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Biden’s electric vehicle plan includes battery recycling push

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President Joe Biden’s strategy to make the United States a powerhouse in electric vehicles will include boosting domestic recycling of batteries to reuse lithium and other metals, according to government officials.

As Biden makes fighting climate change and competing with China centerpieces of his agenda, the administration is set to wrap up a 100-day review on Friday of gaps in supply chains in key areas, including electric vehicles (EV).

These gaps include the minerals used in EV batteries and consumer electronics. The administration is also looking for ways to reduce metal usage in new battery chemistries.

Reports from various government agencies will be submitted to the White House, a process Biden ordered in an executive order earlier this year. Parts of the reports could be released publicly as soon as next week.

Democrats are pushing aggressive climate goals to have a majority of U.S.-manufactured cars be electric by 2030 and every car on the road to be electric by 2040.

Securing enough cobalt, lithium and other raw materials to make EV batteries is a major obstacle, with domestic mines facing extensive regulatory hurdles and environmental opposition.

Reuters reported on May 25 that Biden plans to rely on mines in ally countries to supply much of the metals needed to build EVs.

The administration’s options to spur domestic recycling include direct investment in projects and scientific research, as well as spending funds approved by Congress.

Boosting domestic recycling would help the administration further that goal by breaking down older EVs into component parts for new vehicles and thus relying less on mining.

“When you look at the way the U.S. has approached the recycling opportunity, what’s very evident is we need to invest in that capacity, we need to take a more proactive approach,” said one of the administration officials.

“A big part of the lithium opportunity is really recycling, and being a global leader in recycling the lithium from existing batteries and driving that into these new batteries.” The White House would like to see more recycling plants open in the United States, one of the officials said, noting the announcement last fall by China’s Ganfeng Lithium Co of plans to build a battery recycling plant in Mexico to supply the U.S. EV market.

EMPHASIS ON R&D The administration’s emerging strategy will also include a heavy emphasis on research and development intended to boost the use of already-mined metals, the officials said. That plan would effectively expand on ongoing research at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, which has been the focal point for much of the government’s battery recycling research. Extracting the various mineral components of a battery has proven difficult and costly in the past, and new research focuses on ways to reuse cathodes and other battery parts, according to Argonne researchers. Washington’s recycling focus comes as other regions are doing the same. The European Union is considering clamping down on exports of metal waste to encourage more regional recycling, part of an effort to become climate neutral by 2050. [L5N2NL2YZ] Global EV sales topped 2.5 million last year, a figure that’s projected to jump 70 percent for 2021 and continue to rise through 2040, according to IHS Markit forecasts. Without recycling, the EV revolution would cause 8 million tons of battery scrap to be dumped in U.S. landfills alone by 2040, according to U.S. government estimates. An April report found that recycling end-of-life batteries could cut the projected need for new sources of copper for EV batteries via mining by 55% by 2040. For lithium, the figure is 25%, and for cobalt and nickel it’s 35%. Recycling will have the added benefit of cutting the demand for new mines, said the report, which was authored by the conservation group Earthworks and the University of Technology Sydney’s Institute for Sustainable Futures.

That would help Biden avoid some battles with environmentalists and other constituencies opposed to mining. “We can power the renewable energy transition without digging new holes in the ground,” said Payal Sampat of Earthworks. Lead acid batteries were once rarely recycled, but now nearly all are broken down for reuse in internal combustion engines. Environmentalists say that could be a blueprint for the EV recycling industry. Battery recycling plants have started to slowly open up in the United States. Last fall, Amazon.com Inc invested in Redwood Materials, a Nevada-based privately held recycling firm that has signed a deal to recycle scrap and battery parts from a Tennessee-based contractor for Nissan Motor Co’s Leaf electric vehicle. Tesla Inc has said it is developing a battery recycling system at its Nevada Gigafactory. The company also contracts with third-party recyclers.

And Apple Inc has started to recycle old iPhones and other electronics at a facility in Austin, Texas. The U.S. government is also the largest shareholder in mining investment firm TechMet, which is a major investor in Canadian battery recycler Li-Cycle Corp.

Li-Cycle Corp plans to go public later this year through a merger with blank-check acquisition company Peridot Acquisition Corp, shares of which gained 6% on Friday.

 

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington and Ernest Scheyder in Houston; editing by Amran Abocar, Cynthia Osterman and Michael Perry)

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Here is how to prepare your online accounts for when you die

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LONDON (AP) — Most people have accumulated a pile of data — selfies, emails, videos and more — on their social media and digital accounts over their lifetimes. What happens to it when we die?

It’s wise to draft a will spelling out who inherits your physical assets after you’re gone, but don’t forget to take care of your digital estate too. Friends and family might treasure files and posts you’ve left behind, but they could get lost in digital purgatory after you pass away unless you take some simple steps.

Here’s how you can prepare your digital life for your survivors:

Apple

The iPhone maker lets you nominate a “ legacy contact ” who can access your Apple account’s data after you die. The company says it’s a secure way to give trusted people access to photos, files and messages. To set it up you’ll need an Apple device with a fairly recent operating system — iPhones and iPads need iOS or iPadOS 15.2 and MacBooks needs macOS Monterey 12.1.

For iPhones, go to settings, tap Sign-in & Security and then Legacy Contact. You can name one or more people, and they don’t need an Apple ID or device.

You’ll have to share an access key with your contact. It can be a digital version sent electronically, or you can print a copy or save it as a screenshot or PDF.

Take note that there are some types of files you won’t be able to pass on — including digital rights-protected music, movies and passwords stored in Apple’s password manager. Legacy contacts can only access a deceased user’s account for three years before Apple deletes the account.

Google

Google takes a different approach with its Inactive Account Manager, which allows you to share your data with someone if it notices that you’ve stopped using your account.

