The Yale Center for Industrial Ecology (YCIE) and the Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY) are jointly undertaking a research project entitled “Building a Domestic Graphite Supply Chain for a Clean and Just Energy Transition” (hereinafter the “Green Graphite Project”). Led by Principal Investigator (PI) Dr. Yuan Yao, and Co-PIs Drs. Barbara Reck and Robert Klee, the Green Graphite Project aims to establish a resilient, domestic supply chain for graphite, a critical mineral for lithium-ion battery anodes and 100% imported in the U.S.  Specifically, the project will focus on “green graphite” based on waste plastics and biomass, and will identify key industrial, policy, and regulatory opportunities and barriers, and assess the environmental, economic, and equity implications of synthesizing green graphite at scale. 

The project will answer three under-explored questions: (1) what opportunities and barriers exist in establishing domestic supply chains for green graphite production? (2) What are the life cycle environmental, economic, and equity impacts of green graphite? (3) How do current policy and regulation schemes affect the development of domestic graphite supply chains, and how might they be improved? The Policy Research Assistant will work with Dr. Klee to explore this third question.  

Specifically, the Policy Research Assistant will work with Dr. Klee and the project team to help improve our understanding of how the current regulatory systems in the U.S. impact the development of domestic graphite from diverse sources – e.g., traditional mining of natural graphite, green graphite sourced from waste biomass, and green graphite sourced from plastics waste – and how those regulatory systems may be improved to promote a circular economy approach to green graphite.

Depending on the applicant’s interests and background, possible research tasks include:

• Supporting the development of a taxonomy of the current regulatory regime governing domestic graphite production from the three primary opportunity pathways: natural mining, sourcing from waste biomass, and sourcing from waste plastics;

• Supporting the design and undertaking of expert elicitation from federal and state regulators on the current suite of regulations governing mining/processing of natural graphite, management of forestry and agricultural wastes, and management of plastics wastes;

• Supporting the analysis of the current policies and regulations governing domestic graphite production from an environmental justice perspective, understanding the potential issues of disproportionate burdens from industrial activity on environmental justice communities, procedural justice implications of current siting and development requirements;

• Supporting the case study analysis of best practices from the U.S. and internationally in forestry, agriculture, sustainable material management, and circular economy policies that would support the development of a domestic green graphite industry for the U.S. clean energy economy;

• Performing literature reviews and writing memos on issues relating to analogous U.S. circular economy policy in the construction industry, food waste, and solar photovoltaics; and

• Assistance with other tasks to advance the Green Graphite Project’s research agenda.