Europe accounts for about 25% of global electric vehicle sales. Despite the high demand, only around 6.8% of the energy required for cell production is currently supplied in Europe. Most of the energy is imported in the form of materials and battery cells.

A team led by Prof Simon Lux (University of Münster and Fraunhofer Research Institution for Battery Cell Production) has now analyzed the future energy requirements associated with the European Union’s (EU) goal of strengthening European battery supply chains. The study is published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science.

In order to achieve self-sufficiency by 2050, the researchers predict the EU will have to meet an annual increase in energy demand for local battery cell production from the current level of around 3.5 terawatt hours (TWh) per year to 250 TWh annually. This would only be possible if a well-developed recycling infrastructure were in place by then.

In addition, Europe would need 200 to 250 TWh to charge electric vehicles and compensate for efficiency losses when discharging batteries for electric vehicles and stationary storage systems. Nevertheless, the increasing energy demand for lithium- and sodium-ion batteries would be offset by 90 TWh of upstream fossil fuel energy.

“Strengthening local battery supply chains is crucial to reducing energy dependence,” says Lux. “However, it also requires the supply of significant amounts of energy in Europe.” Battery-based electricity demand is growing disproportionately compared to total electricity demand, which will require major investments in renewable electricity generation and the corresponding infrastructure.

It will also be crucial for Europe to maximize battery recycling rates and recycling efficiency to reduce import dependency and future energy demand. The researchers assume that there will be significant recycling capacity in Europe (approx. 800 gigawatt hours of battery capacity are expected to be recycled annually from 2050 onwards). This could reduce the energy required for battery production in Europe by 33 to 46%.

However, the current recycling infrastructure is still in its early stages of development. The researchers therefore conclude that European policymakers need to implement effective regulations that enable companies to develop viable and sustainable recycling capabilities.

The study is based on a life-cycle assessment analysis utilizing data from recent research studies and the ecoinvent database. In addition, the research team performed the energy demand analysis using a simulation model, developed by the Institute of Business Administration at the Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy at the University of Münster, which represents a simplified battery circular economy.

To tie in with US president Donald Trump’s state visit, the UK and US have agreed to the Tech Prosperity Deal, to boost the development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI), quantum and nuclear technologies. 

Building on the £44bn UK government investment in the AI and tech sector and a commitment to invest a total of £31bn from Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, OpenAI and CoreWeave, Labour is aiming to make the UK Europe’s largest gigafactory.

As part of the pact, the UK and US will unite to forge joint research schemes to further the use of AI to allow for targeted treatments and other shared priorities, such as fusion energy. This could see both countries working together to build AI models for life-changing breakthroughs such as targeted treatments for those suffering with cancer or rare and chronic diseases. 

Parliamentary under-secretary of state for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology Kanishka Narayan described the agreement as “the first-ever UK-US tech deal”. “I think it has the potential to transform lives right across Britain,” he added.

When asked about the lack of sufficient onshore tech skills, Narayan said: “The starting point is that Britain has amazing talent already.”

Along with the skills across universities, researchers and AI startups, he also spoke about Labour’s 50-point AI opportunities plan. “We are going to be laser-sharp focused on the execution of the skills element,” said Narayan. “We’ve been focused on making sure that we are getting people to invest in British talent and British firms.”

Among the goals he sees for the UK-US tech partnership is “to convince the very best founders across the world that Britain is the right place for them to build”. To achieve this, Narayan said the government is working with UK startup Nscale to deploy Europe’s largest graphics processing unit (GPU) clusters.

According to Narayan, Nvidia has committed to supply 120,000 GPUs to the UK over the next 12 months. “We’re announcing to every talented founder across the world that Britain now has a scale of compute availability, one fundamental input that gives them the confidence to build here,” he said.

