Sound Track to a Financial Advisor's Life Episode 13 with Mitch Ball
This material is provided as a courtesy and for educational purposes only from Olde Raleigh Financial Group, A member of Advisory Services Network and should not be construed as investment advice. All information contained in this video is derived from sources deemed to be reliable but cannot be guaranteed. All economic and performance data is historical and not indicative of future results. All views/opinions expressed in this video are solely those of the presenter and do not reflect the views/opinions held by Advisory Services Network, LLC. Advisory Services Network, LLC does not provide tax advice. The tax information contained herein is general and is not exhaustive by nature. Federal and state laws are complex and constantly changing. Please consult your investment professional, legal or tax advisor for specific information pertaining to your situation.
The World Dominated by Batteries: Can we meet the demand and not crush the environment? A conversation with battery researcher and nanotechnologist Mitch Ball.
Our ongoing series of podcasts regarding the energy sector has led us to batteries. If the U.S. fleet of cars and trucks goes “green” over the next couple of decades, batteries will likely be one of the main power sources. So, we thought it prudent to talk to someone who lives, eats and breathes this stuff. Beyond being a nice young man, Mitch works the Jeff Dahn Research Group where he and his colleagues work with researchers from all over to push the boundaries of battery tech. This was a fascinating conversation that centered largely on understanding what it takes to put in a battery and what happens after the battery is spent. We focused quite a bit of time on car batteries but according to our guy Mitch storage of energy in batteries is big and will grow exponentially as things progress.
So why would a financial advisor in Raleigh, North Carolina care about batteries? In an ESG world where fewer and fewer asset allocation strategies include fossil fuels-based companies one must ask where will the funds for “energy” investments flow? The likely short answer is “clean energies” that will include batteries. My question is, just how “clean” are batteries and what big technological breakthroughs needed to really make the mobility sector switch to all electric? Here are some other areas we covered:
What do you need to make a battery for a car and what is the life cycle of that battery?
Where do all the ingredients for a battery come from?
What is the state of the art in batteries these days?
What makes Lithium so special?
Can we make batteries efficient enough to give acceptable range distances?
Can we charge batteries quicker?
Fake News in the land of battery startups?
We hope you enjoy this one.
CHAMBERS: Hey everybody. This is Trevor Chambers with Olde Raleigh Financial Group. Once again, we’re going to record another track on The Soundtrack to a Financial Advisors Life, here in Raleigh North Carolina. And today, I’d like to look behind me and say, Mitch, can you see the sun behind – can you see the sun behind me here? I mean we got sun --
BALL: It is quite sunny.
CHAMBERS: Yeah man. So, Mitch, I’m going – I didn’t pregame this in our discussion prior to hitting record here but I gotta (sic) ask you a question, man. You’re in Nova Scotia, right?
BALL: Uh huh (yes).
CHAMBERS: So, where – just for the silly Americans that don’t – that maybe generally don’t know exactly where that is. Can you just tell me exactly where Nova Scotia is?
BALL: So, you go to Maine and then you just keep on going.
CHAMBERS: You just keep on going. Yes. I pulled it out on a map and I still had to be like, okay, that’s where it is. But, you – that is a cool – that’s a cool little area and – and you guys (inaudible). This is the question I want to ask. When you go out to lunch, where do you go? Where’s the cool place that you go? I didn’t mean to spring this on you. It’s a big question. And I want you to shout it out and I’m going to write it down and I’m going to do a little link to them in my – in this podcast because I just like – I like food, you know. What can I tell you?
BALL: All right. This probably – this probably is a little bit of my bias from my background but there is a place called Charger Burger, pretty close to the University. And I work with batteries so like it’s called charger, right.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: That’s why I referenced that.
CHAMBERS: Oh, nice. Charger Burger.
BALL: Yeah.
CHAMBERS: Okay, we’ll put a link into that. So, anyway guys, today we’re going to talk energy. We’ve done several podcasts about energy and I got this guy, Mitch Ball, with me and he’s going to introduce himself here in a second. But, the thing – this is – this whole thing today is going to be about batteries. Energy, obviously is like a big deal, right now. You’re hearing about all sorts of crazy stuff going on with energy. You know, like China is scrambling to get enough, you know, source of energy to get through the winter. You know, England is under pressure right now with – with – with, you know, energy issues and lack thereof. And so, I’ve been talking to a lot of people about energy, Mitch, so. Let me – let me just introduce you. So, Mitch Ball. I found Mitch Ball, I was searching for battery researchers and Mitch works for The Jeff Dahn Research Group up in Nova Scotia. And, what I’m going to do is I’m going to do just a brief couple sentences on him and then Mitch, you can take over. So, Mitch is a researcher and he is – specializes in nickel rich positive electrode – electrode materials. Okay, so this guy’s kind of a material, science guy and he – and he studied chemistry and specific nanotechnology engineering. So, what we like to say is that I went to school with a bunch of engineering people in chemistry myself, so we’ve – we’ve got ourself a smarty pants. It’s a smarty pants alert right now on this guy and he’s put a lot of time – he’s a young guy. And you – is this your first full time gig up there?
BALL: In Halifax, yeah.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: I mean, yeah, I’ve done a little bit during my undergrads I took a number of internships. It was kind of like a half study, half co-op deal.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: So, extra-long undergrad.
CHAMBERS: Nice. Nice. So – so – so give me – so, Mitch Ball, so where are you from? And then, yeah, where did you go to school? Like tell me, just give me the brief background and then we can jump into questions.
BALL: Sure. Sure. So, I was born in Toronto, Canada. Although, I moved around quite a bit as a kid throughout the northeastern part of the states. And, yeah, after I graduated high school, I went to the University of Waterloo, back in Ontario. And, I spent five years there getting my undergrad done with internships in between. And there I discovered the wonderful world of batteries and it’s – it’s – I didn’t know I was going to get into batteries when I started UNI but now it’s – it’s definitely my passion. Yeah.
CHAMBERS: Yeah, why batteries? I mean, you know, you can get into – what was the –
BALL: Yeah, so one of the big things for me, I really care about climate change, right?
CHAMBERS: Uh huh (yes).
BALL: And that means if we’re going to solve climate change, we need to really do quite a bit about changing our energy infrastructure. So, my degree, nanotech engineering, it’s just a fancy word for chemistry.