When setting it up, you need to decide how long Google should wait — from three to 18 months — before considering your account inactive. Once that time is up, Google can notify up to 10 people.

You can write a message informing them you’ve stopped using the account, and, optionally, include a link to download your data. You can choose what types of data they can access — including emails, photos, calendar entries and YouTube videos.

There’s also an option to automatically delete your account after three months of inactivity, so your contacts will have to download any data before that deadline.

Facebook and Instagram

Some social media platforms can preserve accounts for people who have died so that friends and family can honor their memories.

When users of Facebook or Instagram die, parent company Meta says it can memorialize the account if it gets a “valid request” from a friend or family member. Requests can be submitted through an online form.

The social media company strongly recommends Facebook users add a legacy contact to look after their memorial accounts. Legacy contacts can do things like respond to new friend requests and update pinned posts, but they can’t read private messages or remove or alter previous posts. You can only choose one person, who also has to have a Facebook account.

You can also ask Facebook or Instagram to delete a deceased user’s account if you’re a close family member or an executor. You’ll need to send in documents like a death certificate.

TikTok

The video-sharing platform says that if a user has died, people can submit a request to memorialize the account through the settings menu. Go to the Report a Problem section, then Account and profile, then Manage account, where you can report a deceased user.

Once an account has been memorialized, it will be labeled “Remembering.” No one will be able to log into the account, which prevents anyone from editing the profile or using the account to post new content or send messages.

X

It’s not possible to nominate a legacy contact on Elon Musk’s social media site. But family members or an authorized person can submit a request to deactivate a deceased user’s account.

Passwords

Besides the major online services, you’ll probably have dozens if not hundreds of other digital accounts that your survivors might need to access. You could just write all your login credentials down in a notebook and put it somewhere safe. But making a physical copy presents its own vulnerabilities. What if you lose track of it? What if someone finds it?

Instead, consider a password manager that has an emergency access feature. Password managers are digital vaults that you can use to store all your credentials. Some, like Keeper,Bitwarden and NordPass, allow users to nominate one or more trusted contacts who can access their keys in case of an emergency such as a death.

But there are a few catches: Those contacts also need to use the same password manager and you might have to pay for the service.

___

Is there a tech challenge you need help figuring out? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your questions.

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Google’s partnership with AI startup Anthropic faces a UK competition investigation

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LONDON (AP) — Britain’s competition watchdog said Thursday it’s opening a formal investigation into Google’s partnership with artificial intelligence startup Anthropic.

The Competition and Markets Authority said it has “sufficient information” to launch an initial probe after it sought input earlier this year on whether the deal would stifle competition.

The CMA has until Dec. 19 to decide whether to approve the deal or escalate its investigation.

“Google is committed to building the most open and innovative AI ecosystem in the world,” the company said. “Anthropic is free to use multiple cloud providers and does, and we don’t demand exclusive tech rights.”

San Francisco-based Anthropic was founded in 2021 by siblings Dario and Daniela Amodei, who previously worked at ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The company has focused on increasing the safety and reliability of AI models. Google reportedly agreed last year to make a multibillion-dollar investment in Anthropic, which has a popular chatbot named Claude.

Anthropic said it’s cooperating with the regulator and will provide “the complete picture about Google’s investment and our commercial collaboration.”

“We are an independent company and none of our strategic partnerships or investor relationships diminish the independence of our corporate governance or our freedom to partner with others,” it said in a statement.

The U.K. regulator has been scrutinizing a raft of AI deals as investment money floods into the industry to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom. Last month it cleared Anthropic’s $4 billion deal with Amazon and it has also signed off on Microsoft’s deals with two other AI startups, Inflection and Mistral.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Kuwait bans ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’ video game, likely over it featuring Saddam Hussein in 1990s

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The tiny Mideast nation of Kuwait has banned the release of the video game “Call of Duty: Black Ops 6,” which features the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and is set in part in the 1990s Gulf War.

Kuwait has not publicly acknowledged banning the game, which is a tentpole product for the Microsoft-owned developer Activision and is set to be released on Friday worldwide. However, it comes as Kuwait still wrestles with the aftermath of the invasion and as video game makers more broadly deal with addressing historical and cultural issues in their work.

The video game, a first-person shooter, follows CIA operators fighting at times in the United States and also in the Middle East. Game-play trailers for the game show burning oilfields, a painful reminder for Kuwaitis who saw Iraqis set fire to the fields, causing vast ecological and economic damage. Iraqi troops damaged or set fire to over 700 wells.

There also are images of Saddam and Iraq’s old three-star flag in the footage released by developers ahead of the game’s launch. The game’s multiplayer section, a popular feature of the series, includes what appears to be a desert shootout in Kuwait called Scud after the Soviet missiles Saddam fired in the war. Another is called Babylon, after the ancient city in Iraq.

Activision acknowledged in a statement that the game “has not been approved for release in Kuwait,” but did not elaborate.

“All pre-orders in Kuwait will be cancelled and refunded to the original point of purchase,” the company said. “We remain hopeful that local authorities will reconsider, and allow players in Kuwait to enjoy this all-new experience in the Black Ops series.”

Kuwait’s Media Ministry did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press over the decision.

“Call of Duty,” which first began in 2003 as a first-person shooter set in World War II, has expanded into an empire worth billions of dollars now owned by Microsoft. But it also has been controversial as its gameplay entered the realm of geopolitics. China and Russia both banned chapters in the franchise. In 2009, an entry in the gaming franchise allowed players to take part in a militant attack at a Russian airport, killing civilians.

But there have been other games recently that won praise for their handling of the Mideast. Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed: Mirage” published last year won praise for its portrayal of Baghdad during the Islamic Golden Age in the 9th century.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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