Why must India treat waste batteries like oil reserves?

Every Indian today carries a fragment of the nation’s mineral future, in our phone that wakes us, the laptops that drive our workday, the e-scooter we hail with our phones for deliveries or for a ride ourselves, and in our energy storage systems. That future is a battery. Batteries are at the core of energy transition as they store renewable power, for all technology that requires power storage. While India scales solar, EV, data infrastructure, it is battery demand which will define energy independence and industrial competitiveness much like oil. Every industry linked to electrification, climate and manufacturing ultimately comes to the question of the availability and use of batteries. Batteries contain copper, lithium, nickel and cobalt, worth hundreds of crores, that are classified as critical minerals due to their critical function in energy storage. There is a global scramble for critical minerals that is picking up steam. As crude oil once determined the fortunes of nations, critical minerals will underpin the batteries that will run our cars, grids and economies tomorrow. India was once vulnerable to oil shocks but the nation now has a chance to pre-empt the future mineral shocks by treating waste batteries as strategic reserves, instead of discarding them every few years and continuing the cycle of import. If oil is the fuel of the 20th century, dead batteries are the reserves of the 21st century.By the year 2030, projections estimate that India will add more than 80 GWh of new battery capacity every year for electric mobility and renewable storage. The battery cells complete their first life within six to eight years, after which the battery units can yield a secondary flow of copper, nickel, lithium and cobalt. Estimates state that India already generated over 50000 tonnes of lithium battery waste in 2022, which is likely to increase tenfold by the end of the decade. This is a growing mineral well that replenishes with every cycle. In the 1990s, India chose to build strategic petroleum reserves and a strong refining ecosystem in the face of oil shocks. The same logic must extend to how critical minerals are treated today. The Battery Waste Management rules (2022), already show policy intent to enforce producer responsibility, traceability, and recycling mandates. What is needed is to elevate this even further with national inventorying of used batteries, like crude oil stockpiles, battery banking and tie up the gaps between the National Critical Mineral Mission, 2025, by the Ministry of Mines.New spheres of influence are being defined by control of battery materials. China processes more than 70 percent of global lithium and 80 percent of cathode materials, effectively becoming the OPEC of critical minerals. The EU, Japan and the US are attempting to build mineral stockpiles and supply chain alliances. Since India is aiming for complete adoption and leadership in clean energy, it is impossible to achieve that by relying on imports which are vulnerable to price swings, or worse, export bans. India’s 3 billion USD worth of critical mineral imports in FY 2024 are concentrated in a handful of supplier nations, leaving the supply chain vulnerable. By developing recycling and refining capabilities at home, the country can hedge against the next great resource shock. Building refining capacity of battery materials is, ultimately, a matter of safeguarding our autonomy. India transformed from crude importer to a refining powerhouse, especially after the energy insecurity faced during the gulf wars. A similar leap could be possible in battery materials with industrial depth in metal recovery and processing and building regional recycling hubs that feed domestic gigarefineries and export markets. Policy support like the concessional financial support provided by the new Rs1500 crore scheme, technology partnerships and assured market demand can turn recycling plants to anchors of the green economy like the Jamnagar refinery and convert waste into trade advantage.To institutionalise the vision of extracting maximum strategic value out of end of life batteries and elevating batteries to the status of energy reserves, a formal battery reserve mechanism would need to be built. Inventories of end of life batteries, where OEMS deposit data could be integrated into a mineral data system while ensuring their channelisation to authorised recyclers. Such a reserve would stabilise supply for gigafactories, create price visibility and ensure that recovered metals find their way back into India’s manufacturing loop. India’s oil reserve strategy was born out of necessity. Its battery reserve vision should arise from foresight. The materials that will power our future are already available within our economy. If India treats its spent cells with the same seriousness as crude, recycles and refines domestically and governs them strategically, vulnerability can transform into leadership and the nation can find its position among the mineral powers of the new energy order. Batteries are latent wealth. Mastering their recovery will command a green future as well as greater sovereignty.

Author is Shubham Vishvakarma, Founder and Chief of Process Engineering at Metastable Materials. All views are personal.