Battery Potential
Battery Potential is a retrospective on the early days of the commercialization of Li-ion batteries. Pioneers of the of Li-ion battery industry from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s are interviewed by two battery scientists: Vincent Chevrier and Kevin Eberman.
Battery Potential is produced by Cyclikal LLC.
Battery Potential
Michel Gauthier - Phostech Lithium
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LiFePO4 (LFP) pioneer Michel Gauthier joins Vincent Chevrier and Kevin Eberman to discuss the early days of battery research at Hydro-Québec focused on Li metal polymer batteries (80s-90s). How these led to identifying LFP, the carbon coating LFP patent, and the founding of Phostech Lithium, the first company in the world to offer stoichiometric carbon coated LiFePO4 as a product. Michel's story gives an insight into the ups and downs of the early 2000s that shaped the North American LFP scene and eventually the global LFP market.
So one day, not having a ceramic jar to do it, she decided to take a polypropylene jar. And what came out of that was a black material. She was discouraged and she said to herself, I miss my synthesis. But she had the curiosity to test the electrochemistry, and that was the better product that we never had, the full capacity. So that really became the carbon coating pattern.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to the Battery Potential podcast. I'm Vincent Chevrier and I'm Kevin Eberman. Welcome to Battery Potential. Kevin? Vincent, this is gonna be great. It's gonna be great. Today we have our next guest, a titan of the Canadian battery ecosystem, Michel Gauthier. Michel spent nearly two decades at Hydro Quebec's YREC, where he pioneered solid state and lithium polymer technologies. But he's perhaps best known as the founder of Fostec Lithium, the first company in the world to bring carbon-coated lithium iron phosphate or LFP out of the lab and into industrial reality. Today LFP is the fastest growing battery chemistry in the world, and we're here to talk to the man who quite literally paved the way for its global adoption. Michel, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_01Thank you very much. It's a very kind introduction. Yeah. I must say it was a very interesting adventure.
SPEAKER_02Why don't we start right at the beginning and tell us how you got into batteries?
SPEAKER_01Let's start from the very very beginning. I made my study at the University of Montreal, mastered a PhD, went for two years in Grenoble, uh working on solid-state electrochemistry. That was in the 70s. Okay. Hearing also about lithium, but lithium for primary or possibly rechargeable battery in liquid electrolyte organic. Coming back to Quebec in Canada, uh, I joined the Hydrochemic Research Center. And from there, there was a group of electrochemistry because hydro was interested to store energy in the remote area using fuel cells. So there was a program for fuel cell. Personally, I did not believe too much in the fuel cell, and I pushed more to develop an expertise on lithium battery, looking at the possibility of storing electricity. You know that Hydro Quebec is essentially hydraulic, so it's a very good case for electric vehicle or storage of intermittent energy, windmill, solar. That was the research center that was just created two years before. So it was all new, all hope, and a lot of budget at that time. I decided to develop an expertise on lithium battery at that point. So we were in the 70, 74, 75.
SPEAKER_04How did you decide you're interested in batteries?
SPEAKER_01Even that fascinating in a way by the conversion of energy, generally speaking. I look at my fireplace, and I enjoy looking at this solar energy stored by uh over 50 years and just used later on to warm up the house. So the conversion of energy is really fascinating for me. And the electrochemical conversion is probably the best, except for the bio biological one.
SPEAKER_02Thank you. Did you overlap with anybody in Grenoble that became part of the lithium battery?
SPEAKER_01I joined a very interesting group. There was a group of solid electrolytes, and I worked there for uh two years. I met some people, including one guy that uh went a long way with me, that's Michel Armand, that was at CNRS in Grenoble at that time. And we had fun thinking together.
SPEAKER_02Right. So CNRS is the French National Center for Scientific Research, it's basically a government lab. You went to Hydro-Quebec. Hydro-Quebec is fairly unique. Can you tell us a little bit about what is Hydro-Quebec and why it exists?
SPEAKER_01When I was young, I was working as a student for Showing Water and Power. That was a company that was owning the electricity in the Montreal and the Quebec area. And finally, that was nationalized at some point by the Quebec government. Hydro Quebec became a state-owned utility. And they started developing big dams and big projects to produce it. I have to say that the geology in Quebec is very favorable to that. So I joined the research center that was created just one year before. Okay. It's a very interesting period of time to have the opportunity to define the domain of research. So that's what I decided to do to select the battery as a way to store the electricity from the grid and use it eventually for electric transportation or eventually for storage in the future. So that's really how I start at uh Hydro Quebec.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so Hydro Quebec as a utility, as a state-owned utility, had the foresight to start research on battery technology. Significant research there. And that was in mid-70s.
SPEAKER_01It's a long story. I knew the director, the founder of the IREC, because we discussed a lot together. And he sold the concept of a research center to Hydro Quebec as a way to be a high-tech company with a certain budget for RD. Okay. So it was a very good looking to do that. And Lionel Boula, that was a director, decided that it was really worth trying it. And he created the research center, get the money for it, and finally hire scientists from everywhere in the world. So that was that's a good vision. That was really a good move. And we can see by the result, by basically, we we make a big project, we missed some, but some succeeded.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And so I've visited the labs from Hydro Quebec, and they're really, really impressive. Multiple dry rooms, coating lines, you know, all kinds of characterization equipment. But when you started, it was nascent. What did it look like? Nothing there. Right. You had to build from this blank slate.
