of the, in 60 minutes on the w, the words people have to say, that's why we listen. because every weekend on d w, the energy saving nights, smartphones, computers, electric cars, wind turbines, we need metals for all of these things. but mining them is not just energy intensive, it's homes, the environment is researching and alternative or could we source rule materials from space that and more coming up the kind of

welcome to tomorrow. today dw science program, lithium is commonly used in batteries that power electric vehicles. the largest metal on us is a bunch of the phones, but only in small concentrations and mining. this is complex, expensive tom sold to the environment. and even when does it seem is contains, within the batteries, it's still dangerous. explosions and fires caused by lithium ion batteries after shorting damage or overheating time . and again, we see how dangerous that can be. the best one in the world is searching for gently for new battery technology at the helm holds institute in the true and city a form. researchers are trying to find

a replacement for lithium as an energy source and quickly decides things this side of via yeah, we don't have much. i'll tell you because it's expect that the demand for batteries is going to grow very, very strongly. and we are expecting a 4600 percent increased by 2013. yeah, yeah that's, that's who comes with this, the toys that that means we have to give back to the technology a white material base we all saw. since we have to bring abundant for sheet and easily recyclable materials into play. going to go to the side, the bottom of the, of the, all the meetings, feet of things. the rise in demand for battery storage is huge. with wind and solar power expansion, one of the main drivers. then there is the electro mobility sector. by 2045, they're expected to be 30000000 electric vehicles in germany alone. that will need

lithium for their batteries. misfire mazda 400, lifting, maybe a bundle. but it can't be mind quickly enough to meet demand completely. that means we have to turn to materials that are widely available, but still do a very good job. and the ones that go to the inner structure of the lithium ion battery contains 3 problem magic materials. a positive terminal of cobalt, a negative terminal of graphite, and the lithium itself, which moves back and forth between the poles to load and discharge the battery. cobalt is points and it's and is now often replaced by lithium iron phosphate to create what's known in the industry as an l. f. p. battery chinese firm b, y, d e has developed a new battery design because l s p technology still requires a lot of space and the battery cells is instead of, you know,

have larger units in place of the small box or you sell, which are a bit bigger than a chocolate bar and they simply need less packaging on the site. as a result, you can accommodate much more storage materials on the actual overall back to the design. using lithium high end chemistry in this space, saving battery design gives an amazing 1000 kilometers of range. the new l. f. p. chemistry offers a much reduced range, but the batteries have other advantages. they don't require cobalt and are also 30 percent cheaper, as well as being much safer. in the case of lithium ion batteries, the nail puncture test shows why these batteries are so dangerous. the resulting short circuit causes an explosion and a fire that isn't easily put out. all of the batteries are completely different.

here, the nail test causes only an increase in temperature. also l f. b, batteries will in the future, be able to be recharged $3.00 to $5000.00 times a charging stations. that's 10 times as much as current rechargeable batteries. but the range for the full battery is only 60 percent done. of a lithium ion battery in charging and cold weather also causes problems the but the biggest helps yet in battery development are for sodium ion technology. it replaces the batteries, lithium ions with sodium ions. this change in battery chemistry, also allows cobalt and graphite terminals to be replaced with more sustainable materials. but sodium ion batteries are quite a bit heavier. yep. not everything needs to be as light as a cell phone battery,

for example, in huge wind energy storage facilities, such as these in australia, weight is not an issue. the sodium is produced from ordinary table salt, which is readily available in large quantities. sodium am batteries have a shorter range on a single charge, but the charge faster and are almost full again after just 15 minutes. another advantage, unlike almost all other batteries, they still deliver at 90 percent of their power in freezing temperatures. and even in the classic internal combustion engine, the starter batteries can be replaced by sodium batteries and within their toxic chemistry. after all, the global market for starter batteries is as large as that for lithium ion battery . ultimately the question is, how quickly are all the raw materials on the market?

