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The Cutting Edge of Energy Storage: Rust · What's Your Problem?

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. America's power grid is arguably the largest machine ever
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: built in the history of the world. Thousands of power plants,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: millions of miles of power lines, all delivering exactly as
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: much power as everybody wants, almost all of the time. Now,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: in order to become more efficient and to move away
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: from fossil fuel, that machine has to be completely rebuilt.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: The other day I talked to one of the people
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: who's rebuilding it. You're wearing a bright yellow vet, like
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: a neon yellow work vest, got a little American flag
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: in the corner. So where are you right now that
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: you need that vest?
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm in the factory and we're in West Virginia.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: It's about five hundred thousand square feet under roof that
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: we have right now, and the activity under that roof
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: is everything from cell assembly. So we're operating that line
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: to finish in construction of the building.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: So you're building batteries at the factory and you're also
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: building more factory at the.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Factory, exactly, yes, all simultaneously.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein, and this is what's your problem? The
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: show where I talk to people who are trying to
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: make technological progress. My guest today is Matteo Haemio. He's
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the co founder and CEO of Form Energy. Matteo started
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: his company because he realized that in order to rebuild
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: the grid, in order to move off fossil fuels, the
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: world will very likely need batteries that are profoundly different
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: than the batteries we have now. Specifically, Matteo's problem is this,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: how do you build batteries at scale that provide affordable
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: backup power to the grid, not for two hours, four hours,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: or six hours, but for one one hundred hours. Matteo
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: has been working on batteries for about twenty years. He's
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: been doing it since before it was cool, and back
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine he went to work at Tesla.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: So I went there specifically to put batteries on the grid,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: to take that technology and the balance of system which
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: Tesla is excellent at, and take it out of the
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: car and put it on the grid. And JB. Strabo,
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: who is the CTO and my boss at Tesla while
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: I was there, shared that vision and you know, in
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: fact has always been a leader on this stuff, and
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: so he gave me the room to run to do
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: that internally in Tessa.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: And so you basically started the Tesla powerwall business.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: There is that, right, that's right, more than just the
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: power wall, so what we call the power pack and
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: subsequently megapac, but batteries on the grid, yes, exactly.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: So what is the limit of lithium and batteries? I mean,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: your company now is not a lithium ion battery company.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Is there sort of a moment when you realize that
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: lithium ion batteries are not going to solve all of
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: the problems that need to be solved to shift to
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: all renewable energy all the time.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, lithium mind batteries are a fantastic technology, but like
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: any battery technology, there is a compromise somewhere, and in
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: the case of lithium ion, it is cost. They are
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: phenomenally energy dense, they cycle wonderfully, they are produced at
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: massive scale, they're very they are in fact very safe,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: but they cost a lot for the kinds of problems
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: that we also want to solve on the grid. Not
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: just single digit duration hours intermittency challenges, right the sun
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: going down and then coming back every morning, but multiple
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: days of duration or even seasonal imbalances, and that duration
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: of challenge. Lithium mind simply is not suited purely from
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: a cost perspective to address, And so that was the
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: challenge that I went after as soon as I left us.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about Let's talk about duration, because that's
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: obviously central to what you're doing. How long are lithium
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: batteries sort of techno economically useful for like, presumably you
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: could just keep adding them and you could have as
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: much duration as you want with lithium ion batteries, but
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: it would be wildly expensive and nobody's ever going to
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: do it right. So for how long are they actually
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: economically efficient for energy storage on the grid.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Well, today, most of the lithium mind that's being put
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: on the grid is between two and four hour rated
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: power duration. So at its rated power, you start using
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: the battery and it's empty in two or four hours.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: And what's been interesting is to see that duration evolve
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: over time. So when the first lithium batteries were put
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: on the grid, they were rated at fifteen minutes of duration,
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: and then it crept up to thirty minutes, and then
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: it's an hour, and you know, now it's two to
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: four hours.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: And is that just a function of the batteries getting cheaper,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: so you can.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: In yeah, purely a function of cost, and so you
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: you can take that cost and duration pairing and see
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: where it's going to go. As certain costs, there's a
