A team of researchers led by Denny Oliveira from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center tracked reentries of Starlink satellites between 2020 and 2024. This period coincided with the rising phase of the current solar cycle, when solar activity ramps up ahead of the solar maximum, which occurred in October 2024.
Over the course of those five years, 523 Starlink satellites reentered Earth’s atmosphere. Oliveira and his colleagues analyzed the orbits of these satellites using a statistical technique that identifies patterns in how their rates of orbital decay and reentry change during periods of high solar activity.
The researchers found that geomagnetic activity—disturbances in the upper atmosphere triggered by solar eruptions—causes Starlinks to reenter Earth’s atmosphere sooner than expected. These satellites are designed to remain in orbit for roughly five years. But during bouts of severe geomagnetic storms, their lifespans may be reduced by 10 to 12 days, Oliveira told Gizmodo.
He and his colleagues believe this happens because geomagnetic activity heats the atmosphere and causes it to expand. This increases drag on satellites, shortening their lifespans and causing them to lose altitude more quickly as they interact with the upper atmosphere. What’s more, atmospheric drag may increase the chances of satellite-on-satellite collisions, as the orbital models that guide collision avoidance measures don’t fully account for the effects of geomagnetic activity. The team’s findings are currently available on the preprint server arXiv.
A difference of 10 to 12 days may not sound like a big deal, but it could make it nearly impossible for SpaceX to ensure that Starlink satellites return to Earth via controlled reentry, Oliveira explained. What’s more, his analysis shows that increased drag causes satellites to reenter at higher velocities, which he believes could raise the chances of debris reaching the ground.
This may seem counterintuitive, since increasing the velocity of an object during reentry generally increases the likelihood of total disintegration. But Oliveira posits that Starlinks falling at greater speeds may have a better chance of surviving reentry due to reduced atmospheric interaction. Further research will need to confirm this hypothesis, as the study did not directly assess debris risks.
Starlinks are designed to fully burn up during reentry, but that doesn’t always happen. In 2024, a 5.5-pound (2.5-kilogram) chunk of Starlink debris made landfall on a farm in Saskatchewan, New Scientist reported. In February of this year, SpaceX said it is possible for Starlink debris fragments to fall back to Earth, but claimed that this poses “no risk to humans on the ground, at sea, or in the air.”
There are now more than 7,500 Starlinks in orbit, according to Harvard University astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who tracks the constellation. Eventually, SpaceX hopes to quintuple the size of this fleet, with a goal of launching 42,000 Starlinks in total, according to Space.com. This is in addition to the thousands of other satellites currently orbiting Earth.
“[This is] the first time ever in history that we have so many satellites in orbit at the same time,” Oliveira said. “So, now, we have satellites reentering pretty much every week. And possibly, in the next months or years, every day.” Understanding how changes in solar activity impact their lifespans and their reentries will be critical as Earth’s orbit becomes increasingly crowded.
A new study has found a startling link between chronic cannabis use and increased risk of cardiovascular disease—regardless of whether you smoke it or consume edibles. The finding challenges commonly held beliefs about the health impacts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which many see as a relatively harmless drug—especially when ingested.
The study, published Wednesday, May 28 in the journal JAMA Cardiology, found that THC smokers suffer from significantly worse artery function than non-users. They observed the same effect in edible consumers, though their arteries were not as severely affected. In either case, vascular function was reduced by roughly half compared to those who do not use cannabis, according to a statement from the University of California, San Francisco.
“Scientifically, this THC result is really interesting but boy does it screw up the public health messaging,’” co-author Matt Springer, a cardiovascular researcher at UCSF, reportedly said to lead author and UCSF physician-scientist Leila Mohammadi when he saw the data.
These results add to a growing body of evidence that suggests long-term weed use can lead to cardiovascular damage and life-threatening events such as heart attacks and strokes, though experts still lack consensus on its precise impacts. A 2024 study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association found that people who consume cannabis daily had a 25% increased risk of heart attack and a 42% increased risk of stroke compared to non-users.
For this new study, researchers investigated how cannabis impacts vascular function. To isolate the effects of chronic cannabis use, they recruited 55 otherwise healthy adults aged 18 to 50 who did not use any form of nicotine and were not frequently exposed to secondhand smoke.
These participants were sorted into three groups: marijuana smokers, edible users, and non-users. Those in the two cannabis user groups reported taking the drug at least three times per week, either exclusively through smoking or edibles.