now, this is how quickly will they be available and can they be installed or to see what production capacities are being prepared at the moment. that's where everyone is actually very well positioned on the next 30 years. but whether sodium or lithium, without natural resources, we wouldn't have any new batteries at all. heavy industries depend on the natural source from real materials. if the supply is caught, production lines everywhere, right? to help the benefit it see, or scarcity of rule materials, determines the market price. do many impulse missiles from all over the world as, as geologists on the hunt for news sources. headquarters in berlin, the german minerals resort agency data for short trades rule materials source all over the world to companies on behalf of the german government desks and provide heidi this curriculum for or that contains cobalt from the democratic republic of

congo. x. if it's the helper is used for electricity from inability to renewable, energy technology for power, transmission and cobalt i need for batteries. and then both of the involvement the amanda alvarez is concerned about germany, israel materials supplies, events and womens replacements, currently facing a lot of challenges for care all over the world. supply chains have been disrupted, or even broken under the car to degree and russia. situation of course, funds there a develops new concepts to keep politicians and industry leaders up to speed on risk so that impact supply. market price is focused on the so called mega trends, like the move to electron mobility make it $10.00. so mega trends, a 1st and foremost, global phenomena on kind of among listings west are getting on our technologies, such as the lithium ion, battery failure ability, electrolysis, the hydrogen production unroll material demand in the future. so can sign down in

this type of energy transition. some key role materials are hard to procure and becoming increasingly expensive. this means that geologists, us to act early, to warn others of possible supply bottlenecks and price fluctuations prepared dossiers. and studies like this one with cobalt. the you couldn't even imagine under the screen lane is great for showing us how the cobalt price is more than double in the last 2 years on the london metal exchange. on one side. this is because of increased demand on the other because of the problems to supply chains that we have had to deal with in the past few years. and that's young. cobalt is important for lithium ion battery. in 202170 percent of the global market share was mind in the democratic republic of congo, which is being played for decades by political and social unrest. number

2 and the cobalt market is russia. market share around 4 percent, but the risk price is good sky, real good, further and deliveries may not be mex, restaurants and retail. german firms to diversify, to move away from supply from only one country big for an item, and then one by a. so you know, or is it a roll? material is crazy cool. you look for a potential replacement, some more it so you try to replace those materials without those, if possible. i know most of the places that's that's not always possible. special metals like rear x are needed urgently to build wind turbines, rear air, our phones worldwide, so never endure farm, only income phones, the separation and upgrading is done with the aid of assets. a large amount of toxic overburden is produced in the process of china's rhetoric demand

amongst 86 percent of the global supply menu. and that none of that makes sense of, of the nucleus is traveling through countries. then we try to get this rented as possible a picture of the whole 2nd sort of thing. we publish this information, which we also include in our consultancy service. and there are also shares, it's information with non governmental organizations, such as berlin based power shift, which campaigns against global inequality concerning human rights and environmental issues. you can always add this at 1st. we can cover everything that are 25 of us in the team. and yours are very important and bringing to light abuses and 2nd countries. and that helps us recognize developments inherently. and it's also important for us studies and analysis for the reason. it's an important collaboration because the energy revolution can only truly be clean when the raw materials are pictured fairly unsustainably read, it's

a chemical elements from the 9 to 9th. through the elements atrium is a bad as well of as a misleading name, as they neither read no. all the colors range from stone to silver and are quick to thomas when expose to oxygen will react quickly when they come into contact with water. one of the many applications in the conduction of permanent magnets which are also used in wind turbines. at the beginning of 2023, a huge deposit of red, it's was discovered in sweden and untapped minium tons is thought to be in the ground. north of the arctic circle, but to this day no permission has been granted to mind them. the known method, some best separation and upgrading would home the environment the mining iron or for many years in cuba, luna. and the mine is considered one of the world's largest. if the head of the state online a company has his way, a new mind most to be added. exploration has detected more than a 1000000 tons of rare earth science and 4 to 5 years that we have ongoing