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: there's a duration that is directly implied as a result,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: and so we know where the cost curve for lithium
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: mine is going, and therefore we know where the duration
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: is also going.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about that two to four hour duration
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: that lithium ion batteries are at. Now, Like that seems
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: very useful in the context of like those moments when
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: it's a hot day and everybody gets home from work
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: and turns up the air conditioner, and you know, traditionally
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: we're now still in many places utilities have to turn
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: on these very inefficient gas powered peaker plants, right, and
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: if we can use lithium ion batteries to solve that,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: to prevent that from happening, like, that's great, right, Like
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: that is a very useful step in the evolution away
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: from fossil fuel. Precise why is that insufficient? Like, what's
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the next thing that we need that.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: We don't have, Well, the next thing that we don't
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: have is what happens if you have one day that's
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: like that, and then the next day that's like that,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: and the next day that's like that. You know, stressing
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: the peak multiple days in a row. And it could
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: be a stress that comes from heat, or it could
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: be a stress that comes from cold, or could be
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: a stress that comes from cloud cover storms. Right, because
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: you know, one premise, of course, of the four hour
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: battery is that you can recharge it when you need to,
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, if you're in a weather
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: event where recharging is highly uneconomic or it's not even possible,
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: then then different solutions are needed, and different durations are
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: also needed. So how do you ride through entirely these
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: multi day duration weather events which we see in every
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: market around the world.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: So if we're at like four hours, there's any number
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: of sort of hours, there's any amount of duration that
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: you could kind of try and tackle next, right, it
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: could be twelve or it could be twenty four. Now,
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: but you end up going all the way to one
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: hundred or one hundred ish, which I assume you didn't
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: pick just because it's a satisfying round number, although it
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: is a satisfying round number, Like why why do you
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: decide to go all the way from four to one hundred.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: It's a great question before in fact, we even started
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: the company, and the question was, well, how do you
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: solve the seasonal challenge? Right, that sort of winter to
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: summer challenge for energy storage? And it's you can sort
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: of have a gut sense for it. Well, but it
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: covers a very wide range. Do we need ten hours?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Do we need two thousand hours? So how do we
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: win of that down? And well, this is how we
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: framed it up. What duration energy storage do you need
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: to solve those problems? And then what is implied about
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: the cost for that and can you build something that
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: actually hits that cost target? And so the one hundred
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: hours falls out of that very deep technical exercise. If
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: we say to take the state my home state of California,
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: for example, one percent of the carbon emissions on the
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: electric grid comes from natural gas. There is no more
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: coal in state of California, and if you look at
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: the way that the natural gas fleet participates in that system,
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: if we want to be able to drive to a
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: deeper decarbonization for that particular grid, which California does legislatively,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: it's bound to, then we have to functionally replace at
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: least some of those natural gas plants. And when we
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: look at what the battery needs to do technically, it
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: needs to be able to provide that at least four
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: day duration range. So just functionally, that's what it has
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: to do. It's got to cover those cloudy you know,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: three or four days in a row when the solar
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: is not really contributing to the system.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: And so in the case of California, you have the
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: law on your side exactly. It's like, well, these utilities
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: are going to have to buy something, so let's figure
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: out how to be the ones to sell it to them.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: And in particular, what they're going to need to buy
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: is order of magnitude days, not hours, not weeks of
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: energy storage.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: That's right, And if you need those days, then the
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: cost falls out of that and you have to be
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: somewhere around twenty dollars per kilo whatt hour again one
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: tenth maybe the future cost of lithium ion. That's where
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: we started, and so that's where the pairing of one
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: hundred hours and roughly twenty dollars per kilo era comes in.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: It all falls out of the modeling that is done
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: to really understand the electric system and how it operates
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: as a portfolio.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: So now you have this frame and you've got to
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: figure out how to build a battery that has a
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: sufficient duration at a low enough cost. And there's a
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: lot of options, right, there's a lot of like weird
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: fun things people are trying to do the thing you're
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: trying to do, Right, So how do you get to
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: where you get to?
