HAS A FIX FOR

THE BATTERY THE BATTERY

PROBLEMPROBLEM

The Tesla co-founder is trying to The Tesla co-founder is trying to

get ahead of a materials crunch that get ahead of a materials crunch that

could hold up the green transition could hold up the green transition

BY ALEJANDRO DE LA GARZA/RENO, NEV.BY ALEJANDRO DE LA GARZA/RENO, NEV.

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

JB STRAUBEL

JB StrauBel haS Spent the paSt two yearS
covering a hillside with solar panels and rig-
ging them up to cryptocurrency projects in his
Carson City, Nev., mansion. Much of the equip-
ment is essentially junk—the panels were all but
worthless when the 46-year-old Tesla co-founder
got them from a Texas solar plant, after a hailstorm
voided their warranties. He’ll work on them alone
for a whole weekend, spooling wire and rigging
hardware in the rolling scrubland. Sometimes he
thinks through his company’s latest engineering ob-
stacles while he works. Other times he daydreams
how best to divert cascades of photons from the sky,
convert them, and suddenly there’s sunlight sing-
ing through the electrical grid, charging up cars,
spinning a complete, beautiful system around and
around: unlimited energy, for everyone, forever.
“What are you doing?” an employee said to
Straubel once, arriving at the house to find him
hauling solar panels outside. “You need to be get-
ting ready for an interview right now.”
Straubel’s day job has attracted a lot of atten-
tion: he’s trying to head off a looming shortage of

materials that the world needs to transition away

from fossil fuels. Institutional investors last year

signed over $775 million for his new venture, Red-

wood Materials, and in April the U.S. Senate called

Straubel to give expert testimony on resources

needed for the energy transition. He doesn’t much

like the spotlight, though. “The engineering chal-

lenges are the fun part,” Straubel says in an inter-

view. “This is more difficult.”

We need massive quantities of batteries to

power a global energy transition and avert cat-

aclysmic climate change. To produce them, we

ECOPRENEURS

PHOTOGRAPHS BY SPENCER LOWELL FOR TIME