SPEAKER_01Maybe I should tell the story a little from there from the start. So it was being acquired for the lithium polymer battery project at different stages, you know, because there was many partnerships. We decided to develop the battery out of the uh technology that was developed at Argon National at that time, a Bolton salt battery. Okay, it was a lithium aluminium and iron sulfide battery. It's a very exotic thing working at 450 degrees C. It's very, very special chemistry. What year are we for that? Uh that was in the 75, 76, 77. Yeah, okay. Yeah, Argonne was working on nuclear, so they were quite familiar with the molten salt. So they decided to develop a technology with molten salt, lithium chloride, potassium chloride electrolyte. So that was the beginning of it, which we duplicated. So I really learned at Argon at that time. Okay. We were having an exchange, Argon was quite open, so we could discuss, and at some point, we decided to reproduce some of those cells under the support of the Canadian government and Hydro Quebec. I was also in contact with Michel Armand that was still in Grenoble. Okay. And at some point, Michel developed a concept that was quite attractive to me to make a battery out of a thin film of polymer. Very thin film technology compensing the low conductivity of any kind of polymer by large surface and a very short distance. So if you make some calculation, it's better than the molten, in fact. So Michelle at that time was only developing the polymer, okay, trying to understand the mechanism of conductivity in the polymer. It's a polyetylene oxide kind of uh polymer. So it's a solvating polymer. You can't dissolve salt like you dissolve salt in water, okay, and it becomes conductive. So we developed those technologies for making the tin film. We had also to develop lithium, then that was a good challenge, okay, because lithium is not easy to manipulate, and especially not to make uh tin like aluminium, for example, uh 20 micron, 15 micron, is about the equivalent of a wet toilet paper to manipulate. If you understand what I mean, it's just falls apart. In addition, it's adhesive too. So it's a very, very touchy thing. So we have to learn really to laminate and extrude. In fact, the trick was to support it with polypropylene film, so but to be able to roll it under kilometers of a roll, for example. So we succeed in doing that. That was judge at that time impossible to do. Finally, we work with a French company for several years until 88, roughly. We worked with uh Alphaine that become Total Energy now, that you know the petroleum company, because of the polymer aspect, they were quite interested. So they they uh Michel put them in contact with Tyro Quebec, the director of At-Quebec. They came to IREC and they saw what we were doing finally. That Frenchmen wanted to buy back the technology. Okay, finally, the director decided no, no, no, we can work together, they'll do it together. We want to be present in this domain. So finally, there was a joint venture with the French total company with CNRS behind to support Michel Armand. And we went that way for several years, in fact, developing the polymer lithium salt. You know the lithium salt, a light FSI. Yeah, exactly. That came from this period where we were trying to figure out the the anode with the lithium to make the good polymer and to make the cathode and an electrolyte that would be stable with both the lithium and the cathode. So it was quite a challenge, in fact, that was very, very uh fascinating years to work. And finally, by 88, the first energy crisis, I would say, will fizzle out, okay. And at some point, HX10 decided to sell about their half of the technology because it was a joint venture. One Japanese company used a battery bid on it. Okay, I recommend the director at Hydro Quebec to buy back Hell FX10 and offer to work with the Japanese if they want. And that's what they did, in fact. The director at that time was smart enough to make this move. So it's allowed us to recuper the full ownership of the patent. There were already several patents at that time, and we went up in a joint venture with the USA battery company. The UASA wanted to make very small battery to replace the button cell, okay? Rechargeable but a tin film like a stamp. Okay, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_04This is the Japanese company, Yuasa, that you're talking about.
SPEAKER_01That's the USA battery, yeah, exactly. So they went that way. There was a negotiation with Hadou Quebec because they wanted to build a plant. So there was a discussion where would be the first plan. So they wanted to have it in Japan. So I negotiated that the next plan for larger battery would be on the Quebec side. Okay, so that was the agreement with the Japanese. We won that way for several years, up to the point where at some point in the US, there was USCBC that was created, you know, the US Advanced Battery Consortium to really accelerate the development of the big three car companies administering money from the Department of Energy, right? Exactly. Yeah, you're right.
SPEAKER_02We're just getting to the 90s here, and already we have France, Canada, United States, Japan. I mean, this is already a global effort.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, we keep supporting uh Michel Armand's lab in Grenoble to keep the link with CNRS, yeah, and we work with the Japanese. But at some point, as I said, when USCBC was created, one big company in the US was uh Triam that was uh quite interested because it was one of the technology could be the tin film, and TREM was making uh tape recorder and all the magnetic tape, so they had an expertise on that. So finally uh USCBC decided that TRIM would be a very good partner to develop this technology. And on our side, we had the patent. Okay, so finally there was a meeting between TRIM, USCBC, and Hydro Quebec, and we were told make a joint proposal and you have a good chance for the contract. So finally we decided to make a joint venture with TRIEM and Hydro Quebec to bid and get money and support from the USCBC program.
SPEAKER_04That was that was that 93? Is that right?
SPEAKER_01That's about 93. You're correct, you're absolutely correct. It was a big contract for both Hydro Quebec and uh TriM. So that's really accelerated the development of the technology, okay, because the idea at that point was to make cell, to make a demonstration for EV.
SPEAKER_04Okay, it was something millions over several years, right?
SPEAKER_01What was sorry, it's 120 million roughly, yeah, over something like five years, maybe over five years, right? Yeah, yeah. It could have continued, but at some point we decided to to withdraw.
SPEAKER_02USCBC in the US is focused on automotive, right? Hydro Quebec, when it launches itself in batteries in the 70s, once a utility company produces hydroelectric power. Are they thinking long-term grid storage? Storage, grid storage, yeah. What are they thinking about?
SPEAKER_01EV and storage was there because you know, at some point when Hydro Quebec builds a big dam, there's an oversupply of uh energy. So they want to sell the energy with the EV, for example. Uh at other moment, there's not enough energy, and they would like to store and use renewable energy. So the battery is good for both. It's both to store the energy of the intermittent source, and it's good for the electric vehicle too. So that was the vision of Hydro Quebec at that point. I think that they didn't did not realize too much where they were going, if I can say. So, yeah. So this joint venture was started. It was a great period, in fact, where 3M was essentially making the electrolyte, the polymer, the film of the electrolyte, and the cathode coating on the collector. So what we were calling the half-cell. Okay. And we were making the lithium foil in a process that we did develop within Hydro Quebec. Uh, and we were also winding the cell, cylindrical cell first, and after that, more flat cell. By 1995, we decided to create an affiliate from Hydro Quebec to really make the piloting for USCBC and TriM. So that was Argotech, the affiliate Argotech that we did create. That is still there, by the way. It's continued as Avastor. That's another story. I left Hydro Quebec in December 1999 because at some point Triam withdraw from the technology. USABC wanted to continue, but Hydroquebec was really hesitating and they decided not to go on too much with the battery and selling the IP. Okay, selling the technology.
SPEAKER_02Just to stay on the USABC project for just a moment. It went from the Japanese partner with UASA then over to USABC. At that transition point, the electrochemical couple is lithium metal as a negative and it's vanadium oxide or some form of vanadium.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, all the time that the USABC it was uh vanadium oxide that was used. Uh I will when we go to a second part on the phosphate, I could explain where because something had started, but it was not really introduced in USABC as such at that point. It was too early. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Well, the other thing I want to catch is you what US UASA, you said they were interested in maybe smaller cells, but US ABC was obviously interested in in car batteries. Did that change the kinds of design you had to go after then?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. So the we agree with the Japanese could not block us from entering with UACBC. So we decided that the big cell would be led by Hydro Quebec and 3M, okay, and the small cell would continue with UAS. And that's really what happened. So there was no direct link between UAS and UACBC at that point.
SPEAKER_04And then, you know, you've mentioned 3M a bunch of times, and I still work there, and Vincent worked there for a while. And Larry Cross hired me and Larry and Vincent run Cyclical together. And of course, you know Larry very well. And that was when you first joined up with 3M, you must have met Larry and figured out that you wanted to do this thing. Tell us how that worked. What was that like meeting Larry and how that how that relationship might have been part of the connection that led to all this?