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: Well, we started doing a bakeoff. Essentially, we didn't we
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: didn't pick the technology. We knew that design space we
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: had to operate inside of, and that was that one
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: hundred hour twenty dollars per killer hour range. And we
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: had a couple contending chemistries that we liked. One was
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: sulfur based, the other was iron based. We had some
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: other ideas as well, but when we first founded the
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: company and took investment, our promise for that to those investors,
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: for the very first round of funding was we will
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: identify the most promising chemistry, not that we were going
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: to solve it or that we could prove that we
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: had a market.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: So people are giving you money to build batteries and
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: you didn't even know what the batteries were going to
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: be exactly.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but to be clear, that's because the opportunity is
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: overwhelmingly compelling. Right, this is a trillion dollar market if
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: you can get it right, and so that's why it
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: was worth it to even pursue this experiment from the beginning.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: And so we had a couple of different technologies that
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: we evaluated, and at the end of the first year,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: it was clear that iron air was the one that
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: had the greatest chance to succeed. The entitled costs was there,
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: the entitled embodiment of that cost as a real device
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: was there, and the performance was there. And so that's
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: the one that we picked, and that's the one that
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: we said, this is what we're going to really devote
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: our company towards.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Tell me about iron, Like, why do you land on iron?
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Well? Iron, Besides, coal's the most mind substance on Earth,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: a few billion tons of it every year.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Not scarce. One country is not going to lock down
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: iron reserves for the planet.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: Definitely not. And you know, if you squint, it's not
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: too hard to envision the Earth is just a rusty
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: ball basically.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Feels about right too, like vibes wise rusty balls.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly, And so you're never going to run
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: out of it, of course, and you know, humans know
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: a lot about iron. Frankly, there was a whole age
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: of humanity that where we really played around it.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, stone not great as a battery, Bronze
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: too expensive, Wait a minute.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: And so we like the idea that there is a
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: substance that that a lot is known about but had
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: never really been brought into the modern understanding. Electric and
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: other iron batteries are out there. So, for example, Thomas Edison,
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: the battery that he went to market with is a
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: nickel iron battery using an iron anode, and that was
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: over one hundred years ago now, and so a lot
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: is known relatively speaking about iron anuts, but it's not
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: an art that has been really advanced recently. And so
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: where we started from was the best understanding that was
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: out there about iron air, which actually comes from the
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: nineteen seventies roughly. There was some work that was done
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: recently at of one academic labit, but not too much.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: And we saw that the performance metrics that Westinghouse was
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: able to get at a study that they did at
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: the behest of the US Department of Energy, that if
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: we could achieve what they had done fifty years ago.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: Then we had a minimum of a viable product, and
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: we thought, we think we could probably do that.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's the basic idea, like iron is cheap
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: and big and heavy and not that energy dense. Of course,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: nobody's gonna use it for a laptop or a car.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: It's like the opposite of what you want for a
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: laptop or a car. But like you don't actually care
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: in this instance if it's big and heavy, because you're
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: just gonna put it out whatever in the desert anyways,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: where there's a ton of space exactly.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: And again, the overriding consideration here for the selection of
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: a chemistry to pursue is cost, and specifically capex cost,
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: and back to your earlier question, the things that we
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: can trade off as a result. I'll give you one
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: example cycle life.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: You know with you my.
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: Batteries cycle phenomenally well thousands of times.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Cycle life meaning charge and discharge and charge.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Charge and discharge.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: But to give you an example for the way that
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: technically we can think about a trade off in pursuit
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: a very low cost. If I am building a battery
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: that let's just say, discharges over the course of a
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: week to make this easy and charges over the course
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: of a week of efficiency. Then the maximum number number
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: of cycles I can get in the year is twenty six, right,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: theoretical maximum, and over the course of a twenty year
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: project life, it's roughly five hundred, a far cry from
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: the thousands and thousands of cycles that lithium mine is
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: pursuing because it needs, right, I have to be very
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: good at charging and discharging hundreds of times, but that
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: is a materially different challenge than thousands of times. Right.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: So you're close now to having real working batteries out
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: in the world. You've been working on it for years.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Is there an example of a thing that you figured
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: out between when you started and now?
