Our Impact on the Environment
Circularity, Energy, and Water - Pollution, Deforestation, and Biodiversity.
Circularity
In order for the battery industry to be more sustainable, the industry life cycle itself needs to become circular, reusing the batteries themselves as long as possible and eventually recycling materials at end-of-life. We believe FREYR is well positioned through the use of 24M-technology with our semi-solid lithium batteries to facilitate recycling of our materials. See a description of our technology here.
FREYR is in the process of setting recycling goals for our batteries, including weight-based objectives as well as objectives tied to relevant minerals used in our batteries. FREYR will also set goals for our share of recycled material in our batteries. The recycling of our batteries will be similar to the process that we are setting up for the recovery and management of waste batteries from our manufacturing process. After a tender process in the global market for LFP-scrap and battery waste management, FREYR has established a contract with Stena Metals. Given the important scaling of the demand for and use of batteries in the next decades, FREYR expects dependence on newly mined minerals to continue for many years.
Energy
FREYR’s ambition is to only use renewable energy in our battery cell production – and over time this may include our supply chain. In our Customer Qualification Plant we have already secured this. Clean hydro power produced locally in the area will run the facility. However, in our supply chain and in other areas where FREYR will be building manufacturing sites, the need to source renewable energy in a grid with wider variety of energy sources, might require some more time to get to our goal.
As the world transitions to renewable energy, renewable energy resource will be very valuable, and we all have a shared responsibility to use it effectively and in the most value-creating way. FREYR has chosen a next-generation manufacturing technology through our license with 24M, that simplifies the production process substantially compared to conventional battery cell manufacturing. This is expected to reduce our energy use compared with conventional battery manufacturing technology. We aim to monitor and report on our energy use in production continuously. As we gain experience with our technology, we plan to set targets for energy consumption.
Water and Pollution
Battery manufacturing is a water-intensive process. FREYR plans to collect data on the water usage across our value chain and map this against local and regional water stress levels today and routinely over the life of our facilities. To do so we plan to use global databases and consult with third party water experts. In our first facilities in Mo i Rana, cold fresh water is abundant and freely available.
Through our value chain from the mining of minerals, processing these minerals into active material and in our own manufacturing, we expect there will be emissions of gasses and fluids as well as solid waste. We will strive to contain all of these in our own cell production in such a way that there is minimal harm done to the environment or people and work closely with local and national governments to make sure we follow all relevant laws and support the development of technologies to create new and better solutions. Also, in our work with our suppliers and their sub-suppliers, we plan to map what the emissions are from their processes and how these are managed with the aim of running sustainable operations. As we are currently planning to produce LFP-batteries in our cell factories, we do not expect to source any minerals from Deep Sea Mining activities. Our focus is on utilizing other sources to obtain the raw materials required to produce our batteries.
Deforestation and Biodiversity
Inherent in the extraction and use of resources such as minerals, and in the construction and use of hydro power, wind and solar plants there is impact on natural resources. These impacts can include deforestation, loss of local biodiversity, and other local environmental issues. FREYR’s approach will be to balance between developing and protecting natural resources according to local and international laws, science and technology developments as well as local stakeholder’s recommendations.
We are particularly proud that we have been able to build our Mo i Rana Customer Qualification Plant inside a pre-existing building. See more here about the Customer Qualification Plant (CQP) in Mo. Our plan for the Giga Arctic plant will be to use a brownfield site within an existing industrial area that is regulated as a manufacturing site and will have no new impacts on forestation or biodiversity.
For Giga America, we must remove trees before construction can start. The site was already zoned for industrial use, but in respect to nature we will do our best to minimize the negative consequences of our construction efforts. We are conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment to better understand the negative impact, and will thereafter initiate effective measures to reduce and mitigate these impacts.
Additionally, while giga factories in the battery industry normally require very large areas, our use of 24M technology enables FREYR to substantially reduce the needed square footage compared to conventional manufacturing technology. See more about Giga Arctic here.