To assess the participants’ vascular function, the researchers measured dilation of the brachial artery—located in the upper arm—to determine whether it could properly expand in response to increased blood flow. To that end, they used an inflatable forearm cuff to briefly block blood flow to the artery, then used ultrasound to measure its diameter before and after inflating the cuff.
Matt Springer, a cardiovascular researcher at UCSF whose lab led the study, told Live Science that his test offers a “window into the future.” When blood vessels cannot fully dilate, he said, the risk of heart attack and other poor cardiovascular outcomes increases.
Participants who did not consume cannabis showed an average vessel dilation—represented as the percent change from the baseline measurement of artery diameter—of 10.4%. This value was significantly reduced among weed smokers and edible users, who showed an average vessel dilation of 6.0% and 4.6%, respectively. For reference, average values for brachial artery dilation in healthy individuals typically range from 8.0% to 15%. In a previous study, Springer’s lab found similarly reduced levels of vessel dilation among e-cigarette and cigarette smokers.
To better understand how THC causes this change, the researchers ran lab tests to determine how endothelial cells—which form the linings of blood vessels and release nitric oxide to trigger dilation—responded to the participants’ blood samples. These tests revealed that the blood of chronic cannabis smokers inhibited nitric oxide production in the cells, which may explain why these participants showed reduced vessel dilation.
This effect was not observed in edible consumers, however, suggesting that ingestible THC may impact arterial function via an entirely separate mechanism. Figuring out what that mechanism may be will require further research. What’s more, subsequent studies will need to reproduce these findings in a larger population to validate the results.
Within the last several years, cannabis use among U.S. adults has reached new heights, according to the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse. As such, investigating the health effects of THC is more important than ever before—especially as mounting evidence challenges perceptions of weed as a harmless high.
Nothing sends a shiver down the spine like finding a tick latched onto your skin after a hike. But beyond the nausea-inducing idea of being host to a blood-sucking parasite, the consequences of tick bites can be dire depending on the circumstances. This is because a few tick species carry diseases that can be passed on to humans — the most notable one is Lyme disease.
An unlucky encounter with a deer tick (Ixodes scapularis) could leave you with Lyme disease. Fortunately, a study published in PLOS One has advanced a new way to repel deer ticks with a surprising solution: donkey skin. More specifically, a naturally occurring compound secreted by donkey skin can stave off deer ticks, showing potential to be an effective alternative to existing repellents.
The Dangers of Deer Ticks
Not all ticks carry diseases, but deer ticks (also known as black-legged ticks) are one of the species to watch out for. These ticks span across the eastern U.S, but they’re most likely to carry Lyme disease in the Upper Midwest and Northeast. A 2024 study found that half of all adult ticks in the Northeast carry the bacteria that cause Lyme disease.
Deer ticks don’t harbor Lyme disease bacteria at birth, but rather, receive it from infected hosts that they feed on, usually small rodents. True to their name, adult deer ticks also commonly feed on white-tailed deer, a reliable source of blood. However, deer do not get infected by Lyme disease and can’t transmit the bacteria to ticks.
Most hikers are probably used to warnings about tall grass, where ticks search for legs to cling onto. They get a hold of skin not by jumping or flying, but by “questing”: This is when they climb plants and reach out with their front legs, patiently waiting for a host to attach to.
Once a tick has attached itself to the skin, it sucks blood for multiple days and eventually becomes swollen, engorged enough to stop feeding.
Infected saliva from the tick can spread Lyme disease to humans during this process, but infection isn’t instantaneous. It generally takes at least 24 hours for an attached tick to transmit infection.
Tick bite prevention usually comes in the form of DEET (applied directly on the body) and permethrin (applied to clothing and gear). However, researchers involved with the recent study say that donkey skin could be the next step forward in fighting tick bites.
Donkeys and horses secrete substances through their sebaceous glands (which are on most mammals’ skin) that can affect how other animals interact with them. While horses are vulnerable to ticks, donkeys secrete a special compound known as (E)-2-octenal that is able to repel ticks. Previous research has shown that when horses are treated with octenal, their smell is masked and they can resist ticks just like donkeys.
How Donkey Skin Can Prevent Tick Bites
This superpower of donkey skin, the researchers say, may even have applications for humans.