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So, to be clear, we have working batteries out
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: there in the grid right now. So we deployed our
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: first battery connected to the grid charging and discharging about
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: a year ago. So it was in summer of last
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: year that our first one went out in the world
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: and we learned a lot from that. But as far
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: as a learning that we had along the way, it's
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: about iron. Maybe not surprisingly. You know, iron reacts to
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: different levels, so you have different states of oxidation for
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: iron right, So.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Basically rust in the case. That's right, that's right, that's right.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: And the first reaction is iron to iron hydroxide, so
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: you have FH right, one hydroxide, and there's a theoretical
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: limit to the amount of energy you can get out
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: of that particular reaction.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: And just to be clear, this is relevant too, because
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: your batteries when they're charging and discharging are sort of
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: rusting and unrusting. Right, that is a version of what
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: is happening. Yeah, that's exactly right.
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: That's precisely what's happening. And what we have found is that,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: in fact, the theoretical limit is about thirty percent higher
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: than what we originally thought it was. And I can't
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: tell you why precisely because there's a lot of trade
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: secret involved in this, but that's one learning that we had.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: That's like a basic science insight.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: This is not in the published literature anywhere. This is
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: a true discovery by the team at form Energy.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: And tell me about deciding to go trade secret instead
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: of patent. You wanted to try and keep it forever,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: why not patented and be sure you own it?
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Well, it's a combination of things. You know, our intellectual
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: property approach. He utilizes different different methods depending on what
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: it is.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: You figure trade cigarette work for Coca Cola, they work
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: for it. Patent there formula years ago. Where would they
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: be to day. We'll be back in just a minute.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: So you're actually talking to me today from forms factory
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: in weird in West Virginia. Tell me about Tell me
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: about the factory. Tell me about weird.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: So Weirden is where we're building this plant, and it's
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: the home of what was weird And Steel and it
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: was the dominant economic driver for this region in the
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: northern what's called the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia. It's
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: a stretch of West Virginia that sits between Ohio and Pennsylvania.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: And the plant was one of the most productive plants
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: steel plants in the country for a very long time,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: employed about fourteen thousand people in The plant shut in
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: the early two thousands, and so that's the site. Most
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: of the plant is gone. There's only one remaining structure
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: from that plant. But we are on that same historic
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: site and it's a huge privilege to be able to
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: build this plant here in where is.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: There a practical reason that you're on the site of
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: a steel plant. I mean, is there is raw iron
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: close by? Are the rail links good?
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a phenomenal piece of physical infrastructure, is what
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: it comes down to. And that's how most of the
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: steel sites were picked originally in the country. You know,
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: flat places near rivers with great connectivity to the economy essentially,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: and so that's exactly what this site is. So it's
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: right on the Ohio River. There's barge access, which of
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: course connects into the Mississippi. There's two rail lines, one
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: one which comes directly into our site and another which
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: is not very far away, and then phenomenal highway interconnectivity
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: to the country as well.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: So you now you have a factory. You were at
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: the factory, you're making batteries. You're building more factory so
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: you can make more batteries.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Batteries, that's right.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: What do you have to figure out next? Like what
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: is sort of the frontier for you at this point?
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Well, at those point the things we have to figure
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: out are the really the scaled manufacturing processes. There's not
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: a lot more that we can do in the lab,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: even building sort of production intent size scale systems, which
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: we do all the time, and we have to build
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: those devices off of the real volume processes. So the
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: equipment sets right, the operations right, That's where the risk
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: remains in the company, and the only way to retire
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: that risk is to take that step into do it.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: And so that's really where the focus is as a
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: company is on that next phase to get into startup production,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: to produce those batteries, and to work through the challenges
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: that inevitably pop up when you do something for the
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: first time at that scale.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: So you can make a battery, the hard thing now
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: is to make a thousand batteries or whatever.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, at high quality and low cost and low cost.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: And so tell me, when you have like a full
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: scale deployment, what'll it look like.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll look pretty boring, is the short answer.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: And ideally the operation will be super boring, right Well, yeah, yeah,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: paint drying in a field, that's that's what it literally
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: iron rusting. It'll literally be iron resting in a field,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: And unresting. We'll go both ways.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: That's the hard part.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, these will because shipping containers, so forty foot containers
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: installed in a field. In other words, it will look
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: like pretty much any other battery that is installed for
