The unlikely ingredient that could end U.S. dependence on Chinese batteries

Batteries that use sodium instead of lithium may allow the U.S. and its allies to create a new supply chain for energy storage taking off across the world

- Christopher Mims

The U.S. and China are in a high-stakes race, with the energy security of America and its allies hanging in the balance. It involves batteries made from the same sodium found in table salt. In both countries, researchers and companies are working furiously to make batteries that rely on a very different starting material than the lithium-ion batteries currently powering everything from our cellphones to our power grids.

Such a battery could break China's near monopoly on crucial battery-making elements at a time when trade tensions and America's electric storage needs are on a collision course.

Instead of lithium, this nascent battery tech uses a sodium compound called soda ash, which can be produced using table salt. Unlike lithium, sodium is easily accessible everywhere. Even better for the U.S. is that China must synthesize soda ash from salt, while it is cheap and plentiful here. In fact, with 92% of the world's reserves, you might even say that the U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of the stuff.

Researchers and entrepreneurs have twice failed in their attempts to turn the U.S. into a battery-making powerhouse. They are more optimistic this time, partly because they've teamed up with a bipartisan group of policymakers that is armed with incentives enacted by the current administration, and expected tariffs in the coming one.

Securing the gargantuan quantities of batteries the U.S. will need in the future is critical, given the transition to electrified transportation, as well as the essential role that battery storage has and will play in the reliability of our electrical grid.

Experts who have worked on previous revolutions in energy storage say this latest technology gives the U.S. a third crack at the problem—and that we might not get another.

A consortium of six national laboratories and eight universities just received a $50 million grant from the Energy Department to advance this technology.