The National Security Twist in an EV Maker’s Graphite Deal
The agreement between Lucid and Graphite One shows the global energy system is increasingly tied to a new era of geopolitical contest.
Graphite supply is enmeshed in geopolitics.
Photographer: Sebastien St-Jean/AFP
Graphite, the stuff in pencils, doesn’t typically feature in thrillers; that’s reserved for the likes of uranium and gold. So one doesn’t expect a senator talking about it at a somewhat obscure press conference to lead with the line: “The dictators are on the march.”
That was Dan Sullivan of Alaska, a Republican who sits on the Senate’s Armed Services Committee. He was speaking in a nondescript meeting room at Capitol Hill last week at the announcement of a deal between Graphite One Inc., a start-up conducting a feasibility study on a major graphite deposit in Alaska — the largest in North America — and Lucid Group Inc., a maker of high-end electric vehicles.