expiration activities in this. the pulse of this means that for us it's open. it's not roles. they don't actually know how big it is. but what we know today is by far the law just the pulse it off, already ease in your that might help your up fulfill its goal of becoming climate neutral by 2050. if anyone building wind turbines or e car batteries needs rare or it's after a press conference in the tunnels of the queue, renal mines, sweden's minister of finance is thinking big fine. yeah. hard and installed to store. yeah. so sweet and has a proud history of mine and haven't installed, but i'm since some but also a bright future ahead should come out there. and so many of the so called rare or

it's are critical in going green and meeting are ambitious climate targets. when i hit stuff that came up until now, europe has relied on imports and china dominates the industry. according to estimate spine us geologist. the deposits in china are 40 times larger than those in sweden. environmental groups, hope that the deposits in northern europe will be mind in a greater way than in asia. a came off the i'm standing on move, transitioning to renewable energy, the intellectual mobility for giving us made those 2 dependents on china say, you know, the duct t, my e mail going on, they are going to be anything if we can money in our own re, or as in europe implementing better methods and claimant protection. but to and this find is a real game changer and game changer. but it will take perseverance to reach that turning point and also the goodwill of the so many people who have lived up north since time immemorial. the area that they want to develop, run straight through the land of the reindeer herders. and additionally,

official approval and construction of a new mind could take 5 to 10 years instead of mining new rule materials, could we recycle those that have already been processed and are in circulation? it's a feasible option, even when it comes to lithium, ion battery is used in electric vehicles. the batteries have to be shredded and the fundamental materials separated. but how does this work in detail? let's get the lego to understand it was a few. i in boxes, these get recycled. it's often involves smelting. so essentially she took them to be mailed. but this uses lots of energy, creates toxic emissions, and you lose some of the materials. that's why companies are coming up with new ways to recycle. you want to have as much as we can with high value materials that are, have taken a lot of effort to get over the ground. we want to use those carefully and as many

times as we can, this is canal felt the chief commercial officer at life cycle. lithium ion bought 3 recycling company from canada. we basically come up with a process designed specifically for this to have high recovery rates of the material. in the 1st stage, what we call or spoke is a mechanical process that breaks down the batteries and separate some of the fundamental materials. very, very simply speaking, this is what happens. the batteries are shredded, being symmetric in a non toxic solution. this is important because it prevents them from catching fire . and then the worst case blowing up. then materials like plastic copper and l. u minium are separated from what the industry calls the black mass. this contains valuable materials like cobalt, nickel, and lithium. the 2nd app part of the process is the hub and this is really a bespoke hydro. metallurgy are wet chemistry process to process black mass into

battery gaping materials. what this means is that different chemicals get added to the black mass, which we chose different elements. these chemicals either make their way into the final products or are we used in the process. so this doesn't actually produce any waste water. you end up with the black mass separated into a single components like lithium, cobalt and nickel. so the end goal is that as we pull them out of the batteries, we're putting them backed into new batteries and that hasn't been, she didn't achieved yet at highest scale. there's, there's elements of, of it around the world. but we want to help to, to continue to try that for it's hard to keep track of exactly so many lithium ion bought to these already get recycled mainly because they're often exported. but it's already happening more and more, especially in asia, where most of them are also produced as volumes of spent 5 to reschedule. it will also make even more financial sense to recycle them. this is the in the i do

well that we, we hope that there is no bird in new jersey to keep our auto renew of materials that they already produce could be used in definitely a problem. let us read why i want to find out more about room materials. oh, you curious about something else from the world of science, send us a voice message or a video. if we answer your questions on the show, you even get a small price as a thank you. come on to phones this week, a view question is from, can this do so done? yeah, in columbia. why our researchers more interested in march than in the moon? the mars is our outer next door neighbor. it's more of it is further away from the sun than the earth. mars is the only other planet in our

solar system that humans could conceivably live on. that makes it especially interesting. maurice has a comparable day and night for them to hers. a day on mars is just 37 minutes longer than a day on our planet. it shaped our by over thems. the days and nights are both 14 or stays long. with extreme temperatures swings between daytime and nighttime, because unlike earth and mars, the moon has no atmosphere to regulate the warmth and the coldness. mars and earth also have similar light conditions as the sunsets on both plan would show. on top of that beer, its axis is inclined almost as strongly as mars's all the shared commonalities means that there atmosphere is have similar characteristics in comparative climate

