ederal efforts to reduce air pollution and climate-warming emissions and better manage fisheries and natural resources suffered historic setbacks last week with Supreme Court rulings that will delight operators of the dirtiest power plants and oil refineries – and enrage environmentalists.” plan that would have forced factories and utilities in Midwestern and Western states to cut harmful ozone emissions that drift into the Eastern U.S.
Lithium is hugely important to electrifying the world’s vehicles, with just one car’s battery requiring more than 17 pounds of it. But extracting and processing the critical mineral is both costly and tough on the environment – and the United States largely relies on China for its supply. To meet that demand, Gradiant, which booked $150 million in revenue last year and has customers that include TSMC and Pfizer, is spinning out a new business, called alkaLi. Instead of mining from rock, the standalone venture plans to extract lithium from brine – naturally occurring extremely salty water found in a variety of regions – and process it for use in batteries using a technique that it developed.