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: utilities today, and most people don't know what that looks like,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: but it is just shipping containers in salt on pads
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: in a rays in a field. And so the size
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: of these projects ranges from dozens of those enclosures to
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: hundreds or even thousands in some cases.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Your initial your initial projects are dozens, I imagine that's correct.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: So the first projects that we're doing are generally be
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: around ten megawatts each, So that's what these utilities. They
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: range from five to fifteen, but let's just say they're ten.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: And so at ten megawats one hundred hours, that's a
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: thousand megawatt hours, right, And that puts these initial batteries
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: that we're putting in the field, at least from an
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: energy perspective, as some of the largest batteries ever deployed
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: on the grid.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: So you talked about, you know, having to scale, right,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: having to figure out how to build thousands of batteries
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: that are cheap and reliable. Is there like a particular
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: piece of that that you're trying to figure out right now,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: or a particular piece of it that seems frankly daunting.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: So the category of challenges that we have in front
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: of us are squarely in the engineering and specifically manufacturing
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: engineering challenge. How can go wrong is inevitably things pop
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: up when you're doing manufacturing at scale for the first time,
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: and so generally these are challenges that involve sort of
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: days to weeks of challenge that you need to solve,
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: but you can inevitably solve them with a good team
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: who knows what it's doing, and so that's what we've built.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: I think the biggest risk for us now, frankly is
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: hiring to fully build out that team to be able
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: to do that on time and the way that we
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: need to. But I'm not worried at all about whether
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: there's some technical challenge that will pop up that we
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: cannot solve. We are through that phase of what's needed
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: and it truly is an execution play from here. There's
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: no magic pixie dust required. We don't need to say
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: any prayers over a piece of technology to hope that
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: it works. We know that it works, and we know
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: that it works at the scale, but we need to
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: go do it, and so that's the main challenge.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: And then in the media term, I mean other people
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: are working on other kinds of batteries, other kinds of
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: energy storage, of long duration energy storage, I mean, tell
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: me about that sort of competitive landscape, like, what are
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: the other technologies that you think are compelling in kind
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: of similar duration.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Well, that term long duration energy storage is an interesting
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: one because it is used very broadly today, and that's
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: why we actually prefer the term multi day duration storage
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: because it puts a little bit more precision around what
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: we're doing specifically. So long duration energy storage is used
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: today to refer to six hours of lithium ion.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: For you're like fat, you call that log It's like
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I get out of bed in the morning, I do think.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, you know, for litium mine, it is long
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: compared to what it used to be, but it's fairly incremental.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Well, who else is going for multi day? Like? Tell
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: me other compelling multi day storage techniques.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: So it's not so much that there's other storage technologies,
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: it's that there are other technologies that could act as
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: a substitute for what we're doing. So for example, nuclear power,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: carbon capture on thermal plants, for example, hydrogen is also
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: a possibility there. Or even if you want to transmission,
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: if we had a perfectly interconnected globe for transmission, we
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: would never need to store energy at all.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Right, Oh, interesting, right, because the sun is always shining somewhere.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: That's right. One eighth of the world is enjoying a
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: summer afternoon at all. Tests right, Yeah, So now that's
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: a thought experiment.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: And do you like I mean, obviously that's the sort
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: of limit case that's not going to happen. But when
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: you think about reasons you might not win in the
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: long run, For lack of a better word, I don't
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: love that word there. You think more about universes where
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: we don't actually need one hundred hours of storage, universe
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: where there is great carbon capture on natural gas plants,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: or more nuclear power, better transmission.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think about it quite that way. When
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: we think about competition, we need to make sure it's
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: in the context of the market that we're opp and
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: this is very much right now a non zero sum market.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: In other words, it is growing incredibly fast and large.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: And you know, the whole industry is just accelerating in
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: a way that it has not essentially since it was built.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: So we're seeing load growth, you know, four or five
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: percent or more in some cases. It hasn't been like
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: that for literally fifty or sixty years.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Well, growth is basically demand.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: For demand going up, that's right.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: And that's like electrification plus artificial intelligence. I mean, it
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: is essentially those two drivers exactly.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: That's exactly correct. Electrification of cars for you know, residential
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: applications and electrification of industrial processes. You know, very large consumers,
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: you know, transportation and industry, very large consumers of energy overall,
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: and now a lot of that is becoming electric energy
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: that they're consuming. And so our position in the market
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: is very strong because we have a solution that is