research that makes more sense atmosphere, a model of the earth's atmosphere. the moon would be of no use. the earth's atmosphere is primarily made of nitrogen and oxygen. it's the only planet in the solar system with liquid water on its surface. there was also water on mars 3 and a half 1000000000 years ago. has these river valley show, then the red pilots climate was more conducive to lice, and it's atmosphere denser. but mars has last of large part is exactly spear the a constant flow of particles from the sun blows parts of mars's upper atmosphere into space. the earth's atmosphere is largely protected against this by its magnetic fields. today marshes. atmosphere is only $100.00. the density of earth and the world that was once conducive to a life has turned into

a dry icy desert. water can only exist on the red planet as ice or vapor. there's even ice covering the surface of its poles. and in the ground, there are rich reserves of important resources for mand outposts. in early 2022. europe's ex or mars trace gas orbiter discovered vast reserves of water ice under the 5 as my re now is the so called grand canyon of mars. the simulations are already in use to calculate whether it be possible to set up an artificial magnetic field between mars and the sun to make so red sign it more conducive to life. again, air pressure and temperature would rise until the carbon dioxide ice at the north pole mills and sparks of greenhouse effect that turns the ground dies into rivers and sees it would be possible at least in series.

now back to the topic of rule materials, there is yet another potential source for us to explore in space. sounds far out, but in series it seems possible. some celestial bodies that passed by us on untapped gold mines nature. in 2015 and asteroids it passed close to our planet was estimated to contain more platinum than has ever been money done. or the 14th asteroid? 16 psyche, a metal rich world set to be worth $700.00 quintillion dollars. a mining asteroids scene just. they are ready to go for a long time because space travel was just too expensive, but that's changing a seat on a space, x walk. it is 3 times cheaper than it most of the space shuttle. this had started a new gold rush in 2012, literally page, the co founder of google put his wealth behind the company planetarium. resources,

which during the race to mine, asteroids in 2017 nasa announced it would pay a visit to psyche. this is mindy open stanton who has massive psyche mission an important thing to know is that the thank you much and that i money is a pure science mission. but also the program is not about asteroid mining. it could help leave the ground work for such missions in the future. crazy as it sounds, mining asteroids might not only be feasible, but also much more sustainable than mining on earth. and it actually turns out that the answers seems to be yes. andrea's height is a research here who has actually crunch the numbers. the estimates that the rocket fuel needed to go and bring back one kilogram of platinum from an asteroid would release 150 kilograms of c o 2 into the earth's atmosphere. terrestrial mining

would generate 40000 kilograms, so asteroid mining could be hundreds of times less polluting. essentially, the main reason is there's almost no other substance you can mine and which should generate step much of greenhouse gases. outsourcing, mining to space would decrease pollution on earth, but there's some economic problem in terms of sustainability. when in terms of economics, it's not profitable yet. i'm problem if you mine like 5 times of the cost of them you have on this right now. it means that the market price is willing if the crash you can set up is the much lower price. which means as you diminishing your profit margin. so you offer it in your interest put to the loss. and that makes sense, very unattractive for investors. carbon taxes and new technologies could change this equation, but it would still take several years for space planning to become profitable.

investors do not want to wait that long. levinsky is company failed to raise enough funds, forcing it to a band and its goal of mining asteroids. planetary resources didn't succeed in their ultimate goal to to mine asteroids. but i think it's succeeded in a lot of ways of the steps to get the business case doesn't quite yet close, but we couldn't make it get there. we can find a way, and i think it is in some ways the inevitable future times because the kansas, it's been our history as long as we've been able to track it from backwards acumen are, the new inventions can make space mine and economical. just a few decades ago, the very technology you're using to watch this video seemed impossible. today. we can use satellites to be the internet everywhere on the planet. 101520 years. a lot can happen. one day mining on earth may be obsolete

a bit like using candles to light your room. and that was this week's episode of tomorrow. today, d w sign show. thanks for joining us. come to the next time. stay curious by the

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