China Restricts Exports of Graphite, Key Mineral Used for Making EV Batteries
October 22, 2023
By Paul Homewood
More bad news for the EV rollout!
Do we really want to put our whole economy at the mercy of President Xi?
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Great news – China inadvertently saving western lives by cutting the number of spontaneously combusting battery vehicles on the roads
A Nobel prize surely?!
https://news.sky.com/story/inside-the-arms-race-to-build-the-batteries-which-will-power-britain-12537246
In that page linked above, scroll down to “Humber Refinery”. There you will see that the UK has a strategic resource connected to this graphite story right there.
Lithium ion batteries require product from an oil refinery, i.e. the anode-quality graphite. Apparently there is at least some of this Humber Refinery coke in every battery in the world.
The main use for the high quality petroleum coke produced by the Phillips/Conoco refinery is for making carbon anodes for aluminium smelting. It has been that way for decades – IIRC the coker was installed when the refinery was new in the late 1960s. I doubt there is much to spare for other uses. China is the world’s largest smelter of aluminium. I would need convincing that the product is going into batteries rather than smelting anodes, which I have seen being finished off (cut to shape to fit the potlines and given a final bake) prior to use in an aluminium smelter.
“Aluminum pots and pans for planes” — Lord Beaverbrook, 1940
21st Century Update:
“Pencils for EVs!”
I can’t find it now but I recently saw a youtube video with a young fella making batteries out of pencils and seawater and another where he tapped into global Telluric current also using pencils. It really is back to the future.
Is there graphite in a flux capacitor?
Hey gezza, you know what, you can actually buy a “Back to the Future The Flux Capacitor Graphite Adult T-Shirt” so you never know!!
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/969540014/back-to-the-future-the-flux-capacitor
Mind you I would expect a lot of graphite in it paying nearly a pony for a t-shirt
p.s. gezza, have you followed Colin Furze’s insane youtube channel? https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp68_FLety0O-n9QU6phsgw
He drives a DeLorean so if anyone could actually make a flux capacitor he would probably try.
Somewhat ironic is all the talk of “carbon emissions” and how we supposedly have to reduce them but there is global market control of carbon i.e. graphite by the Chinese!
Pure graphite is an interesting commodity, only slight impurities (notably Boron)
basically screwed up the Nazi WW2 attempts at using it in nuclear development and forced them to pursue the Heavy Water route. This was largely why the Nazis occupied Norway and the Allies focused so much attention on the hydro electric dams notably Vermork as production facilities for 2/H2O.
History seems to be repeating itself
I have an ‘awake’ friend who works in the auto industry and he reckons that the EV bubble is about to burst, if it hasn’t already. Mmmmm! I’d like to think so, but I’m not sure.
I expect the battery researchers to get all their schist figured out at about the same time “climate researchers”™ conclude Carbon Dioxide is not a driver of Global Warming. Next will be tallying-up the waste of money and talent expended on the, so called, energy transition.
Ten years from now there will be a book titled “So many have given so much for so little.” {author? – Paul H.}
was checking internet to check the location in the lake district of the graphite mines (its Borrowdale near Keswick – where the pencils come from) and came across this paper
Click to access the-potential-for-graphite-in-the-uk-2022.pdf
i wonder if the greens who keep objecting to the cumbrian coking coal mine will also object to lots of graphite workings in the scenic districts of the lake district and scotland?
I found a paper that said that China recently closed 200 graphite mines due to their environmental impact, so that *might* explain some of the motivation for restricting exports, but can any academic source be trusted when it comes to China?
As people have pointed out the raw materials for graphite are available worldwide. But those raw materials are converted to graphite via pyrolysis which takes a lot of energy. however, the “electrify everything” crowd does all in their power to insure that energy is expensive making domestic production very expensive. That also one of the reasons China was able to corner the manufacture of silicon ingots for solar cells.
European politicians (even those in the UK) seem to be determined to destroy the economy already. Look at those ridiculous attempts at forcing less practical EVs and the attacks on vehicles that actually work i.e. ICE.
Och never mind President Xi & Co, just read all this ( and similar) – on a different planet , perhaps? https://www.azonetwork.com/newsletters/webview/?nirid=f1f8ed5be6ff45239325ac78b466ba70
Thank god we have a minister for energy security & net-zero ….I’m sure they’ll send china a letter
We are going to use powdered unicorn horn instead.
I thought it was rocking horse faeces??
Yet apparently our energy security demands wind power so that we aren’t at the mercy of foreign dictators…
But that will leave us at the mercy of the Greek winds gods – Anemoi