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: It – there’s a number of technologies that are associated with solving climate change. Batteries are part of it. I was also interested in like solar panels as well. That’s something I could have gotten into but I, yeah, I kinda (sic) fell into batteries and it’s just very important both for replacing our gas vehicles with electric vehicles as well as giving us grid storage, electrical grid storage. Because a lot of our renewable energies are not consistent. You only get sunlight during the day, you know.
CHAMBERS: Yeah, exactly. That’s – that’s, you know, that type of – that’s what England is facing right now. They just didn’t have the bumper crop of wind apparently among other things and I know there’s lots of other factors to it. I’m actually talking to a guy next week from London about all this stuff, so, who kind of follows this – really follows the politics. I’ve interviewed him before. But anyway, yeah, so it’s – it’s a great time and I really want to focus on batteries because of a lot of reasons. So, because I just think it – it’s obviously going to be a part of it but let’s peel it back. I want to – I want to – okay, so let me jump into this here. And I might be jumping around a little bit on our – what we, you know, on our questions here. At least, the schedule here. But I actually just like to say, let’s talk about a battery. Let’s talk about the nuts and bolts of a battery. And I know you don’t work on Tesla’s battery but in general, okay, can you just take me through what’s in a – like the lifecycle of a battery from the time that it’s, you know, stuffs sourced out of the ground, you know, like and then put into the battery. What’s that process like and then how long does a battery last, like a Tesla battery, you know? I think – and I only want to say that because – I only want to use that as a reference point, Mitch because so many people know that brand and know what, you know, they’re driving obviously a lot of this stuff, you know what I mean. But anyways, so can you kinda (sic) just talk to me about that a little bit? Talk to us a little bit about that?
BALL: Yeah. I mean, yeah there’s a lot of different types of batteries and yet I can’t speak specifically –
CHAMBERS: Yes.
BALL: -- about what Tesla does. But I can speak about the general market.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: And also, just a small disclaimer, any sort of numbers I give out are not from my own person. They’re from articles that I just found reputable, right.
CHAMBERS: Right. Exactly. Exactly.
BALL: But, yeah, there’s, you know, there’s two major types of batteries when we’re talking about electrical vehicles and looking forwards to the future, electrical vehicles are going to be where most batteries go. Just simply because we have phone batteries, right? But phones are small. They don’t take that much energy compared to a car which is a giant hunk of steel, you know. So, in the future, most batteries by mass will be in cars. And there’s – there’s two kinds of major battery technologies that you’ll find in cars. They are NMC and LFP. So, NMC stands for nickel, manganese and cobalt. And this is pretty high density. This is state of the art. It’s, you know, most commonly used within the electrical vehicles you’ll find nowadays. Now traditionally, these batteries used to be just cobalt alone. But nickel and manganese have been added over time. And it improves performance and reduces cost. But they’re just harder to make. And people really want to get cobalt out now because cobalt is quite rare. It’s expensive and most of it actually comes from the democratic, Republic of Congo, where there’s a lot of human rights concerns over it because it’s mined underground. There’s a lot of child labor. They’ll be using hand tools and it’s very damaging to the health of the people around it. And also, you know, like diamonds in that area funded some pretty terrible wars like the second Congo war, which not a lot of people know but was actually the deadliest war after WW II.
CHAMBERS: Not good. So, that’s – so that’s cobalt?
BALL: Yeah.
CHAMBERS: That’s cobalt?
BALL: Yeah.
CHAMBERS: So –
BALL: People are trying to get off cobalt.
CHAMBERS: So, lithium? So where – yeah, so that and moving -- okay so, and where does – where do we get a lot of that lithium? I think China, or where are we at with that?
BALL: Yeah, so I think right now, most – I’m sorry, not most lithium, but the plurality of lithium comes from Australia and open pit mining. But there’s also a lot of lithium coming from Southern South America in a place called the lithium triangle. So, this is countries like Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. And it’s mined there through an uncommon mining technique called chryno evaporation. So, you’ll actually have water, very briny water, salty water, come out of the ground and then they evaporate it and then, you know, dig up the evaporated bits and then they process that. And, you know, lithium, very, very soluble in water. It dissolves in water very easily. So, you don’t actually have to dig up the entire, the level of mountain, you can just, you know, let water flow in. Dry it up. Dig up what’s dried up and then let more water flow in.
CHAMBERS: So, what – so what – so, you know, lithium ion, but what else is in there? Like, what else is in a battery? Okay, so you get the – get the lithium and then what do you do with it?
BALL: Yeah, so, typically a battery is made up of four major parts. You’ve got the cathode which is the positive side. And that’s – that’s where the NMC is stored. Then you have the anode which is the negative side and that’s typically just carbon, graphite, you know, the kind of stuff that you have in a pencil.
CHAMBERS: Okay.
BALL: And as well you have the separator which is very thin piece that sits between those two that allows the lithium to move from cathode to anode to anode to cathode. But it doesn’t allow electricity to move, so it only allows the lithium to move through it. And then lastly you have the electrolyte which is just a liquid that all of this sits in.
CHAMBERS: Okay.
BALL: So, it’s all kind of wet. It’s not water. But it is a liquid.
CHAMBERS: Okay, okay, okay.
BALL: Yeah.
CHAMBERS: And then is there – is there copper in that type of battery as well or is there copper – there’s copper in batteries in general, right?
BALL: Yeah. Copper is often used as the element that conducts electricity so –
CHAMBERS: Got it.
BALL: -- you will coat some of your anode or cathode material on copper. It’s not always copper. Sometimes it is copper.
CHAMBERS: Okay.
BALL: Yeah.
CHAMBERS: Okay. And there’s – what’s the deal with copper? Do you have any sense of – I mean, so like a – a battery that would be used in a car that would have quite a bit of lithium in it and copper in it and all that stuff, so. Do you have any sense of where we’re at with copper and supply chains and where that’s coming – is that again coming out of that triangle or is there – what’s the deal with copper? Because here’s why I ask these questions. Because I just don’t know – is there enough accessible copper or, you know, or what implications is that going to be if there isn’t on the global supply, I mean on the, you know, on those places that do have it.
BALL: Right. I don’t think there’s that much concern over copper –
CHAMBERS: Okay.