“It’s one of the different smells that you find on a donkey that you don’t find on a horse,” said lead author Eric Siegel, a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in a statement. “So, to ticks, the horse doesn’t smell like the host they’re used to. The ticks don’t like it, and so they won’t feed on it. Our assessment that we can repel ticks with this compound means that, in theory, we could either put it on ourselves or put it on dogs, and the ticks will not want to go near it.”
The researchers confirmed the effectiveness of octenal by testing how it limits a tick’s movement. According to the press statement, they were able to “prevent deer ticks from moving from point A to point B” when placing octenal between the two points.
The researchers are now working to develop a deer tick repellent with octenal as the active ingredient. They also believe the compound could also be used to control deer tick population in nature and potentially replace pesticides.
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
Jack Knudson is an assistant editor at Discover with a strong interest in environmental science and history. Before joining Discover in 2023, he studied journalism at the Scripps College of Communication at Ohio University and previously interned at Recycling Today magazine.
Valve’s beloved Steam Deck is a delightful little device that makes PC gaming possible anywhere, but it suffers from some significant limitations. The Deck’s custom AMD Ryzen “Aerith” processor requires severe graphical sacrifices to hit playable frame rates in intense games — if you can run them at all. When you’re playing, you’ll blow through the battery in just a few hours. And while non-Steam games can be added to the Deck, it requires wonky technical workarounds that normie gamers probably won’t bother to troubleshoot.
If your internet signal is strong, and you pay for a premium GeForce Now subscription with advanced prowess and features, Nvidia’s app transforms the Steam Deck from a delightful device into an utterly magical one.
How magical? Consider that Doom: The Dark Ages has been called a “nightmare” on the Steam Deck. Even with every graphics option turned to low, playing through the sparsely populated tutorial section results in frame rates in the low- to mid-20s — it not only looks ugly, it feels atrocious, like the Doom Slayer is a container ship you’re trying to steer while blackout drunk. Hard pass.
Then I flipped over to it on GeForce Now’s new Steam Deck app, using an early build (and GFN Ultimate subscription) provided by Nvidia. Oh. My. God. Suddenly, everything was beautiful and smooth, with the Doom Slayer ripping and tearing through demonic hordes like the finely tuned weapon he is. Even with graphics settings set to the strenuous Nightmare level and rays being traced everywhere, performance ran locked at the 60fps maximum that GFN offers on the Deck.
Doom: The Dark Ages runs like butt on Steam Deck — but it streams amazingly over GeForce Now, even with Nightmare graphics settings.
Brad Chacos/Foundry
GeForce Now made an unplayable game deliciously perky. But that’s not the only benefit: With my Steam Deck’s battery life lingering around 86 percent, the system’s performance overlay estimated I’d get around an hour and 44 minutes of play time before juice ran out. Streaming the game over GFN doesn’t tap into the Steam Deck’s resources nearly as heavily, and the performance overlay said the exact same scene with the exact same battery level would deliver over 7 hours of playtime.
Wowza. Now that’s transformative — though Nvidia only officially claims battery-life improvements of “up to 50 percent” over native Steam Deck performance.
GeForce Now on Steam Deck: Amazing performance and battery life
And Doom: The Dark Ages isn’t the only example. I also fired up Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, a pair of CD Projekt Red’s heavy hitters that come with native Steam Deck graphics settings.
In a bustling Novigrad Square teeming with NPCs, Witcher 3 achieved surprisingly playable frame rates — I was cruising around with Geralt to the tune of 50- to 60fps. Not bad! …though the graphics looked muddier than I’d prefer, and the battery only expected to last around two hours.
Witcher 3 runs fine on Steam Deck natively — but look at how low-quality the visuals are in order to achieve playable performance.
Brad Chacos/Foundry
Then I booted into Witcher 3 via GeForce Now. What a difference. Using the game’s Ultra settings with ray tracing in full bloom, Geralt suddenly looked so much crisper and vivid — and once again, the game played locked at 60fps on GFN Ultimate’s hardware (equivalent to an RTX 4080), with a runtime estimate of over 7 hours. Transformative!
The story remained the same in Cyberpunk 2077, which includes a Steam Deck graphics preset that drops visuals low enough to run at a locked 30fps. It’s muddy but playable! Streaming over GeForce Now, however, lets me run the game’s gorgeous RT Ultra mode at a locked 60fps while looking crisp, clean, and even more responsive. (The in-game benchmark said the Steam Deck mode ran at locked 30fps; RT Ultra over GFN ran at 86fps per the benchmark, but Nvidia’s servers delivered it as a locked 60fps. Nvidia says a 90fps mode is “being evaluated for future release.”)