SPEAKER_01Well that was a great picket. In fact, that was really the pioneer. It was we're moving from the research to the process and to the cell making. And I must say that as a Quebec in Ido-Quebec, I was very proud to work with Triam because that was the big successful company and doing tin film like for the magnetic tape. So we knew that we would succeed. Okay. And the match with Larry, also Chuck Donnelly, that was the leader of the project. That became very clearly good friends of us. So we had joint meetings. Sometimes they came here, and even in this home, we had a lunch together over here. Okay. So it was a very, very good period with a good match because when you work for two companies, it's draw the best of the people because you want to perform well, the other one wants to perform well, and you are not competing internally. So that's when the legal agreements are good, it's a very good formula to work. That was a very good time. It was a great period. We had a lot of fun with Larry.
SPEAKER_04Good. That's good. And how how did you go from LIV308, you know, lithium vanadium oxide to iron phosphate?
SPEAKER_01By 1999, uh HydroCorrect decided not to continue. Okay, so they wanted to sell the package of the technology to some company. What was the reasoning? I would give you we were coming close to a big pilot decision. Okay, so you need to really think of what you are doing in a competitive field. Okay. And sometimes, I should not say that, but sometimes the management are good to speak when it's not too much investment, but when it's a big investment and a big decision, and you have to put yourself in the decision of the utility, it's a government-owned company, profitable company, okay. Why taking a risk too much doing battery and competing with the Japanese? So at some point, they decided that it was not their core business to develop battery. Okay. So that's why I left Idol Quebec at that time. Just to complete the Lithium Polymer. At that time, I do Quebec found a partner to buy the technology. So they decided to continue. A small company, the pilot uh Argotech, became Avestor, it's where they were making cells and batteries for telecommunication at that point because USABC was no more there, and the market for telecommunication is more profitable. They continued that for several years, making uh good batteries for telecommunication. They had some uh accident at some point, so the company more or less went bankrupt at some point, and it was bought back by Bollory in France, that was also developing the same technology. It's still there, they make big batteries, but you know, the problem of the polymer is that it's not operational at ambient temperature if it is dry, and that's important for lithium rechargeability. Okay, if it's liquid, it's much more touchy, okay. And is it because it's a polymer, it cannot be room temperature. So it's good for big battery, right? It was good for telecommunication because in Texas, for example, the lead acid battery was aging very fast because the lead acid does not eat the heat, does not like the heat, but the polymer was thriving in those conditions. So there was a good market opportunity there, but it did not did not really evolve. And when uh Ballory bought back, they wanted to go back to the EV business because that was the goal of Mr. Ballory. Okay, so that was the end of the telecommunication battery. And that to be a mistake, but that was not my business anymore.
SPEAKER_02There's a few things I want to explore in this era. What is the competitive landscape at this time? You know, late 80s, early 90s. Because we interviewed Jeff Don about the Molly energy era. Yeah, yeah. So that must have been on your radar. You must have been watching Molly go through its commercialization. What else are you seeing in the world? How do you think of the positioning of Hydro Quebec on the global landscape?
SPEAKER_01There are two kinds of polymer electricly batteries. There's the dry one that was Hydro Quebec was the master of, if I can say, okay, controlling the IP. But there was also the gel polymer electrode battery. The bellcorn, you're right. So that was one competing thing. There was also another group under USCBC that was developing a similar concept. But the gel for lithium ionis could be great, but for lithium metal is not really the way to go. And that I think it was also the experience of Jeff Dan at Modi because we knew each other at that time too. And Jeff was working on the lithium metal, but in the liquid electrolyte. Okay. At some point, they had some difficulty recharging, plating back the lithium. It's a spongy lithium, very reactive. So there was a few accidents, so they did not prevail. Because polymer is a beautiful material. I discovered that with this project working with 3M. You can cross-link it, you can put charge, you can make it solid. Okay. So you can make it as an estimate. And the beauty of the polymer electrolyte is you can make it tough enough to resist the lithium dendrite growth, okay, especially at 80 degrees because you are close to the melting point of lithium. So you can absorb the dendrite if dendra dendrite there is. Okay. And you can cycle uh lithium polymer doesn't cycle and the interface is still flat.
SPEAKER_04We should touch on that a little bit because we talked quite a bit about that with Jeff Don and how that impacted um Molly energy, where they had shorts and uh it ended there, ended Molly and changed it over to NEC. What did you see there? Were you fighting that the whole time? Did you feel like you really solved the lithium dendrite shorts?
SPEAKER_01We knew that in some condition it could remain flat. That's why we developed the microscopy, you know, to be able to cut a cell and look at the quality of the interface after cycling. For example, you can make a large cell, you can cycle 50 cycles. Make a cut of it and it worked. So you can see uh the same cell at fifty, two hundred, a thousand cycle and look at the evolution of the interface, then you learn fast.
SPEAKER_02So we learn how to do it. A question that I had was on handling lithium metal. You guys developed the capability of, as you said, handling micron thick lithium, 20 micron, 15 micron thick lithium foil kilometers long. And my understanding is that one, very dangerous, two, still a challenge. You know, there's a lot of companies that are considering solid state lithium and lithium metal batteries to this day, and handling of the lithium foil remains a challenge. Do you have any anecdotes or you know, maybe accidents that you remember with handling that quantity of lithium?
SPEAKER_01The most interesting thing is how we develop the process. We consult with several engineering films in Montreal area to know if it would be possible to make 10 film of lithium to match the 10 film electrolyte. And all the people told us not it's impossible. Lower tenner than 200 microns by extrusion, you will not succeed. Okay. Because when you try to roll lithium, it stick to the role and it's you can do anything. So at some point, that's why it's funny. Because Arma was still in Grenoble at that time, and he was working on all kinds of polyetylene oxide as electrolyte developing the conductivity. And at some point he came with some funny material. It's a uh uh polyetylene dystiarate.
SPEAKER_04Oh, steerate, like like soap. Okay, I got it.
SPEAKER_01So we we did not know what to do with that. But a few months later on, I went visiting an aluminum company, Reynolds, in the Shawanian area. I visited because they made aluminium 15 micron, okay, at high speed, with big roll like the house here. So it's a very, very impressive. So I look at the guy, I told them how it doesn't heat too much. Uh so they told us we put some stirrated solution and it will avoid the sticking, and it will also absorb some of the heat, and so we can succeed. So this was become really the solution. We decided to laminate lithium in the glove box first, but using some stirate dissolved in benzene, okay, to make it soluble and compatible with lithium. I must say that we copy a lot the capacitor industry, okay, for the design of the cell, but also for the polypropylene film, because the polypropylene are metallized when you make a capacitor, okay. And you can see that the polypropylene film is very tough. So we decided to laminate with two polypropylene foils in between using a little lubricant that is the cigarette. That's in the pattern. The pattern is finished, so I have no problem to say that now. And at that point, the lamination became quite easy. We make an extrusion, and in one pass, you can go from 200 to 20 micron or 50 micron.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's fantastic.