BALL: -- because it doesn’t make up as much of the battery as other things.
CHAMBERS: Okay.
BALL: And typically, a lot of these things, you need exactly this much of this, this much of this. It’s like bacon, right.
CHAMBERS: Okay.
BALL: You can’t just accidently put in two cups of flour when you need one.
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: So that means that you’re always going to have one element that your limiting factor that’s bottle necking you.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: Right now, people are saying it’s mostly cobalt and it’s you know, it’s just the most expensive rarest part of the battery right now. People think maybe it’s lithium in the future. Other people think maybe it’s nickel, right. Nickel is – nickel – we have a decent amount of that as well. But you know in the future, as more and more batteries need to get made, we might have less nickel. And it’s – it’s also interesting because it’s not the kind of mineral that we typically have dedicated mines for. Sometimes there are dedicated mines for it but it’s very often dug up with other minerals and it’s a biproduct that we process as well along with the other minerals that we dig up.
CHAMBERS: Is – what is – does China produce – I know China does rare earths and is big into that world. And I know Australia is, so obviously we have a lot of static going on with China. So, I would assume that those supply chains will just – seems like, you know, people are reconsidering supply chains in some areas out of China, pretty, you know. So, we could see that?
BALL: Yeah –
CHAMBERS: Or are you guys seeing that at all, or what?
BALL: I don’t think -- China of course has some nickel. A lot of places have nickel.
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: I don’t think it’s one of the places where nickel is most centralized though.
CHAMBERS: Okay.
BALL: You’ll find it in mostly Australia, Brazil, Russia and a little fun fact, New Caledonia. Which you’re like, okay where is New Caledonia?
CHAMBERS: Yeah, no, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, this is interesting. Go ahead.
BALL: So New Caledonia is – it’s a series of very small islands off of Australia. It’s owned by France and they actually have more nickel than nearly every other country on earth. The only countries that have more nickel are Australia, Brazil and Russia. But this small series of islands, more nickel there than there is in the US. More nickel there than there is in Canada.
CHAMBERS: Wow.
BALL: Yeah. Like it’s tiny but it’s just tons and tons of nickel, yeah.
CHAMBERS: So, we’re going long on Caledonia, is what you’re telling me. They’re going to have a future. That kid could have a future down there.
BALL: Well, I know there is nickel mining there and I know they have been subject to some boom-and-bust periods.
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: I’m not sure what the futures going to look like for them, I mean I hope well for them, you know. You hope well –
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: -- for everyone, right.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: Yeah.
CHAMBERS: So, this kind of – so let’s pivot to this. And I think I know the answer from your point of view, but, and I pose this to you, you know, earlier is like, net net -- will going to batteries create more of an environmental – because we didn’t talk about the, you know, what do we do with the battery after it’s lived its life, right? Like what happens? And that, so net net, you know, what possible damage could we – could we do worse damage? Could we be replacing one environmental issue with another and that happens. We – you and I discussed this earlier, like it happens. There’s plenty of times in history where things – you just – you take one thing away and then you put in another and then it’s just as – the thing that you put in is just as bad as the – you know what I mean? And that’s one of the things that as we go to this, because, you know, there’s a lot of resistance politically to moving off hydrocarbons. It’s probably going to happen and I’m not saying it shouldn’t but are we – that’s the – I’m just – one of the things I wanted to flesh out is, okay, so we do all these batteries and at the end of the day, you know, fifty years from now, we’re left with a pile of batteries everywhere on the planet, like – is that – you know, so could you comment on that?
BALL: Yeah. Yeah, so I mean this is like a valid concern and people will often argue against electric vehicles with this in mind. But I’m going to refer to a really, really big statistical model from Argon National Laboratories, which is the US department of energies like big flagship lab. In my field, if you work there, that’s like – that’s quite a brag, you know. And, from their model, we can look at two cars that are, you know, fairly similar. Tesla Model 3 versus Toyota Corolla and the model 3 will pollute, in terms of hydrocarbon pollution, less than Toyota Corolla after 13,500 miles. Which isn’t that much. You could probably get through that in a year, right?
CHAMBERS: Yeah. That’s a year. Yeah.
BALL: Yeah. And then, well, I mean if that’s a year, then five years later it pollutes half as much. And this is just because EVs, electric vehicles, are a bit more energy intensive in terms of their production. So, their initial cost to the environment is more, it’s about 50 percent more, according to this model. But over time as they’re used, they’re a lot a lot less pollutive. And this is just simply because they are a lot more energy efficient. So, an electric vehicle might be around 75 percent efficient in converting energy from the grid in the form of electricity to mechanical energy of driving your car. Whereas a gas vehicle, it’s going to max out at 30 percent probably less than that.
CHAMBERS: Wow.
BALL: Yeah. And you should consider the energy efficiency of, you know, fueling the grid as well. So, like a natural gas plant, it will be like 60 percent efficient. But even then, electric vehicles are just a lot more energy efficient.
CHAMBERS: So, 70 percent versus 30 net on net? That’s pretty significant. Roughly?
BALL: Yeah. I – I’d bring it down to like -- you should consider the – how to power the electrical grid as well, so all –
CHAMBERS: Yeah. Right.
BALL: -- I’d bring that down to 50 versus –
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: -- 25, 20, you know.
CHAMBERS: Got it.
BALL: Yeah.
CHAMBERS: That’s still pretty significant.
BALL: It’s significant, regardless. The exact numbers aren’t that --
CHAMBERS: Right. Got it. Okay. So, then the Tesla 3, we, you know, first of all, you know, how long does those batteries last and then the big question is what happens to them? Can you recycle them? Or what the hell happens to those things?
BALL: Yeah. So, hopefully they last as long as possible and that’s a big part about battery researchers making sure your battery lasts very long. It’s also one of the more difficult parts to research because the only way to really make sure your battery lasts long is to test it for as long as possible.
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: So, it takes a lot of time. And there’s ways you can kind of get around that, that I won’t go into. But after you’re done making, you know, after the battery is all used up, and used up is kinda (sic) a strong word. It’s just the battery is not as good as it used to be.
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: But at some point, yeah –
CHAMBERS: Okay.
BALL: -- even a car, you need to take it apart, right?
