As policymakers and business leaders in both the U.S. and China rev up electric-vehicle production, they find themselves reliant on the insecure supply of a raw material critical to both countries’ economies.
A grassy plain in Nevada’s Humboldt County is where the contest between the U.S. and China for mastery of the global economy could be won or lost.
Called Thacker Pass, the empty patch of land, 230 miles from Reno, looks decidedly uninteresting, home to little more than scrubby bushes. But it’s what lies beneath that places the site at the center of the twenty-first century economy: Lithium.
That once-obscure metal, long suffering in the shadow of copper, iron ore and other widely cherished commodities, has now claimed the global spotlight. The challenge of climate change has elevated lithium into the indispensable ingredient for the green energy age. As all the world’s major economies push aggressively to electrify their transportation, lithium — and the batteries made with it — will power that revolution.
But here’s the problem: There won’t be enough lithium to go around, at least in the near term. The U.S., for instance, produces hardly any — less than
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Increasingly, Democrats and Republicans believe that climate change and China pose a single interconnected challenge. As a result — and for the first time ever — a window is opening for bipartisan cooperation on climate policy. Historically progressive ideas like a 'carbon border adjustment mechanism' now have conservative champions, for instance. But with Washington's main focus on the Warming War with China, can it still save the planet?
A look at China’s electricity grid: how it works, who foots the bill, and how its structure leads to power crunches and expensive prices despite the relative abundance of energy in China.
The academic talks about the changing understanding of Leninist regimes; common misperceptions of the post-Mao era; and what the collapse of the Soviet Union means for China today.
