Cheaper, Safer Batteries for America?

By Tobias Arhelger @ Adobe Stock

Natron Energy is preparing to build sodium-ion batteries in America. Natron, which currently plans to build a factory in North Carolina, says it will produce cheaper, safer batteries and reduce China’s dominance of the industry. Amrith Ramkumar reports in The Wall Street Journal:

A startup developing a high-tech battery that is seen as a potential game-changer in the booming industry plans to invest $1.4 billion to build its first big plant in North Carolina, according to people familiar with the matter.

Natron Energy is one of the few U.S. companies focusing on sodium, an abundant mineral that can produce batteries that are cheaper and safer than the lithium-based batteries that power electric vehicles. Investors have poured roughly $300 million into the company, according to PitchBook. Natron has also gotten backing from Washington.

Businesses have pledged to build more than $100 billion in EV and battery factories in the U.S. in the two years since a climate law passed and introduced tax credits for domestic manufacturing. Natron’s technology is seen as one way the U.S. can build its own battery industry and reduce dependence on China for batteries and raw materials.

Subsidies and tariffs on Chinese imports are part of a global race to develop and control next-generation technologies, critical to making electric cars go farther and charge faster. Better batteries are also needed to store intermittent wind and solar power and stabilize power grids.

Natron’s batteries are coveted because they use sodium instead of lithium, which is expensive to produce and notoriously volatile in price. They also avoid troublesome metals such as cobalt and rare earths that pose supply-chain and human-rights risks to big battery users. The technology is less fire-prone and can operate in colder climates, proponents say.

Natron’s planned factory in eastern North Carolina’s Edgecombe County would follow an initial plant in Michigan that began making batteries for customers in April and would increase its production capacity. An announcement of the new plant could happen as soon as Thursday, the people said.

Natron, which counts Chevron and United Airlines among its backers, would need to raise a lot of money from the private sector to help get the plant built. The company has gotten funding from the Energy Department since it started and could receive further government support.

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