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: And then you can recycle the battery because it does have, you know, a few toxic elements to it.
CHAMBERS: Oh yeah.
BALL: But it’s also got a lot of valuable materials, so people do want to recycle this and there are companies that are focused on recycling batteries. There’s kinda (sic) three major processes in which you would recycle a battery. There is the first two which are kinda (sic) similar, pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical and pyro stands for fire. That means you heat it up as hot as possible until you’ve got everything burnt off and separated.
CHAMBERS: Okay.
BALL: And hydrometallurgical means that you dissolve it in some sort of solvents, maybe like sulfuric acid.
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: And both of these can be fairly energy intensive to do. Now companies are clearly, you know, investing these technologies because they think that in the end, they’ll end up making more money, right? So, it’s still a net positive but the third way which I think we should probably lean more towards. It’s a bit more difficult but it’s direct recycling and this means rather than taking a whole bunch of batteries, just miscellaneous batteries, grinding them up and then processing them, you instead take the batteries and because you know what they are, you know what’s inside them, you take them apart into their individual pieces and then you process those pieces. But you need to know exactly what kind of battery you’re working with there, so –
CHAMBERS: Right. Right.
BALL: -- the hope is is that the companies that make these batteries will also recycle them or have a very, very close relationship with the companies that do recycle them in order to –
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: -- make this possible. But there’s just a lot of work that needs to be done to make this like a well-developed system.
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: You know, close (inaudible).
CHAMBERS: So, all that stuff is still in -- getting figured out.
BALL: Yeah.
CHAMBERS: That back end. Because the back end is, I mean, that’s super important. I mean, you certainly don’t want to – I hear what you’re saying about the – it’s going to be dissolved in – some of this is going to get dissolved out in hydrochloric, you know, and then where does all that stuff go? You know what I mean, like, I’m sure that there’s – because there’s – I mean, that – that – the chemistry of that can be really good but it can also be very detrimental to the environment, for sure. So, and that’s kinda (sic) why I was, you know, getting at. Like the full cycle of it, but the bottom line is they can recycle pretty – they can really do, if we focus on it, they can do quite a bit of – quite a good job of recycling those batteries and getting as much out of them as possible, okay.
BALL: Yeah. Yeah.
CHAMBERS: All right, just out of curiosity, what – one of the things that we – why we went to oil was it, you know, the oil density – the energy density in oil is pretty impressive. I don’t know exactly what the numbers are but, and that’s why we went to it, right? So, in a gallon of oil, you can get X, whatever amount of energy out of it to do whatever. Comparatively speaking, where are we at with batteries and where are we going to be in five years or ten years? And how much better do we gotta (sic) be? You know what I mean, like to really – to move the needle.
BALL: Right. Yeah, so you are correct that energy stored in like your typical gasoline is more energy dense than your typical battery and energy density has been something that people are working on. It’s one of those things like, the total lifetime that people are trying to improve. Right now, when we look at like a, you know, standard NMC battery off the market and compare it to the theoretical limit of how good it could be. Like the – at a certain point it’s impossible to put more energy into it. But theoretically you could get to 99 percent of that. It looks like we might have like 30 percent more energy density if we really hit that ideal limit and that’s very broad number. It totally depends on what battery you’re looking at.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: That’s just the cathode side though. On the anode side, we have graphite that’s usually the material. But some companies are looking at using silicone instead. I actually worked for one of these companies and I will say, here, again, none of my experience there informs these numbers. I’m just reading off a tech --
CHAMBERS: Yeah, I got you.
BALL: -- (inaudible).
CHAMBERS: I got you. I got you.
BALL: But yeah, they recently released a product and they claim it’s a 17 percent improvement in energy density on the anode side. So, we can keep expanding the energy density. Now the question is do we really need it? It could be very useful for things like air travel because jet fuel is very, very energy dense. It’s one of the most energy dense hydrocarbon fuels, out there. But in terms of electric vehicles, we can see that range has improved quite a bit. Even just the last five years.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: For example, the first Nissan Leaf five years ago had a range of about 70 to 80 miles.
CHAMBERS: Really?
BALL: Yeah, and now, with the new Nissan Leaf the second generation can go over 200 miles. And although that range is due to energy density, some of it’s just due to better architecture for storing the batteries. So, you can put bigger batteries within your vehicle but it’s becoming to the point now where range isn’t as big as a concern as it used to be. So, one of the things that is also still a concern that people want to improve in order to encourage people to buy, more electric vehicles is the rate at which you charge the vehicle.
CHAMBERS: Yeah. I wanted you to get to that. Thank you for bringing that up.
BALL: Yeah, so gas vehicles you just – you go to a gas station, you fill it up, and it doesn’t take much time at all whereas charging an electric vehicle, you know, it might take a long time and people charge them up at home so, or like they’ll have a charger at work, hopefully. You know, more and more chargers are getting built.
CHAMBERS: Yep.
BALL: But, and it’s – it’s totally fine if you’re just, you know, letting the car sit and you’re not using it. But sometimes people want to take long trips and so they want to charge as quickly as possible and so the speed at which we charge is another area that people are looking to improve with the batteries.
CHAMBERS: What’s the – are we basically going to have to go out and either, I mean, do you think that the charging stations will just attach to the gas stations for a while? I mean, like how do – how’s that going to – I know that Tesla like has whole – their whole network and all that. I mean, is GM going to have to build out their network? Or, I mean – how – do you have any sense of how they’re going to do these charging stations?
BALL: My hope is –
CHAMBERS: And – and also, I didn’t mean – no -- and there’s that and also before I forget, like what’s the big like – do we need to get a big – is there a huge breakthrough that has to happen that’s way off on the horizon to get that charging time down and, or is there any other like way out, you know, event that’s got that, you know, we have to get over technical? So, then the first question is charging stations, how – do you have any – and then also what’s the big breakthrough that we gotta (sic) make? Like what’s the hang up right now, in your world?
BALL: So, I’d say, in terms of improving charging rate, I don’t think there’s going to be like one big movement. It’s probably a lot of incremental –
CHAMBERS: Okay.
BALL: -- adjustments over time that will –
CHAMBERS: Okay.
BALL: -- just keep improving. In terms of charging stations, I would hope that every car would be able to have the same plug, right?
