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Speaker 1: We're going to world leading bettery electrochemist in the country.

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Speaker 1: Despective of the ev industry. The iMOS provide an international

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Speaker 1: perspective on the availability of raw materials for betteries. Have

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Speaker 1: a look at the current technology and where it's all hitting.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Ewan McTurk is his name, and he's with us.

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Speaker 2: Good morning to you, sir, Good morning Mike.

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Speaker 1: I was reading an article the other die in Australia

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Speaker 1: fund raising at the moment for you know, these gargentuan

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Speaker 1: betteries for storage, not for kas, but for storage in general.

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Speaker 1: That's sort of technology, is it? The Simon evse In

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Speaker 1: other words, where betteries go, all betteries go.

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Speaker 2: There's actually quite a broad church of battery chemistries now

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Speaker 2: and when it comes to grid scale energy storage, they

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Speaker 2: tend to be using lithium iron phosphate, which is basically

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Speaker 2: lithium rust and a bit of fertilizer in It is

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Speaker 2: incredibly cheap, abundant, safe, long lasting. And the good news

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Speaker 2: is that that kind of chemistry is being used in

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Speaker 2: modern electric vehicles too, so the likes of byd MG

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Speaker 2: the standard range Tesla Model three and why they use

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Speaker 2: that as well. But there are other chemistries that are

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Speaker 2: used in other electric vehicles. There's also an increasing number

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Speaker 2: of different types of chemistries that are are far flong

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Speaker 2: and totally different from lithium ion that can be used

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Speaker 2: in large scale grid stories too, So there's a great

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Speaker 2: diversification of chemistries and of the materials that are used.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, it's not just one size fits all this

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Speaker 2: there's quite a lot of interesting development at the moment.

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Speaker 1: Are you talking to me as a scientist or do

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Speaker 1: you also love batteries and blab bebs.

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Speaker 2: So I didn't choose the plug life. The plug life

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Speaker 2: chose me.

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Speaker 1: Basically.

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Speaker 2: When I was an undergrad, I was always interested in

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Speaker 2: green technology and what would become my first EV happened

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Speaker 2: to pull up outside the Physics building at the University

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Speaker 2: of Dundee. It was a nineteen ninety nine PUJUO one

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Speaker 2: h six electric with nicab batteries in it, and at

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Speaker 2: that point I knew I want to do something with this.

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Speaker 2: This seems cool. I didn't know they existed back then.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, fast forward however many years, that is fifteen years,

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Speaker 2: and I've now got my own consultancy working on anything

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Speaker 2: to do with technical strategy or public outreach, whether it's

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Speaker 2: battery electric chemistry. I've done my time in the lab

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Speaker 2: working on new kemtes and improving existing ones.

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Speaker 1: And also, sorry to other radical radius guy, was China's

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Speaker 1: I have attacking Indonesia and the nickel business, and they

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Speaker 1: are digging nickel like this now tomorrow versus somebody like

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Speaker 1: Elon is busy saying let's do it un borron mentally,

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Speaker 1: where are we at with that? Is it ever going

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Speaker 1: to be clean, green and acceptable or not?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Is it definitely getting cleaner basically element and by element.

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Speaker 2: And on that note, New Zealand is in a cracking

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Speaker 2: position because you've actually got your own nickel deposits, you've

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Speaker 2: got phosphate reserves. You've got lithium brines as well, not

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Speaker 2: just any old brines, geothermal brines. And the advantage of

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Speaker 2: that is you can use a very clever technique called

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Speaker 2: direct lithium extraction to very quickly and efficiently remove lithium

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Speaker 2: from that geothermal fluid. And you can also use the

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Speaker 2: heat from that fluid because funnily enough, it's near ablekano.

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Speaker 2: It's very hot to power the extraction process. So there's

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Speaker 2: really clean ways that you can extract raw materials. Nickel

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Speaker 2: does have its environmental concerns depending on where it comes from.

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Speaker 2: Indonesia does need to clean up its game. It acknowledges

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Speaker 2: that it's improving that. That said, global nickel producers are

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Speaker 2: now calling for a separate market for sustainable nickel. So

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Speaker 2: the free market is actually trying to resolve that by itself,

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Speaker 2: and there are huge strides being made.

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Speaker 1: Will we ever get to the point where I plugged

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Speaker 1: my car and I fill it up as fast as

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Speaker 1: I can with petrol?

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Speaker 2: Well yes, but actually it's worth pointing out the paradoxically,

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Speaker 2: the slowest way to charge car is actually the fastest.

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Speaker 2: So for example, I plugged my car in when I

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Speaker 2: came home from work tonight. It's just going to be

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Speaker 2: sitting on the driveway overnight anyway, it will be fully

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Speaker 2: charged in the morning. And that only took a few

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Speaker 2: seconds of my time. But there have been some chemistries

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Speaker 2: demonstrated recently that have managed to rapid charge from near

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Speaker 2: enough empty to full in about five minutes. So and

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Speaker 2: that's multiple different types of chemistry from multiple different companies.

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Speaker 2: So it's coming. But what you'll probably find, and I

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Speaker 2: would implore anyone who's never driven an EV before to

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Speaker 2: take one out for a test dride for a couple

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Speaker 2: of days to get a feel of this yourself. Is

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Speaker 2: that actually you don't need that five minute charge time.

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Speaker 2: The average twell time at UK Motorway service station, for example,

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Speaker 2: is twenty five minutes, and that's more than enough for

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Speaker 2: a rapid charge.

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Speaker 1: Okay, good to talk to you. I could talk to

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Speaker 1: you forever night. Have a good time in the country.

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Speaker 1: Doctor Ewan MCTUK, a world leading beattery electrochemist at Geothermal

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Speaker 1: Bryans Hope. Shane Jones has heard of those. As soon

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Speaker 1: as he hears of the Geothermal Bryans, he's going to

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Speaker 1: be wetting his pants with excitement. For more from the

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Speaker 1: mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks it'd be

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