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: showing up in irrelevant timeframe and it can scale in
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: a way that our customers. These utilities need it to scale.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: They need all solutions to show up. We've yet to
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: have a conversation with any utility who says I'm only
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: going with one solution.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they're trying to build nuclear, they're trying to build
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: more natural gas, they're trying to build as much renewables
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: as they possibly can, and they're going to need this
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: kind of multiday duration storage. So it's it's such a
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: growth market for us that in some ways, if you
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: can show up with a product that meets the specification
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: on time and at scale, they will buy it just
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: about as much of it as you possibly can supply.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: So if things go the way you hope they will go,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: what will what will the world look like in whatever
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: the medium term, whatever that is for you, five years maybe.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So in five years in the industry that we're
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: in form could be a spectacular commercial success of an
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: amazing business and still have relatively small impact just because
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: of the size and scale of the industry overall. And
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: I'll give you one point of reference. The US today
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: has about twelve hundred gigawatts of installed capacity generation capacity
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: in it and over the next five years, if we
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: absolutely blow out of the water, we may make ten
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: gigawatts worth of projects, which is a lot, which is
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: a tremendous amount, right for one company to produce.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of shipping containers of iron batteries.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: That's right. And so it will take probably another ten
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: years past that to see the kind of multi day
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: stores that we're bringing into the market have a real
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: material effect in the industry. And I think that we
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: can get there for sure, but it requires scaling very
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: quickly in multiple markets Europe, Asia, Africa to be able
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: to drive the possibilities for what this kind of new
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: type of asset in the electric system can do.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: So should that make me worry about the pace of decarbonization?
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I mean, if it's you know, even if you succeed wildly,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: you know, you will be very small relative to the
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: whatever to global demand for energy. Like I get that,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: that's good for you, and in the long term it's
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: good for the world. But is it worrying in the
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: kind of short to medium term? Is it a reminder
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: of how hard decarbonization is at various margins?
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Well, it certainly is a reminder of just how hard
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: it is and how large the challenges, the scale of
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: the challenge, And another way of thinking about it is
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: to achieve the goals that have been laid out by
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: governments across the globe. Roughly one hundred and fifty trillion
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: dollars of investment are required through twenty fifty.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Also good for you, but worry also good worrying.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: The question is how quickly can we go from making
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: the plans and having the technologies that are nascent and
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: scaling up to actually implementing them at scale. And so
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: what is not so concerned to me is between twenty
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: thirty and twenty forty. I see a huge amount of
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: opportunity to scale exactly what we're talking about, and again
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: it's in all of the above scenario, So I see
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of effort that's going into just the acceleration
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: broadly speaking, and I do think that what Form is
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: bringing to the table can play a meaningful role in
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: that and it will take fifteen years to scale it up,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: and it's very possible, and we need a huge diversity
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: of resources to meet the demand. Our existence in many
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: ways is based on electricity these days, and we need
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: all the different kinds of solutions to show up, and
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: multi data, viason storage and specifically iron air batteries can
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: play a meaningful role in that entire system and not
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: only drive reliability up and cost down, but also meet
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: the goals of load growth is a really big challenge,
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: and meet the decarbonization goals of the electric system overall.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: And having this kind of asset just makes solving those
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: challenges a lot easier.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: We'll be back in a minute with the lightning round.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: That's the end of the ADS. Now, of course, it's
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: time for the lightning round, So tell me about vocational discernment.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Well, I think you're referring to the fact that I
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: went to Divinity school at one point. This is, in fact,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: right before I joined the battery industry, I went to
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: the Yale Divinity School, and Yale is a great place.
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: I did consider going into the ministry. And one of
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: the reasons why Yale me School is a great place
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: is because they put you through the vocational discernment process,
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: a very intentional process to discern if indeed the ordained
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: ministry is right for you. And I realized very early
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: on that I was not cut out at all to
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: be an ordained minister, which is which is fortunate.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: You discerned that it was not your vocation. That's right.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: It's a great thing to learn early on in the process.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: And and so I quickly realized if not that, then
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: what and and so taking those same skills, because they
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: are skills you can apply to a lot of, you know, mindsets.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: I really tried to figure out what what did I
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: want to work on? I do want to work on.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: I have always wanted to work on something that I
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: felt was meaningful and impactful, and and so for me,
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: I just kept coming back to energy for for a
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: lot of reasons. As a way to really make lives
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: better in a lot of ways.