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: We know that’s like, you know, charging your phone. That’s not always the case, right?
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: Some phones have different plugs than others. In terms of building the network though, I can say that building a charging station is a lot less intensive than building a gas station.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: So, we have a lot of gas stations everywhere. We’ve spent a lot of time building gas stations.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: They’re where we need them at this point. But, yeah charging stations, you have to – people are building them up very quickly because they haven’t traditionally been around. And yeah, I would hope you’d have one at every gas station. It might be – you can also put them at like a parking lot, say because they just take up a lot less space.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: You know, perhaps in the future, you’ll go to the grocery store and they’ll be some spots that are also charging spots and you can plug your car in there --
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: -- and pay like cash or credit card.
CHAMBERS: You’re seeing that.
BALL: Yeah. Yeah.
CHAMBERS: Yeah. You just have a credit card and – wonder what that would cost to fill up?
BALL: Very, variable on the cost of energy.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: And we’ll see where the cost of energy goes in the future as well, right?
CHAMBERS: Well, that is exactly why I’m having you on because all this is the cost of energy and we have to have energy to make the modern world and the economy run which is relevant to all of us as investors. And this is my point of doing this stuff because energy is the – I mean it just – it’s the base track, I like to say of the economy. And I know that’s this really big, stupid, general idea but I just don’t – I think that, I mean, England is a perfect example. Those guys are really – and China, I mean they really got their kinda (sic) backs to the wall on energy. And you know, if you think about it, if I can set up – if I’m looking at setting up shop in England at a factory versus setting up shop someplace else, I’ve got to start thinking, like well, are they going to have enough freaking energy for me to run my manufacturing? You know what I mean? Like, this is what we’re talking about. And that cuts into efficiency and all that stuff, you know what I mean. And it’s really, really, really important that we keep an eye on these things and that’s why I want to talk to you about it. By the way, like, how long has, and this is just kind of a curious (sic), like the history of batteries, like the, like a battery – I mean when I would think of batteries, okay, I think back. I was born in 1970 and about 1977 I got like a remote control, like a Camaro remote control car and it took – the remote took at least a nine volt and then the others took the little skinny ones, whatever those – AAs. You know what I mean?
BALL: There’s AAs and AAAs, yeah.
CHAMBERS: Yeah, and I remember like, you know, god we’d go through batteries like crazy in that thing and I still have it, actually. It’s, you know, it’s pretty cool but like when did that, that type of battery arrive on the scene? Was that like a WWII thing? Or – do you have any idea about that?
BALL: I will say that it’s before 1977 because you told –
CHAMBERS: Yeah, of course.
BALL: -- me. I actually don’t know. I think –
CHAMBERS: Let’s look that up. If you – go ahead.
BALL: Yeah. The invention of the AA.
CHAMBERS: I mean, just like batteries that you use like in a household, you know what I mean, like I wonder like, you know, like – it’s it’s a tangential thing and it’s not really that important to our conversation but I just kinda (sic), you know, like that’s what people think of, is batteries, you know what I mean. And now we got to start thinking about them and putting them in cars, you know what I mean. And how long is this, you know, obviously this chemistry has been around a long time and you can make simple batteries out of simple stuff, right. I mean it’s just an electrical charge. It’s not like it’s, you know – but –
BALL: Yeah, you can make a battery out of a penny, a dime –
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: -- and some paper and some salty water.
CHAMBERS: Yeah. It must have been so cool to study this stuff when you were coming up. I mean, you know what I mean. It’s just interesting to me. Now, that being said, that kind of leads me – and we’ll come back to the history of batteries. We’ll figure it out. I know you’ll find something with your big brain up there and you’ll send it to me, so (inaudible).
BALL: Well, I’ve got the number on the screen right now.
CHAMBERS: Yeah, there you go. Yeah, all right. What is it?
BALL: It’s 1959.
CHAMBERS: Okay.
BALL: Eveready developed the first commercially viable, cylindrical alkaline battery.
CHAMBERS: Got it.
BALL: So, post war.
CHAMBERS: Post war. Okay, got it. Okay, cool.
BALL: Now, that leads me perfectly. What – what’s happening in battery culture, you know, that you’re finding to be interesting and, you know, what’s coming to the globe in terms of – are we going to look at something and not recognize something as a battery in the near future? Like, what’s – is it size, is it, what’s going on that you’re kinda (sic) interested in from a battery culture point of view without giving up too many secrets. You mentioned a company called Sila?
BALL: Yeah, Sila, yeah. Sila was the company I worked at, you know, in California and they’re working on the silicone anode. The actual material inside the battery doesn’t really have that much impact upon what the battery looks like. Sometimes they come in cylinders like what people think of in terms of your AA battery. Sometimes they’re more rectangular, you know a lot of the times, they exist in products and you don’t see the physical battery, you know. Like I know I’ve taken my laptop apart and it’s got a really thin long rectangular battery. But I wouldn’t know that unless I took it apart.
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: Yeah.
CHAMBERS: So, the – yeah, go ahead.
BALL: Oh, I mean, I guess you also mentioned battery culture.
CHAMBERS: Yeah, that’s what I mean, like, yeah. Like, what’s cool that you, see? Even if you’re not working on it, maybe there’s some other team that’s working on it. You know, something. That’s really cool. I mean, and the implications of that, you know.
BALL: Well, I think the fact that there even is a battery culture is kind of interesting. Because they’re definitely is.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: And honestly, I don’t participate much in it. There’s a lot of like social media talk, right? It – so I will say, like battery technology right now, there’s a lot of research, it’s very fast paced. And if you really want to keep up with it, you need to kinda (sic) do it like a very dedicated hobby, right.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: And you also need to be very cautious of misinformation. So, what will happen is people will, you know, be on twitter. A lot of times researchers like to post their articles on twitter so they get more people looking at them and you’ll have dedicated accounts that are just focused on like, maybe Green Technology as a whole but maybe just batteries as well. And there’s a lot of people who are very excited about this. Yeah, misinformation when we think about misinformation, it’s political. That’s what people, you know, when they hear misinformation, they think political nowadays. That’s part of it. But a lot of it is just people who are very excited about this technology and they’ll be – they’ll have like their favorite type of battery technology and they’re really like hoping that that’s the one that takes off. So, it’s kind of a horse race and people picked their horses and sometimes people can be a little blinded by which horse they want to win, you know.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: The other thing is there’s a lot of money going into battery technology. A lot of startups coming and these are funded by venture capitalists who might have some technical background –
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: -- but maybe not as much and so you’ll have companies that have some pretty like wild claims and they’ll get a lot of funding. A, because maybe the investor doesn’t know too much about technology but B, also because, you know, even if it is a wild claim, if it’s true, that’s incredible. And if you invest in enough wild claims, if one of them turns out to be true, you’ll still make money, right?