SPEAKER_01So that was really the success. We took patent on that, and we were very proud of it. The only problem, if I come back to the generality of lithium anode, is that lithium metal is expensive to do, okay, independently of the facility to cycle. In my own evolution, I like the lithium polymer battery, okay. But I must admit that if you want to make it cheap enough to compete with the lithium ion, it's not easy to go with lithium metal. But lithium metal is quite expensive to do already. So you have already a strike against you, independently of the reactivity of it, the difficulty to have the environment to make the battery. So for me, the conclusion is that lithium has to be generated inside the battery.
SPEAKER_04Well, so then where does that leave you today when you think about using lithium metal in batteries? It's actually the past for you, but for a lot of roadmaps for battery companies, it's the future. What do you what do you think will happen? And do you think they that they've learned the lessons that you learned or studied what you did?
SPEAKER_01You know, your human brain is surprising. Yeah, you should never say no. I've learned that. But I would not go with lithium metal. In principle, it should be feasible with polymer or with ceramic to to take the lichum from the cathode and plate it very efficiently, but you realize the difficulty. What they call lichum free, yeah. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's the only way to make it economical to me, if you want really to play with a lithium metal anode.
SPEAKER_02So let's get back to Hydro Quebec. You were working on the lithium polymer cell. What did you see as the competition to what you were doing?
SPEAKER_01You have to realize that the lithium ion was also developing. The Japanese were making some progress, Sony, right, with the good enough invention on carbon dioxide. They were developing the graphite anode, so they succeeded making lithium ion, okay, commercially for the electronic market. And that was one difficulty for the Palmer because we could not be profitable out of the consumer market because there was no battery at ambient temperature. So we need to succeed on the EV or the storage, and that's much longer term. That's why the industry moved from the US to Japan first, up to a point or two, from the Western world to the Asian world, because the Japanese were making the camera. To sell a better camera with a battery was the development of the battery technology. So they did not develop the battery for EV or things like that, they developed it to sell camera. Okay, so it's much more profitable. The camera maker was not the same as the cell maker in the US. Okay, so it was not that easy, if I can say. So that's really why the Japanese finally prevailed on the lithium ion based on the portable electronic.
SPEAKER_02Right. So when in the early 90s, when you saw lithium ion sort of being worked on, what did you think of lithium ion at that time?
SPEAKER_01What they did at that, that's a funny thing. Uh that was about at the end of USB C, but before the end of USB C, we decided to hire uh chemists that have been working in Japan on the lithium ion, on the graphite now, essentially. Okay, yeah. So we hired this guy to develop this expertise to know what was the lithium iron versus the lithium problem. We wanted to have a good evaluation of it. Okay, I became myself aware of the lithium iron that way, okay. And that's important because I left Hydro-Quebec in 1999. I went to the University of Montreal. But I have to remind you that before leaving Hydro-Quebec by 1997, Goodenough invented the uh lithium phosphate. He invented the carbon dioxide that was made the success of Sony, but he also invented later on the iron phosphate, the olivine. Okay, so he published something by 1996. He made a small abstract in the publication, by the way, one year before taking the patent. And yeah, you know what it means. Oh, right, right. It could invalidate his patent because it's already public, yeah. But not in the US and Canada, but elsewhere in the world that was that became a problem later on. That's part of the funny story, you know. But at that time we did not know, okay. So I got interested by Michel Armand. It's Michel that was working because we had Michel coming to the University of Montreal from Grenoble at that time under the USABC contract. Okay. So Michel came in Montreal, and when he showed me the publication of Good Enough, I look at that, it was a voltage of 3.4 volts. Okay. And under the USABC, we were working a lot with Tacri and Aragon National or with Gilmar and friends, trying to develop some, we were calling that 3.5 volt, you know, because the polymer electrolyte cannot survive easily the cobalt oxide. Right. It's too oxidizing. Oxidize.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But the phosphate, the limit is around 4 volt, 4 volt.1. Okay. So we're looking for a better cathode than the nadium oxide, but with a voltage less than the cobalt oxide. So that's exactly the moment where Goudunov published his work on the phosphate. Right. So we uh two months after the publication, I went to Texas with Michel Armand and a negotiator at Ad-Quebec. We went to the USA, met Goudunov, and discussed with him about our interest for the polymer electrolyte battery to work with him and eventually to get a license on the patent.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01We had an agreement with the University of Texas to support temporarily the work of Goudunov and also to get access to the patent. For the polymer electrolyte. Because Gudunov was working also with Sony.
SPEAKER_04Like, okay, he could do his Sony work, but that was a liquid electrolyte. For a pollutable electrolyte, you had the license. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01I got it. Well, and I must say that when we did with university, we tend not to take everything, you know, because it's not solid. Okay. So I think the splitting the domain was one good way. For us, it was important. We wanted to secure the polymer, okay, and they wanted to keep room for other activity or other valorization. So that's really how we could agree with UT. But from that moment, we start working with Armand in Montreal, at the University of Montreal, to make the LFP work because it was half the capacity at that time. Okay, because uh iron phosphate is not conductive at all.
SPEAKER_02Let's just pause for just a second here. So when you saw that good enough paper, you immediately saw the value of this material. Yeah. Yeah. And you got on a plane and negotiated for its license.
SPEAKER_01And you said that iron is the most available element on earth. And it's not toxic. Right. So there's no impact on the environment. We were concerned by vanadium. Okay. And iron is available, not cost, not costly. And finally, because usually iron cathode is a low, very low voltage, usually. And the beauty of good enough was to show that with the environment of the phosphate structure, the voltage could raise up to this 3.4 volt. So that was a great, great thing. It's still, by the way, it's still a great invention. So we went there, we get the golem with good enough. It gave us a few grams of the material, very difficult in the lab. So we tried to reproduce that in the University of Montreal. And that's I think it's worth telling the story because it's how many inventions come. At that time, yeah, we were grinding lithium autophosphate, LI3PO4, with the Vivianite. It's a ferrous phosphate. Okay, so we were grinding that together, and when you react that in the state reaction, it will form the LFP if it is reducing condition. Okay, so Natalie was doing Nathalie's a was a research associate at Nathalie Ravet, he's a research associate at the University of Montreal working with Michel Armand. They had to grind those powder together. So one day she she was not having a ceramic jar to do it. So she decided to take a polypropylene jar and have that on the roller mill for 24 hours. So after that, she took this product, dry it, put it in the furnace, and what came out of that was a black material. She was discouraged and she said to herself, I miss my synthesis. But she had the curiosity, like the penicillin thing, you know, she had the curiosity to test the electrochemistry, and that was the better product that we never had, the full capacity. Beautiful. So that really became the carbon coating pattern.