Better yet, estimated battery life increased from 1:09 in Steam Deck mode to 4:02 via GeForce Now — all while looking and feeling so much better than native performance.
GeForce Now plays Steam Deck games Valve won’t sell you
Another feather in the cap for GeForce Now’s new native Steam Deck app? It lets you play games Valve won’t sell you.
The Steam Deck is amazing, but it’s obviously built around Valve’s storefront. Installing non-Steam games on the Deck involves heading to the gadget’s desktop mode and tweaking arcane settings, or installing third-party apps that (hopefully) automate the process a bit. It’s clunky.
Not with GeForce Now.
You’ve got lots of Alan Wake options on GeForce Now’s Steam Deck app — including the Epic-exclusive Alan Wake 2.
Brad Chacos/Foundry
Nvidia’s service lets you link your GeForce Now account with major PC gaming storefronts — Steam, yes, but also alternatives like Ubisoft, Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass, and the Epic Games Store. Once you’ve done so, any of the 2000-plus games supported by GFN will easily be playable by simply searching for them in Nvidia’s interface and launching the game.
Want to play Alan Wake 2 (an Epic exclusive) on your Steam Deck with full fidelity? Yeah, the GeForce Now app can do that. Want to stream Forza Horizon through your Game Pass sub? Yeah, you can do that too. The GeForce Now library isn’t exhaustive, but it is huge, and adds games every week. It’s an instant level-up for your Steam Deck’s capabilities if you have games stashed on other PC storefronts too.
Better yet, since GFN is now a native app, it’ll appear in the Recently Played section of your Steam Deck’s homescreen — making it dead simple to leap back into games you’ve streamed via Nvidia’s servers.
GeForce Now for Steam Deck: Details you need to know
Of course, you need to be a GeForce Now subscriber to take advantage of the new Steam Deck native app. The app supports all tiers, including the ad-supported free tier, but paying for higher tiers unlocks ad-free streaming, RTX capabilities, higher resolutions, ultrawide monitor support, and — if you pay for the Ultimate tier – DLSS Frame Gen, Nvidia’s latency-lowering Reflex tech, and HDR10 support that looks oh so good on the Steam Deck OLED that Nvidia sent me for testing. The paid tiers offer 100 hours of gameplay a month, with 15 rollover hours.
Nvidia is currently running a GeForce Now summer sale that knocks 40 percent off a six month “Performance” plan, down to $30 for six months. It lacks some of the features of the Ultimate tier, but should deliver a wondrous experience on your Steam Deck, even if Valve’s handheld can’t take advantage of its 1440p option — GFN streams at 1080p/60 undocked. If you connect a monitor to your Steam Deck, GFN can output at 1440p/120Hz, or 4K/60Hz when connected to a television.
As a streaming service, GeForce Now obviously requires a strong internet connection. In tests around my apartment in a small city, it held up well over my Comcast home connection, though performance sometimes suffered playing in the furthest reaches of my home. Your mileage may vary depending on your home network situation and whether you’re tethering off a mobile connection, but in general, Nvidia’s streaming service is fairly rock-solid these days.
The error message when you try to use quick resume with a GeForce Now streaming title.
Brad Chacos/Foundry
One tidbit to be aware off: Since GeForce Now relies on active internet streaming, it’s incompatible with the Steam Deck’s quick resume function. If you power off your Deck mid-GFN stream, it’ll crash when the system wakes back up. I wouldn’t want to rely on GFN for a morning bus commute unless your phone can power a banging Wi-Fi hotspot.
Just play it
Bottom line, though? Nvidia’s GeForce Now app can transform your Steam Deck from a low-powered, vendor-locked console into a full-blow portable PC gaming experience, complete with no-compromises ray tracing and a sublime uplift in both visuals and feel. Playing Doom: The Dark Ages is a nightmare on the Steam Deck — but it’s heavenly streaming to your Steam Deck via GeForce Now. Expanded game support and drastic battery life enhancements almost feel like cherries on top of the experience, but they’re just as crucial to the GFN app’s Steam Deck success.
In an age where graphics card prices are soaring and the PC market shivers around damning tariffs, Nvidia’s GeForce Now app can elevate the Steam Deck from a kick-ass sidekick to your primary gaming PC. That’s especially so if you dock your Deck with a mouse, keyboard, and monitor, but the wildly long battery life makes it true in handheld mode, too.
