Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania are urging the Department of Energy to prioritize the use of artificial intelligence to help the government sniff out and develop sources of minerals and materials needed to support the energy transition.
The senators, in a letter to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, called on the agency to “take immediate and substantive action” to harness the power of artificial intelligence to speed up the development of materials to help replace foreign critical minerals in batteries with “cheaper, sustainable, and domestically-sourced alternatives.”
“We urge the Department of Energy [to] take immediate and substantive action to prioritize AI-enabled research and development into novel compounds of national interest, particularly as they relate to furthering our national security, energy security, and environmental health goals,” they wrote. “This is critical as AI continues to use increasing amounts of electricity, threatening climate goals.”
The senators noted in the letter that the Pacific Northwest Laboratory announced in January that it was in the process of testing a new material that could be capable of reducing the lithium content in batteries by as much as 70 percent.