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: Yeah, and then the other thing is a lot of – there’s a lot of blogs and tech journalists out there and, you know, because everyone is so excited, they want to get as many clicks as possible on their articles. And the more incredible that that headline is, the more attention they’re going to end up getting. So, they – they’re – they’re encouraged to exaggerate a little bit. And so, I mean, it’s also like, they’re excited to be publishing the stuff. They can sometimes make mistakes, right?
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: I’ve seen milliamps confused with milliamp hours, which are two totally different –
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: -- units of energy.
CHAMBERS: Got it.
BALL: Not energy, it’s currents and charge. And current is charge per second. Like completely –
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: -- different units.
CHAMBERS: Yeah, I get it.
BALL: It’s a different thing, yeah.
CHAMBERS: Yeah. And that just happened, yeah with people getting excited.
BALL: Yeah.
CHAMBERS: And in a world, by the way, where there’s just absolutely just so much cash chasing opportunities. You know what I mean? And so, it’s a classic time right now especially with – we talk about this all the time but low interest rates in the world and just the way the demography, particularly of western developed economies, aging, there’s just a ton of cash. And it’s – and there’s not enough opportunities, frankly, for all the cash to find. And so, when they do find something, yeah, it can get a little bit frothy, they say, so. Well, that’s cool. And by the way, so you really focus on lithium ion as you’re – that’s the type – at the Richard Dahn Research group, is that what you guys kinda (sic) – kinda (sic) going back to battery culture. Is that what you guys focus on? Can you talk about that a little bit?
BALL: Yeah, so –
CHAMBERS: What do you guys do?
BALL: Yeah, most of the papers from that lab are lithium ion. I know other labs are – you know, they’ll do like sodium ion, I’ve seen. And, you know, different battery has different properties, might be used for different applications. But I’d say, it’s fair to say, and this is an inexact opinion that lithium ion has really taken over in the last 20 years. It’s the major battery that everyone’s interested in and it’s just because lithium is such a strange material that makes it very well suited for batteries.
CHAMBERS: What’s strange about it?
BALL: So, it’s number three on the periodic table. So, there are two elements that have less atomic mass in it. Hydrogen and helium. We all know how light weight helium is and hydrogen is even a little more lightweight. So, it’s this tiny, tiny little atom and the fact that it can hold a charge but it’s so tiny makes it perfect to be the counter charge to the electron which is actually what goes through your wires.
CHAMBERS: Right. Exactly. So that’s what you guys – and I think I may have said Richard Dahn, but it’s Jeff Dahn –
BALL: Yeah, Jeff Dahn.
CHAMBERS: -- and he’s a big hitter in that world. I mean this guy is like, because I was looking up top researchers and like a bunch in China, and – so he’s – he’s a pretty – that must be a great opportunity for a young guy like you to get under a guy like that, or person like that.
BALL: Yeah, it – it is a great opportunity. And yeah, that’s part of it. Like battery culture, we do have our celebrities, right. I’m (inaudible) --
CHAMBERS: Oh, yeah – yeah.
BALL: -- don’t want people to see because, you know, but, yeah, he’s a bit of a --
CHAMBERS: Can you please –
BALL: -- celebrity.
CHAMBERS: Yeah, can you send me a – I’d like a headshot of him with him signing it please after this if you could send it over, that’d be great. Tell him I – tell him I said thank you.
BALL: Yeah.
CHAMBERS: That’s awesome. Nice. From charger burger. I want a big charger burger in that guy’s mug. That’s the headshot I want of him and he can sign that. Tell him I said that. I need that on my desk by next week. Speaking of China, and we were talking about it earlier. A lot of research coming out of there, huh?
BALL: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we’ve read research papers. You know, you write research papers, we also read research papers.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: A lot of them come from China right now. I mean, it’s a – it’s a big country, right? So, expect a lot of research to come from there just because there’s so many people. It’s really an international effort, I’d say. You know, people that I’ve worked with have come from all over the globe, you know.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: And people move around quite a bit. Like I was in California last year, now I’m in Nova Scotia. And yeah, it’s still North America but yeah, people in my lab, every continent. I mean, other than Antarctica, you know.
CHAMBERS: Yeah. Well, it’s a global problem that we’ve gotta (sic) solve, right? And yeah, we – the other -- we do a lot of discussion with China about you know, here. I have another series on China and because again, it kinda – there’s a lot of – there’s a lot of information. There’s a lot of misinformation. And, you know, people are really scared that they’re technologically out in front of us at some levels. So, I want, you know, and is that the case with batteries? But it doesn’t sound like it. It sounds like everybody’s kinda (sic) working on their own little thing.
BALL: Yeah, I mean, I know that, you know, countries are concerned about, you know, who’s ahead in terms of technology. To be honest, I’m not actually very much an expert on which country is ahead of which –
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: -- you know.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: Yeah. It really depends on the specific technology.
CHAMBERS: Specific space, yeah. Exactly.
BALL: Yeah.
CHAMBERS: Because you can only – there’s only 24 hours in a day so what are you going to focus on, but, their definitely an incredibly talented industrious country. I mean there’s no doubt – now the policy that’s – some of the policies that the government runs and you could say that for every country but is a, maybe a little bit off, you know, off base. To say the least, but, you know, that’s a whole other thing, but, yeah, but definitely going to, you know, play a role and going to play a huge role in batteries and in obviously in solar panels, which you mentioned earlier. Those guys have a huge place in the globe on that, so. But, kinda (sic) talk about science and this is kinda (sic) one of the more macro than one of our last questions. Science in general, you’re an engineering guy. You’re involved with science. We talked about Sabine Hossenfelder. And for those who don’t know her, Sabine is German. She’s a particle physicist. I know you’re a fan and she wrote a book. A really pretty seminal book. I don’t know if you’ve read it. Did you read it?