SPEAKER_02So let me just give a little bit of context. So lithium iron phosphate is lithium iron and then the PO4 ion. And if you're able to remove all of the lithium in the material, you have a capacity of 160 some milliamp hours per gram. And up to that moment, only about 80 were accessible. Only about half the lithium could be removed from the LFP. And so what this invention really enabled was the full capacity of the material was accessible. It was a major breakthrough in terms of being able to use this material that was the right voltage and the right cost. Right.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like if you were trying to be very careful in a lab, you know, you would use like some kind of like uh agate mortar and pestle and grind it together and put it into a perfect pristine tube and reducing atmosphere. And and if instead you roll it in polypropylene jar, that would be kind of a messy way.
SPEAKER_01But what I'm not sure that the artificial intelligence will be able to do that, you know, to observe something and that's great, make the good conclusion. So from this advancement, we took a patent of USLE in 1999, and it's what we call the carbon coating patent. And from there we decided that we need a process, okay, because I you remember I had left Hydro Quebec, so I was working as a consultant for an invited researcher, but also working for my own consulting company for the university. Okay. So I at some point we said that if we make a process to make it low-cost, it might become really a worthwhile product. So we decided to work with a synthesis that would combine exactly what was happening in the jar, in fact, but we developed it explicitly and patented. We decided to make the synthesis in the present of the organic material. And when you eat that under paralysis condition, it will make the carbon and you will coat the carbon during the synthesis. So that's what we call the solid state process to make CLFP. It's expired now, but that was become very, very important because it is the patent, it is the technology that the Chinese are still using for most of their production. Okay. So at that point, we decided that, oh, that's quite interesting. We should negotiate incorporation of a company, okay, because at that time I was having no job. Okay. So we decided with a few colleagues, including Michel Armand in Nathalie, to make a startup out of the university the work. But then we had to discuss with the University of Texas, Hydro Quebec, and University of Montreal and CNRS the acquisition of the patent. But at that point we wanted to have it not to compete with Hydro Quebec for the polymer. So we decided the lithium iron would be the technology. So we negotiate the right to all of those patents for lithium iron technology. So that's how we created Fastec, having negotiated and obtained the patent for that. So that was Fastec Lithium. We built the first plan, a small one.
SPEAKER_04But let me let me make sure Enric got that right. So in the case of when you brought the iron phosphate into the polymer battery, you had this deal with the University of Texas where okay, we have the domain of polymer electrolyte, not liquid and lithium ion. But now with Fostech, now you had a license to go into lithium ion. Did you have to cross-license your your carbon, your CLFP or anything?
SPEAKER_01All the pattern, the hydrochromic was having all the right, including UT for polymer, where we negotiate the right for lithium ion. And the you put the finger on something sensitive because when you go in the gel electrolyte, is that a liquid or is that a polymer? So we had some discussions, a very, very tough discussion putting the limit there. But we agree on a one-phase or two-phase system. Okay, if we could prove there's two phase, it will be a liquid. If it's one phase, it could be considered as a polymer.
SPEAKER_02You left Hydro Quebec in 1999, consulted with the University of Montreal, contributed to this fundamental invention that really enables LFP, which is the carbon coding of LFP. And then you put on your entrepreneurial hat and decide to start a company. The company starts with five people. Maybe can you walk us a little bit through what were the stages? You initially have to develop the process, develop the equipment, try to build a customer base. Can you tell us about the challenges of those first years?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we had to build a business case and we make a business plan. Okay, very optimistic at that time, based on the electronic market, by the way. Okay, with a total market of maybe 4,000 tons a year at a global market. Okay, so we make a business case, but the profitability was there versus cobalt oxide. And we mentioned that there was a future for portable tool, and there was a future eventually for EV and storage. And we decided to discuss with some investors. So we discussed with the Lithium Tech. It's a company that was trying to make a pure lithium carbonate for batteries. They got involved because they could see the market for their product. So they invested. We also had the government agency that was a small investor. I don't know if you know Electrovaya. It's a very smart lithium iron battery in the Toronto area. There was a very great scientist there, Jim Jacob, that was a good friend of mine. So they become an investor in Fostech because they were a user. Who else was there? University also invested some money. Okay. And we put ourselves some money too. So that's about how we started the company. We went to the government trying to have some share cost from the government. And from there we subcontract most of the work. You know, the research was done at the university because we had an agreement with the university for all the electrochemistry, cell making, uh, testing the material. So we started that way. We went to another government agency. They were used to work with uh iron mineral. So we convinced them that they should work with the ferric phosphate and lithium carbonate and make with the organic pico. They could make a few hundred grams. So we sold that even on Aldrich. We put the product on sale on Aldrich at a high price, you know, because we wanted to get some money. It was maybe a thousand dollars a kilogram. So we lost some customer there that was not very attractive, but it made some money. So we we started that way. Later on, the German company, Sud Kimmy, that's an important point. And they have been developing independently of us their hydrothermal process in Germany, okay? Because this saw at that time that it was uh Thorschen Large, their CEO in Nordberg, they foresaw the future of LFP, and that were smart people. So they start a project, work for one year or two years. After that, they make some patent search and they realize that it was patented by Goodalog. So they went and meet the University of Texas that told them, Oh, too late, bits have been licensed to Hydro Quebec. So they went to Hydro Quebec. The Hydro Quebec told them, nope, we sold that to Father with the Alicia Mayan, we sold that for to Fastec. So they came to us and they told us we would like to invest to buy the company. So we told them we have a game plan that is to really to build some activity over here. We enjoy if you want to invest with us, but the first plan should be here. Thank you. It was a little reluctant initially, but I must say at that time we had a discussion with a Japanese company and also with a Belgian company. The Japanese did not want to conclude the deal as there was a patent litigation with Idou Quebec. So they declined investing in the company. That was too bad because that would have been a good match. So I told the German if you want to come, you have a new opportunity. They came one week later and we had the discussion and they agreed to invest the first level in the company for a demonstration. We did that with them, and after that, they decided to buy back all the company when they had decided to build the plan in Kenjak. That's how they came here, transferred the technology to build it in Kenjak. So that was my personal success.
SPEAKER_02So before the investment from Sud Kemi, what was the production capacity of Fostech?
