled materials as doable to scale back the environmental impression the auto business transitions from inside combustion automobiles to battery electrics and hybrids.
While Redwood initially centered on recycling, it additionally engages in refining and remanufacturing, and provides what it calls sustainably mined supplies into its merchandise as wanted, Straubel informed CNBC earlier this yr.
As CNBC beforehand reported, earlier this yr Redwood locked in a $2 billion mortgage dedication from the Department of Energy. It plans to make use of its funding to develop operations within the U.S. together with in and past its base in Carson City, Nevada, and has introduced plans to construct a Battery Materials Campus exterior of Charleston, South Carolina.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm has recognized home manufacturing of batteries and parts as one technique to meet rising demand for EVs, generate jobs and speed up a transition from fossil fuels to renewable and clear power.
Fossil fuels are the dominant type of power utilized on the planet right now, and account for a majority of artificial CO2 emissions and different poisonous air and particle pollution which can be driving local weather change and its results, together with extra frequent, extra excessive climate occasions.
According to the Energy Information Administration, regardless of the rising share of electrical automobiles on the highway, gasoline (excluding gas ethanol) nonetheless accounted for 52% of complete power consumption by the U.S. transportation sector in 2022.
North America’s battery manufacturing capability is anticipated to develop to just about 1,000 Gigawatt-hours per yr (or GWh/yr) by 2030 in keeping with analysis from Argonne National Laboratory.
For its new development funding spherical, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund, and different un-named funds suggested by T. Rowe Price Associates led the deal, in keeping with an organization assertion. The sequence D spherical of fairness funding brings Redwood’s complete capital raised to just about $2 billion. OMERS, heavy tools makers Caterpillar Inc., Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund and Deepwater Asset Management additionally invested within the spherical.
Source: www.cnbc.com”