BALL: No. No, I haven’t.
CHAMBERS: Okay.
BALL: But I know about it, yeah.
CHAMBERS: Yeah. I think everybody – I think that follows science in anyway might. But it’s called Lost in Math and for those that don’t know about it, I’ll put a link up to it. I’ve listened to it on audible a couple times. But basically, there’s a crisis in her opinion. And it’s just her opinion but I don’t think it’s that far off base, in particle science. And you say, well, what’s the big deal? You know, why – why is that so important? Well, and I’m sure you as a scientist or an engineering person can understand -- can elaborate on this but basically there’s a crisis because we’re not making progress. And it may be just biased. There’s a lot of factors as we said, you know. There’s professors and their tenure and there’s lots of papers that don’t get – that have no impact whatsoever and lots of stuff. So, you know, I don’t – are you seeing – what – do you have any comments on that? On the scientific process and where we are and it seems like batteries are moving along really nicely. But, you know, other materials science kinda (sic) walls that we’re at right now because of these – not making – not being able to make breakthroughs on the core, core basic, you know, rudiments of science, practical science.
BALL: Yeah, I mean, so Sabine’s take is that, you know, a lot of theoretical physicists, and that’s her area –
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: -- they’re very, very eager to find elegant, simple solutions and sometimes, you know, the solution – the truth of the matter, it’s not so simple and it’s not so elegant. And, yeah, I think it’s her opinion on theoretical physicist has not been moving as much as it has previously. But I mean, like all -- here’s, what’s the word for it, a little story –
CHAMBERS: Yeah, I love stories.
BALL: Yeah, Max Planck, so he’s a very famous scientist –
CHAMBERS: Yes.
BALL: -- you know, did a lot of his research in the early 20th century. And he was told by his supervisor at one point in time, that physics had mostly been figured out. You know, there’s a few – a few things we could learn but it’s mostly a mature field and, you know, there’s not going to be any big discoveries. And then later on he worked with people like Marie Curie and Albert Einstein to discover quantum physics and radioactivity. And we found out, okay, there’s actually a lot more we can know, you know.
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: So, in general, certain fields of science have, you know, big boom moments and certain fields have, you know, lulls. Right now, I’d say yeah, batteries, you know, it’s kind of a boom moment. It’s also because there’s so much interest in researching it. And it’s not necessarily that we’re discovering batteries, we’re also kind of creating batteries, right? But, it – it’s a little in between the two. You know, you invent something by trying something and seeing how well it works. Yeah, in regards to like, yeah there are papers which don’t really get cited too much. And, you know, I’ve read papers where I’m like, ooh, I’m not so certain if that’s quite the claim that –
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: -- you think it is. You know, where –
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: -- like, you know, yes. Science, there will be mistakes and, you know, very often people are want (sic) to publish a paper and it may not come out perfect. And regards to the tenure. I know that that’s somewhat of a tenuous topic and, you know, yeah, it’s got good and bad elements. But I don’t think it’s really relevant when it comes to bad science and published papers. Because whether or not the university has a – that professor tenured or not, doesn’t really matter in terms or whether that paper gets published. Because I think that limits whether a paper gets published or not is the peer review process where some researchers, you know, they put out a manuscript, you know, this is what I want to publish. And then other researchers from around the globe read it and say, this should get published or this should get published with a few corrections. And, I mean if a bad paper comes out, it’s because, you know, there was I guess bad peer review as well. And it –
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: -- it totally depends on what journal it’s being printed in as well. There’s some –
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: -- journals that are known for being very reputable. Others that are known for, you know, publishing as much as they can, right?
CHAMBERS: Right. Yeah, yeah. There’s – there’s politics and all sorts of stuff, you know what I mean, that we don’t know about. But, well, I’m going to be continue to kinda (sic) watch this sentiment because kind of going back to the economy, like particle physics are the core, core, core, core right, of pretty much like all of science, right? I mean at the end of the day, I mean like you kinda (sic) like, I mean you – we all learned that core, you know, physics, like if you’re going to go higher in science, you gotta (sic) take physics. And it’s the, you know, it’s the building block. So, it’s kind of – I – you know, it’s just – it’s a – it’s a – just her point of view on it, I just find kinda (sic) catching. I was like, oh wow that’s – hadn’t really thought about that. Because you take the stuff for granted. You just assume – like, for me, from my point of view which is the most lay people, and we look at you guys doing these incredible breakthrough things. We just assume you’re going to continue to do it and everybody knows what they’re doing and everything’s going to turn out great. Well, you know, maybe that’s not the case. You know, maybe we’re just taking these things for granted and in our lifetime maybe we’re going to be stuck up against some sort of wall and not be able to – and the reason why I bring that up is because it’s so important for our economy. Again, going back to the economy. It’s so important that we continue to be dynamic as a global economy and continue to grow and make breakthroughs. And so, when you read a book like Lost in Math it just kinda (sic) is like, oh man. Are we – is it even going to be cool for my children and my grandchildren type thing, or are we going to be jammed up here, you know, by – and that’s why I wanted to talk to you about it? I don’t know if you have any comments on that, but, or maybe we’ve covered it.
BALL: I mean, yeah, it’s – we’re talking about like what the future holds like, yeah, we can’t rely on these fossil fuels forever and –
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: -- you know, looking towards the projections people have for the climate. It’s like this looks really, really –
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: -- you know, a dark and upsetting. But, you know, like the one thing that also is growing exponentially though is our technological innovation. And yes, you know, its perhaps right now, particle physics aren’t growing at the speed that some would hope but a lot of other technologies are, you know.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: Yeah, like offhand, I’ll say, and this is definitely like a hot take, you know –
CHAMBERS: Right, I got you.
BALL: -- but –
CHAMBERS: I love your hot takes, Mitch.
BALL: -- (inaudible).
CHAMBERS: Yeah, go ahead.
BALL: Biotechnology, I think is something that isn’t blowing up huge right now but I think it’s – it’s got little indications that maybe 10, 20 years, it’s going to be a really, really big field and we’ll be discovering things and creating things that we didn’t think were possible before.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: So, a lot of it is just like wait and see but also, you know, let’s – let’s put as much as possible into trying out every possible solution for this one huge problem that we’re up against right now.
