For much of the past century, a small corner of North Carolina supplied the vast majority of the world’s lithium before cheaper competition from abroad took away its crown.
Investment is now flowing back into the region. Chemicals group Livent this week completed an expansion of a lithium hydroxide refinery in Bessemer City, North Carolina. The project increased US production capacity for first time in more than a decade of the compound used in lithium-ion batteries that power electric vehicles.
Lithium is not the only part of the battery supply chain on the receiving end of an impending influx of investment. As the US looks to build an EV ecosystem from the ground up and dislodge control of the market from China, money is pouring into everything from graphite plants and cobalt refineries to battery gigafactories.