You should absolutely, positively give the GeForce Now app a download on your Steam Deck. It’s damned near a must-have accessory if you want to play more strenuous modern games. Even if you only give the free ad-supported tier a whirl, it should provide enough oomph to get you through the new Doom — something the Deck itself isn’t capable of on its own. Giddy up!
One of the world’s most prolific automakers, the Chinese giant BYD, has been formally accused by Brazilian authorities in a newly filed lawsuit of subjecting its workers to what they described as being akin to modern slavery and engaging in international human trafficking. The suit, which is being filed against BYD and two contractors, JinJiang and Tecmonta, seeks 257 million reais (~$50 million) in damages and individual restitution for the workers affected.
Withheld passports and crowded conditions are among the accusations
The suit itself stems from an investigation that started late last year, when the Public Labour Prosecutor’s Office (MPT) in the Brazilian state of Bahia halted work at the construction site of BYD’s new factory in Camaçari after they rescued a total of 220 Chinese nationals who were employed to help build the factory.
Authorities state that workers were subjected to abhorrent living and working conditions at the plant that they described back in December as "an alarming picture of precariousness and degradation," where workers slept in crowded dormitories with bunk beds without mattresses and only one bathroom per every 31 workers; which forced them to wake up at 4 a.m. everyday to prepare for their 5:30 a.m. shifts at the site.
"All the accommodations shared serious infrastructure and hygiene problems," the MPT wrote back in December, translated from Portuguese. "The bathrooms, in addition to being insufficient, were not separated by sex, did not have adequate toilet seats, and presented poor hygiene conditions. The lack of a suitable place to wash clothes led workers to use their own bathrooms for this purpose."
In addition, the MPT wrote in its suit that due to the conditions that BYD and the two subcontractors subjected workers to, workers were at an increased risk of accidents due to the negligence of occupational health and safety standards at the site. In the MPT’s December 2024 report, they recorded that they recorded "several workplace accidents," including one where a worker suffered an accident "due to sleep deprivation caused by inadequate housing conditions and long working hours," as well as a worker who didn’t receive proper medical care following an eye injury.
The prosecutors also claimed that the BYD workers were brought to Brazil to build the factory without the proper visas, that their employers pocketed up to 70% of their wages, and subjected them to immense financial penalties to terminate their contracts. Many of the workers also had their passports taken away and worked under "employment contracts with illegal clauses, exhausting work hours, and no weekly rest."
Brazilian law says that debt bondage and work that violates human dignity are defined as "slavery-like conditions." In a statement seen by the Associated Press, BYD said that it is collaborating with Brazilian authorities and has been throughout the probe into its working conditions. The automaker also stated that it respects Brazilian law and international labor regulations. However, in December, BYD spokesperson Li Yunfei posted on Weibo that efforts were made to "smear" brands like BYD.
“In the matter of smearing Chinese brands, smearing China, and attempting to undermine the friendship between China and Brazil, we have seen how relevant foreign forces maliciously associate and deliberately smear,” Yunfei said about media reports about the situation.
Final thoughts
The BYD plant in Bahia was supposed to open in March, but the suit shows how much companies like BYD are willing to stick to a solid dollar and cents figure for foreign factories in emerging markets like Brazil. In a statement for Deutsche Welle, Paulo Feldmann, an economist and professor at the FIA Business School in Sao Paulo, found that BYD’s use of Chinese workers in Brazil is similar to how other Chinese companies operate in places like Africa and other Latin American countries. Still, they offer no tangible benefits to the local population.
"For Brazil, it would have been better if these workers had been local, because of the income they would have generated for themselves and their families, the positive impact on their communities, and the professional training they would have acquired. It would also be easier to monitor their working conditions," he said.
Chinese labor conditions have been a pressing issue in other sectors besides construction and industrial factories. For instance, the 996 working hour system (which requires employees to work from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, 6 days per week; or 72 hours per week, 12 hours per day) has been a significant issue surrounding major tech and internet companies in the country including Alibaba, Huawei and ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok.
Good news, future-dwellers! The Jetsons lied about the timeline, but flying cars are finally taking off — literally. Introducing the AirCar, the world’s first flying car going into mass production, brought to you by Slovak engineer Stefan Klein, a man who looked at traffic and said, “Nope, I’ll just fly over it.
This isn’t some sci-fi fever dream — it’s a real thing that transforms from sports car to airplane in under two minutes. One button. Boom. Wings. It’s like if Batman and Optimus Prime had a very expensive baby.
