"President Joe Biden’s ambitions for an American-made electric vehicle industry have a graphite problem.

A key ingredient in the modern EV battery, graphite is used in making rechargeable cells. But it hasn’t been mined in this country for decades. There’s also synthetic graphite — often made with coking coal — but little production exists today in the United States.

Like with so many parts of the battery supply chain, China dominates in production of both kinds of graphite — a source Biden and a bipartisan contingent of lawmakers in Congress have stridently turned against."

Jael Holzman and Hannah Northey report for E&E News November 2, 2022l. [2]