Redwood Materials, best known for hoarding dead EV batteries like post-apocalyptic gold, has decided to do something new: plug them into the AI craze and call it innovation.
The company on Thursday launched “Redwood Energy,” an energy storage venture that plans to reuse thousands of EV batteries to power data centers, starting with a modular AI center from Crusoe Energy in Nevada.
This Frankenstein grid—built with 805 tired old EV batteries—is now powering 2,000 GPUs, all thanks to 12 megawatts of solar-fed energy and 63 megawatt-hours of capacity stored in what looks like a battery graveyard.
Crusoe, best known for its Stargate project in Texas, is just the first customer in Redwood’s quest to turn e-waste into gold under the guise of green energy.
Redwood claims to process over 20 gigawatt-hours of batteries each year and says it’s been sitting on over 1 gigawatt-hour of repurposable junk, with 4 more on the way—because apparently, the recycling wave everyone was promised never actually arrived.
By 2028, Redwood says it’ll deploy 20 gigawatt-hours of grid storage, cementing its position as the overlord of secondhand battery repurposing in North America.
Straubel, Tesla’s former CTO and now Redwood’s battery baron, built the Crusoe-powered microgrid in just four months, swearing it’s not a flashy demo—but a profitable sideshow.
The company made $200 million in 2024, mostly from battery material sales like cathodes, and has deals with GM, Panasonic, and Toyota to keep the junk flowing.
Redwood’s expansion includes a 175-acre site in Nevada and a massive 600-acre facility in South Carolina, where they’ll eventually churn out 500 gigawatt-hours of cathode material and anode foil—because why stop at recycling when you can manufacture too?
While other companies promised to reuse old batteries and delivered little more than PowerPoint slides, Redwood is actually stacking them in the desert and calling it “economics”—no greenwashing required.
So yes, in the most literal sense, AI now runs on trash. And apparently, it’s profitable.
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