Welcome to the Boardroom Governance Podcast. I’m your host, Evan Epstein. In this episode, I talk with Henry Sanderson, the author of the book Volt Rush, the winners and losers in the race to go green. Henry worked as a journalist in New York, Beijing, and London. Most recently he was a commodities reporter for the Financial Times between 2014 and 2021. He is particularly interested in the geopolitics of the global energy transition and how individual Chinese companies define China’s embrace of the world. He currently works as executive editor for Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a leading provider of data and analysis for the lithium-ion battery supply chain. This is the third book I cover in my podcast series after talking with Maureen Farrell (now with the NYT) about The Cult of We and the WeWork saga (E41), and Professor Margaret O’Mara about her book The Code on Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America (E51). In this podcast, we talk about the new battery age, the history of lithium-ion batteries and the global battery supply chain. We discuss Chinese companies CATL, Ganfeng and Tianqi, the $4bn acquisition of the SQM stake in Chile and Henry's take on how this market will play out in the US, the EU and elsewhere. We talk about mining, lithium, cobalt, nickel, geopolitics, ESG and sustainability in this new era. I strongly believe that any corporate director interested in green technology, energy transition and or ESG more generally, will enjoy this episode and reading Henry’s book to learn more about the global battery supply chain and its increasingly important geopolitical and economic relevance. If you like this show, please consider subscribing, leaving a review or sharing this podcast on social media. You can find all the show notes on the website boardroom-governance.com and please feel free to subscribe to the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at evanepstein.substack.com
0:00 -- Intro.
2:10 -- Start of interview.
3:00 -- Henry's "origin story". His other book "China's Superbank: Debt, Oil and Influence - How China Development Bank is Rewriting the Rules of Finance") (2012)
5:03 -- His current role at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
6:09 - The origin of his book Volt Rush: The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green (2022).
10:09 -- On the new battery age and the origin of lithium-ion batteries for EVs.
12:53 -- On Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL) and its founder Robin Zeng.
18:34 -- On the Chinese lithium industry and its champions Ganfeng Lithium and Tianqi Lithium. "They had a golden period where they could pick up assets globally, but now the West is catching up." Example: Government of Canada orders the divestiture of investments by foreign companies in Canadian critical minerals companies.
21:10 -- About Tianqi's $4bn acquisition of SQM's stake in Chile. [Disclosure: I wrote about this case in 2018 here, here and most recently in my latest newsletter, here.] On the future of the Lithium Triangle (Chile, Argentina and Bolivia) for the global lithium supply chain. The unclear future of lithium in Chile, the government has hinted on the creation of a new Chilean national lithium company. "It's a once in a 100-year opportunity, are they just going to sit back and lose out on market share? This opportunity does not come very often."
27:09 -- On the new US industrial policy to foster the EV and battery industry (and divest from China). The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, CHIPS & Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (“the single largest investment in climate and energy in American history”) combined will invest more than $135 billion to build America’s EV future, including critical minerals sourcing and processing and battery manufacturing. The impact for the global supply chain, particularly in Latin America, Africa and rest of the world.
33:03-- On geopolitics, ESG and sustainability of the global battery supply chain and EVs generally. The problem of greenwashing. Amnesty International's report on Cobalt in Africa (2016) "This is What We Die For" (on human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the global trade in Cobalt). "Chinese consumers are also getting more environmentally conscious."
38:02 -- On the challenges of the energy transition from ICE vehicles to EVs. The importance of renewable energy. "Clean energy clusters will become very important."
40:09 -- On energy security, cleaner battery producers (example Northvolt from Sweden), the rise of Gigafactories, the shift to EVs from global OEMs (A Reuters analysis of 37 global automakers found that they plan to invest nearly $1.2 trillion in electric vehicles and batteries through 2030) and the future of jobs in this industry. "Vehicle manufacturing employment, which stands at 13.6 million globally, already employs 10% of its workforce in the manufacture of EVs, their components and batteries." (see IEA world energy employment report). "It is a race for the jobs of the future, and that's where the West has lost out. That's what making this industry so critical." "But the West will definitely catch up, I'm very optimistic about the U.S."
46:03 -- On whether the U.S. will encourage more mining in the US to bridge this gap. "The mining industry has not done a good job at convincing the public that this is what is needed. People who support clean energy find it hard to support mining. That's the crux of the issue."
48:14 -- On Tesla, and whether they will move upstream in the supply chain with more refining or mining. And their China operations and supply chain dependence.
53:19 -- The 1-3 books that have greatly influenced his life:
Other books he recommends on the battery global supply chain:
55:28 -- Who were your mentors, and what did you learn from them?
Michael Forsythe, now with the NYT. When he was in China working for Bloomberg, working with investigative journalists.
56:23 -- Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by?
"Sooner or later...one has to take sides – if one is to remain human." by Graham Greene.
57:18 -- The person he most admires: Greta Thunberg.
Henry Sanderson is a journalist and author of Volt Rush, the Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green. He's currently an Executive Editor at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, the leading provider of data and information on the battery industry. Before that he covered commodities and mining for the Financial Times for seven years in London. He was previously a reporter for Bloomberg News in Beijing, where he co-authored a book about China's financial system and state capitalism, China's Superbank. He grew up in Hong Kong and lived and worked in China for seven years.
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You can follow Henry on social media at:
Twitter: @hjesanderson
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You can follow Evan on social media at:
Twitter: @evanepstein
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/
Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/
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Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License