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: One of the other elements of vocational discernment is you
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: identify sort of key features of yourself, your personality, if
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: you want. And one thing that I have come to
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: learn about myself, not just them, but over a lot
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: of time is I'm a pretty patient person for the
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: things that I think are worthwhile, and so I was
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: prepared to pursue something that I thought might take a
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: decade or two, and that's what has happened. But I've
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: stuck with it since then, and I'm glad of it.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: It's been it's been a great rite.
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: Why did you think you might want to be a priest?
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Well, what I think I want to be a priest
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: was because I am attracted to a lot of the
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: intellectual elements of religion, and that is not the vocation.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: It turns out. I'm much more attracted to problems solving
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: than problem listening, which is a large part of being
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: a being a minister. So that's what I thought, But
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: there's there. I have a huge fascination intellectually with religion
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: and with the notion of God, and it was something
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: that I wanted to spend time really thinking carefully about.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: What's something you learned in divinity school that's helpful in
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: running a company.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: So so many different things, you know, the study of
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: theology in many ways is the study of human nature.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: And one thing about batteries that I love it. You
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: know why it continues to think as a category, continue
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: to fascinate me now and half since I started, is
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: that batteries are in some ways like humans. They're all
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: flawed in some way, and there is no perfect battery,
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: and they can always be improved. That's the other thing
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: I like about them.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: That seems like a particularly Christian reader of batteries, if
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: I might say, so.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: There's there's yeah there, you know, there's no We don't
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: know the limits of how batteries can be. And if
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: you're curious enough then then then the rewards can be fantastic.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: And the also the other thing is if you find
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: the right fit for the battery, then the flaws don't
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: matter so much. And that's also sort of the way
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: humans are. Right.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: So you and John Steinbeck share a hometown, Salinas, California.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: What's one Steinbeck book? If somebody's going to read one
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: John Steinbeck book?
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: What should they read, Well, east of Eden, but that's
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: a long one, so there are shorter ones. You know.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: It sounds strange, but dubious Battle is one that really
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: stuck with me. It's about labor relations, which was like.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: The family business for you growing up, right.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my father was a lawyer for farm workers and
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: my mom was a teacher in public schools for basically
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: kids who farm workers.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: What's one thing that you wish more people understood about
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: energy or power?
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: Well, back to some of our earlier comments, just the
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: scale of the industry and this and the size of
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: things that happened. It really boggles the mind to try
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: and appreciate how big of an industry it is and
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: how much change is happening to such a large industry.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: I think it was maybe lots of people have said it,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: but I heard Jigger Shaw describe the grid as like
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: the biggest machine ever built in the history of the world,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: which is a kind of rad way to think of it.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Like it's this one giant machine, and not only is
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: it giant, it has to work all the time, right,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Like that's the other wild like you can never ever
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: turn it off, that's right.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And not only that We're matching supply and demand
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: instantaneously at all times, right, That's how the machine operates.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: So the way it operates is also just, you know,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: phenomenally complex, and it's amazing that we're able to have
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: as much reliability as we do today. And so you know,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: the grid will be reinvented, it will be rebuilt actually
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: and rebuilt again over the next thirty or four years.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: And so the scale, which is again hard to approximate,
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: but appreciating that is key to understanding the direction that
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: it will take and what will be involved to effect
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: this change.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: It's like, is it the ship of theseus? Is that
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: the one? It's like the giant, the giant like national
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: scale ship of Thesius, where it's like the whole grid
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: will be different and you won't even notice, You'll just
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: flip the switch and the lights will go on.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: That is what we're heading for for sure.
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: Matteo Hademillo is the co founder and CEO of Form Energy.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Today's show was produced by Gabriel Hunter Chang. It was
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: edited by Lyddy jen Kott and engineered by Sarah Bruguer.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: You can email us at problem at Pushkin dot FM.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein, and we'll be back next week with
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: another episode of What's Your Problem.