SPEAKER_01When we were at Karem, we were doing maybe 10 kilograms ratch, but that was in 2000. We were doing that for Avestor, by the way, because they were our first big customer. Avestor was the affiliate of the Hydrocombect that was making still lithium polymer, but by 2003, 2005, they converted their plant to LFP. So that they became our customer. After that, we built another plant in uh Boucherville that did not live long. Maybe there we were doing about 100 kilogram batch. And finally we moved to Saint Bruno with the money of uh Sudkemie, the first plant, because at that time it was a solid state process. We had a facility there of about 500 kilograms per batch.
SPEAKER_02When uh Sudkemie built the Candiac site, what was the batch size there?
SPEAKER_01The capacity was 2500 ton a year, but out of the hydrothermal.
SPEAKER_02Okay. And that today lives on through 901. So there's still a Canadian company pursuing LFP called Nano One, who now owns the Candiac site.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. Many of the people are the ones we hired when it was in Fastec. So it's good, they are all good friends of mine, even if we compete for the process. I retired from Fastic by 2010 and I went back to my retirement. And it's only by 2019 that we decided that another process that we have developed, that's the other funny story I want to tell you. You know, you remember that Fostech by 2003-2004 was making LFP. Avestor, the affiliate of Hydro Quebec, was using LFP. Okay, and we still have a link between University of Montreal and Avestor. So we proposed to Adel Valley to develop tin film electrodes to go in between the polymer film as a reference electrode. So we decided to make a spot ring target. Okay. So the funny thing is my son who was working as a student at that time, they used a carbon-coated powder from Fostec. They depressed a pellet, like you do for ceramic, and he heated that to center the material to make really a target for the spot ring. But at some point, it went too high in temperature, and the carbon-coated LFP melted, make a crust of carbon and a big crystal of a white product on the side. So he was quite dispared. So we look at that and decided to make an XRD because at that time we talked the phosphate, the LFP would melt non congruently, will decompose upon melting. Okay, so we were not considering that at all. Okay. But when we saw that, we looked at the crystal, it was a perfect crystal LFA. Wow.
SPEAKER_04Like make sure I understand it. This is your son. And he's like, okay, we need to make a thin layer of iron phosphate as a reference electrode. To do that, we need to make a sputtering target, which is a way to bounce argon ions off of a surface and then you know send send atoms through a vacuum to us to another and get a and get a thin film. He's trying to make that thing, and he combines the ingredients, including carbon, to hold it all together. And then he cooks it, it goes a little too high temperature. And an iron phosphate phosphate crystal grows out of the side of this thing. So cool.
SPEAKER_01It's on the figure of the patent. If you look at the first patent of uh the that period, you will see the the uh aluminum palette with the carbon crust and the big crystal around it. I put that on the figure.
SPEAKER_02So the the second uh fortuitous mistake, right?
SPEAKER_04Exactly. Serendipity strikes again. That's right.
SPEAKER_01That I should not uh we should not teach that because that's not too good to say to the student, but uh yeah it's happened, so don't throw away your mistakes.
SPEAKER_04Uh look closely at them. What can you learn from it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we decided at that time that it's worth another patent.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well, yeah, it was totally unexpected, right? Like you said, you expected incongruent melt, so it shouldn't shouldn't work.
SPEAKER_01So we took a patent, University of Montreal and Fostech. Okay, a joint patent that was uh transfer every time the company was sold. Finally, it's uh Johnson Matty that decided that those phosphate patents he did not want it anymore. He sent it back to University of Montreal. The university called me. What do we do with those patents? I told them hey the market is catching up now. Let's wait a little, we'll discuss. So I consult with my colleague at University of Montreal, and we decided to incorporate this last company, ESL, developing a molten technology to make LFP. And I would not go too far because I don't want to make a sales pitch, but just remember something. Because if you look at the steel industry, the Roman industry, Etruscan were making steel out of the Burberry furnace, the low temperature furnace. And you never melt the iron because at that time they did not have the capacity to reach the melting point of iron. So they just eated the mineral, iron oxide, with carbon, blow some air there, and it was getting hot enough so that the carbo reduction makes the iron, but it was a solid state process. Okay, and it's only later on with the high furnace that we know, the new process, where we go up to the melting, and then everything becomes very easy and very productive, and it's low cost. Iron is not an expensive material, it's half of the car. So the analogy I want to make is that the solid state process is exactly like the Roman we're doing. We use the powder, we heat it, and we'll wait until the reaction happens 10 hours later. Okay, but if you make the molten LFP, you make a bat, you throw the reactant in the bat, the reaction is a matter of minutes. So you can realize that the productivity is totally different. That's awesome. Okay, even if you have a high temperature, it can be quite productive. Okay, and after that, you you realize that you work under thermodynamic conditions, like the steel industry, you control the temperature, you control the oxygen partial pressure, and then you control the iron oxidation state in the liquid melt, and then you can use about any kind of raw material. We can use iron, we can use uh iron oxide as the raw material directly in the melt. So I will not go further than that, but that's really the story of uh Phineas. I don't know the end of the story, you will have to wait a little.
SPEAKER_04That's so cool.
SPEAKER_01And just to finish the story on my side, uh Laurent that was at that time studying engineering, he had his engineer degree, but after that, he became a lawyer, a lawyer, and is working in the company now, so I have no not to pay too much for lawyers.
SPEAKER_02That's uh nice, nice. Coming back to Fostech, you founded Fostec in 2001. Were there other players launching onto the LFP scene after Good Enough's discovery?
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of story there because, as you know, when we start Fostech by 2001-2002, there were other companies like Valence and like A123 starting at about the same time. I would not argue with Spurs and not, but it there was at least two developments in the US with Valence and A123, and there was consequently a discussion and I would say battle on patent, so there was a lot of uh energy going into patent. It's an interesting story. The main patent litigation was really between University of Texas, Ido Quebec, and a Japanese company entity, because some people work in good enough lab, okay, and at some point uh took a patent in Japan. And it's really us at the University of Montreal that we discovered this patent because it was not it was only in Japan. So at some point we came on this small patent and we saw that. We asked the good enough, what's that?
