The United States and the European Union will collaborate on sustainable supply chains for lithium-ion and other battery technologies critical to decarbonizing transportation and energy sectors, the U.S Energy Department and the European Commission announced March 14.

The partnership will leverage the work of the Li-Bridge initiative, led by the DOE's Argonne National Laboratory, and the European Battery Alliance, an effort managed by EIT InnoEnergy, an affiliate of Netherlands-based research and consulting firm KIC Innoenergy SE.

"Bolstering the clean energy economy and strengthening the battery value chain is a top priority [for] the United States and the European Union," the DOE said in a statement. "This is in step with their commitment to address the climate crisis and accelerate the transition to clean energy, through renewables, energy efficiency and necessary technologies like batteries."

The announcement comes in the wake of soaring prices for nickel, a key ingredient in some lithium-ion batteries, after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russia is a major producer of nickel, and market participants fear that the conflict could drive it out of the market. Meanwhile, China continues to dominate most links of the global lithium-ion supply chain, accounting for the vast majority of battery imports into the United States in 2021.

The U.S.-EU battery collaboration builds on a series of Biden administration actions seeking to strengthen U.S. battery supply chains and amid significant commitments from automakers and large industrial companies to build domestic battery manufacturing. Similar efforts are also underway in Europe.

"Part of the battery challenge has been the fact that we have sourced much of the raw materials, the critical materials for batteries, elsewhere," U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said March 8 at the National Energy Storage Summit, hosted by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "And so figuring out how to sustainably extract critical minerals in the United States, figuring out how we get them processed [are important]. We don't have any processing in the United States. ... Those issues are really, really important for us."

In coming months, the new trans-Atlantic effort will refine specific measures to help to "build bridges across the battery ecosystems" aimed at ensuring resilient value chains, according to the DOE. That includes developing domestic industries that can satisfy growing battery demand, research on next-generation batteries ethically sourcing raw materials, accelerating battery recycling, prioritizing environmental justice, and investing in the "battery workforce."

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