Narayan said OpenAI will deploy 8,000 GPUs in the first phase. This is projected to grow up to 60,000 Nvidia Grace Blackwell Ultra GPUs. Microsoft is also committed to investing £22bn, including 23,000 advanced GPUs, to deliver the UK’s largest AI supercomputer, in Loughton. Both of these deals also involve Nscale, which recently announced it was building an OpenAI Stargate project in Norway, using 100,000 Nvidia chips.

There is also the £5bn Google has invested in a datacentre facility in Waltham Cross.

Narayan said the opportunity for the UK was not only in building out sovereign compute at scale, but also to make the UK the world’s best place for the uptake and deployment of AI to help improve people’s lives.

Prime minister Keir Starmer said: “By teaming up with world-class companies from both the UK and US, we’re laying the foundations for a future where together we are world leaders in the technology of tomorrow, creating highly skilled jobs, putting more money in people’s pockets and ensuring this partnership benefits every corner of the United Kingdom.”

When you are done with the burner phone, make sure that you get rid of it in a thoughtful way as well. “At the end of the intended use, consider steps to eliminate information, remove SIM cards and/or memory cards, making sure not to leave a potential vulnerability after you,” says Access Now’s Al-Maskati.

Using an Alternative Phone

Depending on your risk model, it may not be appropriate or even the most practical to use a true burner phone. Instead, you may want to consider using an altphone to separate elements of your digital life.

“There is a lot of confusion, because ‘burner phone’ is a generic term,” says Matt Mitchell, CEO of the risk mitigation firm Safety Sync Group. “I usually try to group tactics and advice based on goals. It begins with why a normal phone isn’t good for privacy and then a dial on how private you’re trying to get. The privacy goals are the dial—from safer hygiene, to more secure operating systems, to straight-up locked-down phones.”

For many people, an altphone or “lighter” burner phone is likely to be a smartphone that allows a wide range of communications and access to privacy-enhancing tools such as encrypted messaging apps like Signal, VPNs, online tracker blockers, and more. This way you can tune your personal privacy dial to keep certain web browsing, software use, media consumption, or communication more private and anonymous than it would be on your normal devices.

“What are you trying to protect? If you’re just trying to obscure your phone number from somebody, you can do that in a much lighter way” than using a heavily anonymized device, the ACLU’s Williams says. “But if you’re really trying to go off grid, you have to do all this other stuff.

An altphone may be a smartphone that you separate as much as possible from your identity, perhaps a phone that you only use for attending protests. Or it could be an old phone you repurpose and use for things like traveling. How you set the privacy dial depends on the use case.

“A repurposed phone can be used for an extended period of time,” Cyberlixir’s Vo says. “A repurposed phone already has your traces, even with factory reset. There might be a sales receipt, CCTV log, or someone taking a picture of you talking on the phone. So they are useful for compartmentalizing activities. Work versus personal phone is the most obvious example. Or one for international travel.” Reused devices also retain certain identifiers such as IMEI numbers over time.

Using a smartphone as a second device does have its own considerations. When it comes to mainstream devices, “smartphones do a terrible job at protecting people’s privacy and securing their communications,” says Access Now’s Al-Maskati. “If people obtain a smartphone to use as a burner, it’s best to reset to factory settings, never connect any real accounts (AppleID, Google, social media), and do not sync any other information, as well as disabling unnecessary location and other services.”

You should only use your altphone for its intended purpose—if it’s a phone you want to take to protests, for example, it shouldn’t be used for texting friends or online shopping. As with a true burner phone, you should avoid using it in the same location that you use other devices—in other words, avoid connecting to the same Wi-Fi networks. Don’t turn your altphone on alongside your day-to-day devices and, relatedly, don’t carry them all together unless your altphone is in a Faraday bag. Only provide contact information for the altphone to those who need it.

Whether you’re using a burner phone or an altphone, though, the bottom line is that there are no guarantees or perfect solutions. And if there is absolutely no room for error, go analogue and don’t bring or involve a phone in whatever you’re doing.