SPEAKER_04What's what's happening here?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and he told, oh, the guy was in my lab two years ago. Okay, so there was a litigation start at that point. It was a very expensive thing, in fact, supported by Hydro at that time. Very expensive. I I would not comment on the amount, but many, many, many ten of million. Okay, okay, so it was a very, very big battle. After that, there was also some litigation between valence, but valence have developed an interesting technology to reduce the iron, they were using carbon, okay. Uh what they call the carbothermic reduction. So they took a patent on that that was quite smart. In fact, saying that I could start with an iron oxide, for example, iron phosphate, ferric phosphate, and put carbon. And if it reached such a high temperature than 600, 700, it could reduce the iron and I will get LFP. So that was the base of some patent by Valence. There was some, you can figure out that there was already some possibility of battle between this pattern and the carbon coating patent. Okay, I would not enter there unless you want me to, but there was some discussion and some litigation there. And the same with A1232. There was also discussion because the first theme of MIT was that you can do LFP to make it conductive, doping it with uh bizarre elements like niobium or zirconium and things like that. But when you look at the pattern, the material is introduced out of an organic material. So you can wonder if it is carbon or if it's the doping. So there was a lot of this. I wouldn't not enter onto that. It's finished now. But it's interesting because there was the bad point, is that it came at a time where the market was not developed for LFP. It slowed down the market, and it slowed down the market, and it cost a lot, much more. If I had this amount of money, we would be at the fourth generation now. You know, 50 million, you can do a lot in a small company, huh?
SPEAKER_04That's right.
SPEAKER_02So, could you help us situate valence, a123, and Fostec? How they relate to each other, how they're similar or different.
SPEAKER_01I think on the A123, I think that's a company that has bigger means. First, I must say that there was some discussion at some point between A123 and Fostec. Everybody knew that the good enough patent was and the carbon coating patent was a very essential patent. So there was a discussion at some point between A123 and Fastec. Okay. A123 was going to go to the stock market at some point, and we had a discussion with them, but they wanted to lead the show, if I can say, and to make their own plan in the US, finally, it was, I think, in China. So we could not agree on that. So we diverge, and later on, there were some litigation, not between Fostech and A123, but between Hydro Quebec, the patent owner, and A123. I would say much a bigger company, they grow very fast. They went on the power battery, and that was a good smart move. You know, the LFP when it's fine grained, fine, fine particles can be quite powerful. So that was a good way. They developed the tool market essentially. That was a smart move because it's more volume than the electronic valence. I don't know too much about the reality of their development. I know that they went to China. Okay, there was a big investor behind valence. We had a cross lawsuit with them, in which, by the way, Jeff Dan was involved on the side of Valence. I don't know if he told you at some point, but he was an expert for the valence side. Yeah, that's funny. So we end together at the terminal because the lawsuit was in Canada. That was a funny situation.
SPEAKER_02Both Valence and A123 went after cell manufacturing as well as LFP making. Fostech saw itself only as a LFP supplier. Fostech never never went after cell making. Right.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. You're right. Yeah. And Valence was in Texas, right?
SPEAKER_01Uh the name that came to me is Jeremy Barker. Yeah, it was an English guy, I think. So I met him recently, but we had fun together after the year.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you would have all the same experiences. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, anyway. We just agree on one thing that the one who made the money were the lawyers.
SPEAKER_02Right. So maybe you know, one observation that I get from what you just said was there were a lot of litigations with millions and millions of dollars spent before the market was really ready. So a lot of resources were spent on litigation with a view on a future market, but without the revenue to sustain that litigation. And that really hurt the companies in North America.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That came to the point where at some point I do Quebec have been spending a lot of money looking at FastTech, the exclusive licensee, not developing the market that fast because of the litigation, by the way, also. So they decided that we were not necessarily the best tool to valorize the technology. So at some point there was a discussion initiated by IDRO to open the exclusivity of FastTech. Okay. That was another difficult period. The German opposed first, but finally they find some common ground with the Japanese, the German and Hydro Quebec. So they decided to open the exclusivity. That's why they create the society CLFP licensing AG, the company that gave license at several places in the world. Not in China too much, but in Japan and Taiwan and somewhere in Europe. So that's probably the consequence. So that's really what happened. So finally, uh Suki decided that to compete with the Japanese, the Taiwanese was not interesting. And the technology they have introduced was a very good one, the hydrothermal one. But it's an expensive one. Okay. It could not compete with the improved solid state technology. So the Germans concluded that without the exclusivity, they could not get back their capex or their investment. So they decided to sell the technology, to sell the complete plant in the Kanziac because they built a 2,000-ton hydrothermal plant in Kandiac. Okay. And they sold it to uh Claria. And that Claria, a few years a few years later, sold it to Johnson Matty. Died that finally closed the activity by 2022 and sold the building to what is Nanoana, another developer of the lithium phosphate.
SPEAKER_04Today, iron phosphate, we think of that as the lower cost electric vehicles and things like that. How did iron phosphate start getting made in China and then go into cells? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01First, I must say that the solid state patent was delivered and obtained in China first. We got it. Okay. So but at some point, somewhere by 2009-2010, China decided that the LFP was the way to go because made the right analysis about the cost, the toxicity, and things like that. So they decided to go LFP for bus and eventually storage eventually. They realized that the patent, the good enough patent, and the carbon coating patent and the solid state patent were a problem. They decided to develop first on the Chinese internal market. They develop on their internal market mainly. Okay. They did not ask for life.
SPEAKER_02Right. So those patents were they filed in China? The good enough and the carbon coating patents?
SPEAKER_01No, the good enough patent was not filed in China and the carbon patent either. The one that was filed was the solid state patent to make CLFP. But that was delivered and obtained in China. At some point, when China made this analysis that they want to go there, there was a lot of industrial in China that asked the government to have more or less a reissue of the patent. I will not enter into the detail of that because I was no more the advisor at Idokovic at that point. But the patent was uh organized, uh neutralized. I won't use the legal term. Okay, the patent was neutralized in China. China developed really from 2010. It was really the far west. I don't know. There was maybe 50 or 100 companies making LFP in their garage. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Let me make sure it's just crystal clear. Okay, so there is an issue of wanting to get into LFP in China, which is that the cheap way of making good iron phosphate material with the carbon coating on it was covered by a patent that was live in China at the time. And so when they finally decided, well, we need to be able to do it anyway, well, then that patent in China was neutralized.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because from 2010 to 2019, roughly, they wanted to go phosphate, they came back to oxide, they came back again to phosphate, and finally the worst company that succeeded. I mean BYD and CATL mainly. Those companies were really developing a lot. They developed new design of cell, very smart one, by the way. What they call the blade cell. Right. Okay, very flat cell, big cell.
SPEAKER_02BYD with the blade cell. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, BYD. That's really the other one were still rolling, I think the CATL. But the idea was with the stability of the phosphate, you can go bigger, so you can optimize much more the system, uh, volumetrically speaking. Okay, so and also uh there's many other advantages with the blade cell, it's a very smart design. By the way, what we were doing for USCBC with the flat wanted cell, it was not that far from that, right?
SPEAKER_02Large LFP-based cell, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Large with the uh it exchanged by the size. So it was a smart move.
SPEAKER_02So if you look back and you say, okay, in year 2000, the very first people in the world trying to make LFP for batteries are Valence A123 and Fostec. And today, you know, 95 plus percent of the LFP in the world is made out of China. What do you think is the fundamental reason North America is not as competitive as it could have been?
