Cobalt-free lithium battery gigafactory to help transition West Virginia away from coal economy
Author: Andy Colthorpe
A newly-announced battery gigafactory in the US from startup SPARKZ will make batteries suitable for grid storage and will be built in the heart of Appalachian coal county in West Virginia. The official announcement was made last Friday during a visit to several sites in the US state by US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm and Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland. Together with West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, they unveiled various measures aimed at reinvigorating the local economy and retraining and retooling the workforce away from fossil fuels. The DOE will support training pilot programmes to grow unionised and well-paid labour in the energy and automotive industries, convene with industry and labour leaders and coordinate with the Li-Bridge public-private partnership to advance US lithium battery manufacturing, as well as with the Federal Consortium for Advanced Batteries (FCAB) which has been formed by government agencies.