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Battery cathode active material costs hinge on regionally concentrated, price-volatile metal supply. We constructed a regional facility-level cost model based on over 80 global lithium, cobalt, and nickel mines, refineries, and battery-grade material plants. Our model yields aggregated lithium, nickel, manganese, and cobalt production material costs from 392 region-based supply configurations for five different cathode active materials. Focusing on the United States, we identified that all-domestic supply is 9–34% costlier than global average, increasing by cobalt content, while these shortfalls can be overcome by selective low-cost material imports. Furthermore, we analyzed costs of two U.S.-based recycling facilities from primary data and techno-economic modelling and compare resulting cathode active material-level costs to primary supply. Although it is still significantly higher on cathode active material cost-level, rising end-of-life flows and lowered black-mass prices will, however, make secondary supply cost-competitive to domestic and foreign primary supply cost floors. The facility-level benchmarks of this work reveal targeted import, scaling, and production cost optimization as levers for a resilient, cost-effective U.S. battery-material supply chain.

Andrew Haddad is a Research Scientist in the Energy Storage and Distributed Resources Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). There, his group studies mechanisms of ion separation and recovery with a specific interest in addressing separation problems that affect water and critical materials security. Next to this, he investigates supply chain resilience and alternative supply of critical energy materials, such as lithium or gallium. He is a member of the National Alliance for Water Innovation (NAWI), a $110 million dollar DOE supported desalination hub, the Lithium Resource Research and Innovation Center (LiRRIC), an interdisciplinary research hub at LBNL focused on addressing lithium related research, and LBNLs Energy Storage Center. Previously, Andrew was a Rosenfeld Postdoctoral Fellow at LBNL/UC Berkeley, and earned his PhD in inorganic chemistry from the University of Louisville in 2017.

Jannis Wesselkaemper is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). In his research, Jannis investigates strengthening supply chains for critical energy materials, while focusing on battery materials, such as lithium, cobalt, or nickel. His most recent research spans from material mining, refining, and recycling cost analysis (i.e., techno-economic assessment) to material circularity modelling (e.g., end-of-life scenario modelling) and life-cycle assessment (LCA). Moreover, he works on supply risks metric modelling and identifying cost-effective alternative supply sources to reduce import reliance of critical energy materials, such as gallium. Before joining LBNL, Jannis received his PhD from the University of Muenster, Germany, where he studied circular supply chains and recycling business models of electric vehicle battery materials.