SPEAKER_01It's not a matter of science, obviously. Okay, despite the fact that Chinese are doing good science now. Okay. I would say that developing a technology like LFP or the Talted State is not a matter of five years. It took me 15 years to build a real expertise on the lithium polymer battery. So it's a long-term shot. Okay. So you cannot do that in four years. And most people want a success in four years because the government terms is four years and they want to show something rapidly. So it's very difficult for scientists on the long term to do something with continuity. The difference was that China, they have a long-term program. We can discuss the political system, obviously. But for science, it's not necessarily bad. When they decided in 2010 that they wanted to go that way, they spent a lot of money from the government, they spilled a lot, that it was probably a huge loss of money. Okay, but they had some to survive, like in devolution, they fight, they fight, and some of the stronger ones survive. BYDCL was so after 10 years and after 20 years, they end up with uh technology for EV. I'm a promoter of LFP, so not objective. Okay, but the North Americans think of a car differently from uh ASEAN or uh European, even they want performance, they want a big car that goes far, that goes fast, and they want performance, they want the same as the gas, okay. So it's difficult to do that with electrochemistry. Okay, the cobalt and the nickel were offering a little more energy and power than the LFP. The LFP was dull, you know, it's iron, it's not lamer, it's not high performance. So the people who wanted to sell EV in North America decided that it has to have performance. That was exactly Tesla, addressing a rich strat of the society, okay, and they're targeting the technology for that. The Chinese went the other way. The Chinese don't want to pay for something, okay. So they asked it to their people to make low-cost batteries and iron then become something more attractive. And it was also for e-bike and buses, it's not the same logic. So there is something to learn. And you know, I won't enter into that today, but we have to understand that and transfer that. You know, you don't do research in a garage anymore. That's my favorite expression. Okay, you need really government involvement, but you need the entrepreneurship of people, not of government. That's really the tricky thing to succeed, to really do to do the Chinese did that because the guy at BYD is a self-made man that makes the company, it's not a communist, the way we could say it. It's an entrepreneur, right? But an entrepreneur under the control of the of the government.
SPEAKER_04Well, and under the consistent support of the government, as you said, it you need that consistent support of the government, and that that's one thing they had very clear. Long-term support.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, something that strikes me in your story was I'm sure that as Fostech, it would have been a huge challenge to come up as a material supplier because you're dependent on the whole ecosystem growing with you, right? If you don't have cell manufacturers to sell your material to, you can't make revenue. And so it's not only you that has to succeed, the whole ecosystem has to succeed with you in order for you to be successful.
SPEAKER_01It was a very uh risky business, I would say. It was a very uh ambitious thing to do, you know, to start a business on a cheap material and limiting ourselves to the powder, not to the final product. But that was the the challenge we did. You know, the beauty of it, it's force you to be smart. Okay, and if I look at the melt, the bald process, it's really a technology that can compete with what China is doing. That that's what you need. But you're right, you have to do the whole product. In fact, uh it's probably a better position like BYD that were making car, I think, at that time, at the beginning, to decide to go back, you know, from the car to the battery to the material. But the material, I think, they subcontracted in a way.
SPEAKER_02North America still finds itself with the challenge of growing its battery industry. You lived through it in the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s. What do you think is the right strategy today? What are your words of wisdom?
SPEAKER_01I I would start with the market. For me, the real market is the energy storage. It's not the EV. Okay, EV is a big market, I would not deny that. But if you think cheap solution like the phosphate or some people talk about sodium, the energy storage is probably the real driver. Grid storage to really justify your investment. Yeah. Grid storage or all kinds of storage, you know. Uh it can be home storage, it can be grid storage. Uh uh, I like it for my fishing trip, anyway. No, I think the energy storage becomes a need, you know, because depending on the way you make your energy, the intermittent energy like solar and windmill, need a storage mean. Okay, so the driver should be the energy storage, the electric vehicle, and the way all the society is going electrification. Uh, you look at the success of e-bike, for example, it's uh it's it those are huge markets, the replacement of the lead acid is one one big market, too. So that there's a huge market to do that. How to start that? It's a big challenge.
SPEAKER_02If I looked at the predictions of 2020, there should be gigafactories for sales all over the place in North America. And that's not what we have today. What do you think needs to change in our strategy?
SPEAKER_01You have to select what you want as an energy vector. Okay. If you want petroleum, you won't come end up to the same solution. If you want to get rid of petroleum, you end up with other solutions. If the idea is really to electrify your society at the maximum, then the development of battery is justified and it's not only EV, it's a grid storage, it's a small car, small uh application. You have to decide what you want you want as a society. What do you want as energy to make your society uh uh develop?
SPEAKER_02What you're answering is it's not so much a capability question, it's a societal decision.
SPEAKER_01It's a make a decision what you want, and after that put the real means. Uh company can do the job if you make the good analysis. The government could do it, and I think it should be both of those, especially for small countries like Canada and uh and Quebec, and the government had to be involved. It's a matter of vision and a matter of putting the means to do it. It's not a matter of competence. I think the uh uh US science is still good. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Maybe we can close with what are your hopes for the battery field in North America?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I really hope that uh somebody will wake up at some point, will adopt a good technology to build battery, it's a competitive battery, and go uh build the rest. After the battery, you make the car, you made the storage, you made the energy sources. I came out of my retirement, I'm 82 now, to start in this because I believe that something could be done there. The Chinese have optimized so much the solid state technology that you have no chance to reproduce that and make it cheaper. I personally I know that people are doing that in North America and Europe. I think it's a mistake. You cannot come 10 years later with people who have optimized that and make a success. You need to change the rule of the world. Or join them. You could join them, or you can be smart and join them and learn that, but that's another approach. Absolutely, yeah. Joint venture or something like that. Yeah. Hey, look at what they did with the cell and the battery design, it's great. So there's a lot, there's more in two heads than in one, huh? So, yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. I should have said that. It should be uh through some kind of a collaboration. Uh good, as we did hydro and 3M, you know, it's a competition emulation. You try to present your best, and that's how the system progresses. And if you have a common goal, everything will work, you know.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you so much, Michelle. This was fascinating.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, thank you. We learned so much from this. I mean, you know, you think you know the field and then you have these conversations, it's like wow.
SPEAKER_01I hope I did not make myself too much enemies, but that's another story. I don't think so. Thanks for the interview. That's interesting. It's funny because I intend one day to write a book on that, but I need a good ending, so I have to finish the jump first.
SPEAKER_02Fantastic. Well, we'll look forward to the book. Battery potential is produced by cyclical battery consulting resources company headed by discovery.
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