CHAMBERS: Yeah. Yeah.
BALL: Yeah.
CHAMBERS: Well, I gotta (sic) tell you, man this has been really cool. I think the conclusion, you know, I like to – I think I’m making is is it sounds like we’re in good – in a good space in terms of battery research. It sounds like batteries are going to be able to do what they need to do to power the fleet, right? The transportation fleet. It’s – we’re going to have trucks with these things and cars with these things and in your opinion, in 20 – what do you think, 20 years, most of the – in 10 years, I don’t know but my next car in the future is going to be a battery powered car and that’s the way this thing is going to go. I mean that’s pretty much what you’re saying which is – which is good. I gotta (sic) – do you think we could see a day in our lifetime where you could power a, legitimately power a plane with a battery?
BALL: Maybe. Maybe not. And it’s – it’s because the jet fuel limit is hard to reach.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: But that’s not saying that there isn’t a greenway to power a plane with jet fuel.
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: So, yeah, I’m not – I’m not convinced that we’re going to completely get rid of hydrocarbons in total.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: But, you know, there is technologies, if you look at catalysis, people are looking at ways to create low carbon fuel. And what that means is that they create fuel from carbon that isn’t found in the ground. It isn’t found from, you know, a tree or any sort of bio –
CHAMBERS: Right.
BALL: -- thing. They’ll actually take it directly out of the air and then process it and make it into a fuel and if you can make it very efficient, we could power planes with this low carbon fuel and, you know, that might be – that might be the energy future. People even think we might do long term storage with chemical energy still. I’ve read people say, you know, Australia, not a huge amount of people but a lot of potential for solar power. It’s very sunny, not very cloudy in many parts. And they think what we could do is have a ton of solar power out there and then that would power putting energy into chemicals like fossil – not fossil fuels but like hydrocarbons and like ammonia, for instance. That’s something that we get right now through fossil fuels and something called the Haber-Bosch process. But if we can make it just out of the nitrogen in the air and we need it for making food. We definitely need ammonia.
CHAMBERS: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
BALL: What might actually happen is that during half of the year, all these solar panels will be used to sort all of this energy and the chemicals that we use throughout the globe on mass and then, you know, at the other part of the year, where you don’t get as much sun, you can then use these chemicals until, you know, the next year comes around.
CHAMBERS: Got it. Wow. Yeah, I also heard some – someone mention an author, I can’t remember the name of the book but, collect the suns energy in space, beam the energy down in microwaves.
BALL: Yeah, I’ve heard that one too.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: I’m less big on that one, I think. I think that one’s probably less likely.
CHAMBERS: Because of just – first of all you can be – you can – you can send microwaves and retain that energy and send it down and collect it and then put it on the grid? Is that even – is that even possible to do that?
BALL: So, you –
CHAMBERS: I don’t know.
BALL: -- you can. The efficiency is kind of the concern there.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: As well – it’s kind of hard to maintain a lot of solar panels when they’re all out in space, you know.
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: If it is a thing, it’s probably a very, very far into the future thing --
CHAMBERS: Yeah.
BALL: -- you know.
CHAMBERS: Way out.
BALL: Yeah.
CHAMBERS: Yeah. And then hydrogen, you know is – I think – you know the thing about it is I don’t think it’s one answer. I think it’s a lot of answers because it’s always a lot of answers when you’re talking about, you know, in terms of where are we going to get energy? It’s not one place. It never is. You know what I mean, so but again back to my point, energy’s, you know, keeping an eye on things and also looking for opportunities, you know what I mean. To your, you know, startups turn into bigger startups which turn into this and then the big, you know, public companies come along and buy them. And, you know, looking for, you know, where – where’s the growth trend? Where can we see growth? So, all this stuff is really important and I really appreciate you taking the time to come talk to us today. I – I’d like to maybe in a year, follow up with you and just kinda (sic) see what’s going on or stay in touch, of course. But I always like to bring people back and just kinda (sic) review the tape and say, hey, what are you doing? What’s new, you know what I mean. And its good stuff so, but Mitch Ball, I really appreciate it, you taking the time on a Friday. Is it – what’s the weather up there in – what you got there?
BALL: You know, we’ve kinda (sic) been going in between like nicer sunny days and a little colder days.
CHAMBERS: Got it.
BALL: I think we’re leading on nice and sunny right now, so.
CHAMBERS: Nice. Have the trees – are the trees – have the colors turned on the oaks and all that stuff up there, or are we passed it?
BALL: Yeah. The colors have changed, yeah.
CHAMBERS: Or where are we at?
BALL: They’re not all off the trees but it’s definitely –
CHAMBERS: But it’s passed.
BALL: -- the weather is turning.
CHAMBERS: Yeah. So winter is – winter is coming, but, you know, I lived in Binghamton, New York for a while. I grew up there so, I understand that whole scene and I get it. I actually see a bunch of people are posting on social that the area that I grew up in has been quite nice the past couple of days. Like mid 70s and just the leaves are all out, so. And Binghamton is a little south, you know, south of you. So, a little bit, a little bit behind, probably a week or two behind your color up there on the trees, so. Well, my man. Thank you so much for the time. I really appreciate it. And have a great weekend and we will talk to you soon. All right.
BALL: Yeah, all right. See you.
CHAMBERS: Thanks, Mitch.
BALL: No problem.
CHAMBERS: Later, bud. Yeah man.
(INTERVIEW CONCLUDED)
Trevor Chambers
Trevor joined Olde Raleigh Financial Services in January of 2015 and his primary role is new business development and marketing. Prior to joining the firm, Trevor spent 12 years working at his family’s restaurant, Raleigh’s Bella Monica Cucina & Vino. “Exceptional service, no matter the industry, is paramount and we attract clients who value and take comfort in being taken care of.”
Mitch Ball
Mitch graduated from the University of Waterloo with a degree in Nanotechnology Engineering. As part of his degree, he took a couple of internships at Sila Nanotechnologies with a focus on incorporating silicon material into anodes. Mitch works at the Jeff Dahn Research Group in Nova Scotia where he can expand his knowledge beyond silicon anodes and contribute to the solution to climate change.