But before you start checking Zillow for sky garages, here’s the catch: you need a driver’s license, a pilot’s license, and somewhere between $800,000 and $1 million lying around. So unless you’re Bruce Wayne, Tony Stark, or just very good at crypto, you’ll still be on the ground watching billionaires buzz by overhead — probably on their way to brunch.
It also needs a 300-meter runway to take off, which rules out your driveway (unless you live at an airport).
The AirCar, built by Klein Vision, is set to roll (and fly) off production lines this summer and hit the skies by 2026. It recently made a star-studded appearance at a Beverly Hills gala, where it opened its wings like a show-off peacock and stole the spotlight from astronauts and celebrities.
So yeah — the future is here. It’s fast. It’s shiny. And it costs more than your house.
China’s breakthrough sodium-ion battery — priced at $10/kWh (Bloomberg NEF, 2025) — is a technical marvel. It’s a direct challenge to America’s lithium-dependent auto industry. For context, today’s cheapest lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries cost $75/kWh, while Tesla’s 4680 cells hover near $100/kWh. At one-tenth the price, sodium-ion tech could make budget EVs like the $25,000 Tesla Model 2 financially viable overnight. American potential EV buyers hesitant because of cost will be comforted by this. When it comes.
How China’s Battery Factories Are Rewriting the Rules
Chinese engineers at CATL (the world’s largest EV battery maker) have begun mass-producing sodium-ion cells at their new 30GWh facility in Fujian province, with plans to supply automakers like Chery and BYD by late 2025. This isn’t lab hype: CATL’s first-gen sodium batteries already power 250,000 urban delivery vans across China, offering 120-160Wh/kg energy density.
For cars, more needs to be done about range. But a 10,000 life cycle, to Tesla’s 1500, lifespan speaks volumes. Best for grid storage and city cars, the economics are transformative. Sodium-ion production costs 70% less than lithium packs because of:
Simplified mining: Extractable from seawater or Wyoming’s Green River Basin (90% of global reserves)
No cobalt/nickel: Skips conflict minerals tied to Congo’s mines
Extortion free: Cannot be held to ransom by anyone on lithium supply.
Implication for US Buyers: If adopted domestically, sodium batteries could slash entry-level EV prices by $8,000–$12,000, making models like the Chevrolet Bolt 2.0 or Ford E-Transit van accessible to millions.
Detroit’s Lithium Trap: GM’s V8 Mistake Reborn
America’s automakers are repeating history. Just as GM clung to gas-guzzling V8s during the 1970s oil crisis, today’s EV strategies rely entirely on lithium—a mineral with 1,400% price volatility since 2020. If lithium supplies tighten again (e.g., Bolivia nationalizes reserves or Australia’s mines strike), the fallout would be catastrophic:
EV price spikes: A $100/kWh lithium battery adds $6,500 to a 65kWh pack
Production halts: Ford’s $3.5B Michigan plant depends on Chilean lithium
Geopolitical blackmail: China controls 65% of lithium refining (according to the U.S. Geological Survey)
Sodium-ion batteries offer an escape hatch. According to statements by CATL executives, the company can switch chemistries like changing shoes—lithium today, sodium tomorrow. US automakers, shackled by IRA domestic sourcing rules, lack this flexibility. That must change. And fast.
The US Roadmap: Catch-Up or Collapse?
BloombergNEF predicts sodium-ion will capture 12% of the global storage market by 2030, but China’s head start is alarming. While the US has its first sodium battery factory (Natron Energy’s Michigan plant), its 600MWh annual output is a fraction of CATL’s 30GWh.
What Washington Must Do:
Fast-track permits for sodium carbonate mining (Wyoming holds 47B tons)
Expand IRA tax credits to include sodium-ion R&D
Mandate dual-chemistry EVs by 2030
Without these steps, America risks ceding the next-gen EV race to Chinese automakers already testing 310-mile sodium-powered sedans.
Final Word: Your Next EV Might Run on Salt
The $10 battery isn’t really about the chemistry. It’s really a story about survival. For US buyers, sodium-ion could mean affordable EVs immune to lithium’s rollercoaster. For Detroit, it’s a wake-up call: innovate or watch your factories become relics, like Flint’s shuttered V8 plants. The question isn’t whether sodium batteries will disrupt the market, but whether America will lead, or follow, this salty revolution.
