Date: 05/24/2021
Author: Kent Moors, Ph.D.
For some time, I have referred to the next primary breakthrough in battery technology as “The Holy Grail.” It is simply the advance that will usher in a generational transformation in energy usage and the fundamental changes that will ensue for broad areas of the economy.
The ability to store and retrieve energy in more efficient, applicative, and seamless ways will expand usage while cutting costs. That is about as “Grail-like” as it comes.
Usually, the conversation surrounds some new potential development emerging from a whole new way of looking at the problem. I usually refer to these as “silver bullets,” more akin to replacing one approach with another.
But the reality may end up being something else altogether. It recalls a distinction I often make in print between “invention” (coming up with something entirely new) and “innovation” (using something that exists already in a total new way). Most advances are innovative, not inventive.
And that may hold as well in the case of battery technology’s next step. Because the guys who are pioneering one very promising move are applying ideas from a sector having little if anything to do with batteries.
The currently private company Enovix is the case in point here. Pippa Stevens, a CNBC market and energy reporter, released yesterday (May 23) an intriguing take on what the company is doing. The approach is not coming up with something new but applying a viewpoint from someplace else entirely.
It’s no secret that batteries are becoming ever more important as they are needed to power more devices. Electric vehicles are just part of the picture. There are just those stubborn problems of cost and efficiency.
Well, Enovix is focusing on an often-ignored part of battery technology, applying elements from 3D architecture to allow a more powerful transformation in the design of lithium batteries. The company has come up with a way to utilize a 3D stack approach to replace the more commonly seen “winding structure” in lithium battery design.
The company took advantage of the rise in special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, and earlier this year announced plans to merge with Rodgers Silicon Valley Acquisition Corp. (RSVA) in a deal valued at $1.1 billion. With both market and Washington momentum behind the clean tech space, Enovix CEO Harrold Rust says: “I think some of these things are just starting to time out; now it is time to actually commercialize.”
Here is the innovation angle. As Pippa observes, Enovix was started by people who didn’t focus on batteries but were skilled in manufacturing three-dimensional architectures.
The path setting lithium-ion battery went commercial in 1991. Much of the advances since then have addressed storage capacity and unit size. Yet these have focused upon the materials within the battery not in the way the battery is structured. The basic architecture of the battery has remained essentially the same…and for twenty years at that.
In her report, Pippa explains that Enovix uses batteries with laser patterned electrodes and separators that are built into a 3D cell architecture. The usual approach has wound electrodes. Enovix’s new technique allows the creation of an all-silicon anode, rather than a standard model which is mostly graphite.
This is important because silicon is more energy efficient, and thus all important. However, it tends to crack (literally) under pressure. What Enovix has done is create a design that allows silicon to swell without cracking, thus leading to batteries with a much higher energy density.
Yet, phasing in the roll out of a change in battery technology change can become quite expensive as the scale of initial applications produce a range of problems and revisions.
As with other potential battery breakthroughs I have addressed in the past, Enovix is focusing on the consumer electronics market initially. These are high-value products that, according to CEO Rust, are “dying” for an improvement. This is a potential $13 billion market, according to CNBC. Examples include laptops, virtual reality devices, wearable electronics, and countless other products.
Still, even all this is nothing compared to electric vehicles, it is much easier to move into this market in terms of legal requirements.
Thus, the CEO says that the move into consumer electronics is a “stepping stone” into the larger EV market and is a way to achieve profitability more quickly. And the SPC boom allowed them allowed them to use a reverse merger to speed up the growth of the company.
Currently, Rogers Silicon remains the only way that a retail investor can play this merger (since Enovix remains a private company until the merger is completed).
RSVA jumped almost 100 percent shortly after the deal was made public but has retreated significantly since then. This has reflected the larger problems witnessed in the wider SPAC space.
The Rogers-Enovix development is one of several I am following in the battery and EV markets. This sector is promising. However, given the problems experienced in the valuations of post-reverse merger shares, you should wait until the merger is done before jumping in.
Subscribers to my Sigma Trader and PRISM Profits services will be benefitting from an early indication signaling mechanism developed within the Σ Algorithm trading system to identify when they are to move on SPAC-based mergers to maximize returns.
This is an installment of Classified Intelligence Brief, your guide to what’s really happening behind the headlines… and how to profit from it. Dr. Kent Moors served the United States for 30 years as one of the most highly decorated intelligence operatives alive today (including THREE Presidential commendations).
After moving through the inner circles of royalty, oligarchs, billionaires, and the uber-rich, he discovered some of the most important secrets regarding finance, geo-politics, and business. As a result, he built one of the most impressive rolodexes in the world. His insights and network of contacts took him from a Vietnam veteran to becoming one of the globe’s most sought after consultants, with clients including six of the largest energy companies and the United States government.
Now, Dr. Moors is sharing his proprietary research every week… knowledge filtered through his decades as an internationally recognized professor and scholar, intelligence operative, business consultant, investor, and geo-political “troubleshooter.” This publication is designed to give you an insider’s view of what is really happening on the geo-political stage.
You can sign up for FREE to Classified Intelligence Brief and begin receiving insights from Dr. Moors and his team immediately.
Just click here – https://classifiedintelligencebrief.com/
