Today I want to look at China's dominance of critical raw materials for clean-tech. Most people think that they left graphite behind when they graduated from pencils to pens early on in their school days, but the truth is that this slippery substance remains a crucial part of our daily lives. Consider the laptop computer, which has by and large replaced pens for most of us over the past decade — did you know that there is actually 10 times more graphite than lithium inside a lithium-ion battery?
Graphite has long been a key ingredient in steel, castings, lubricants, vehicle brakes, golf clubs, tennis rackets and — no surprise — pencils. But this polymer of carbon — a chemically identical sibling of both diamonds and coal — will become increasingly important in coming years due to its chemical, electrical and thermal properties. Its ability to remain stable in ordinary corrosive environments, conduct electricity and resist heat allow it to serve as a key component in applications like the storage batteries and nuclear electricity generation stations that will power us into the future.
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