Earth911 Podcast: The Critical Minerals Institute’s Jack Lifton on Sourcing Lithium for the EV Transition

Is there enough lithium in the United States to fulfill the made-in-America requirements of the Inflation Reduction Act’s tax incentive programs for new electric vehicles? The International Energy Agency projects that the world will need 1,063 kilotons of lithium in 2040. That’s 48 times the volume of lithium used in EVs and electricity storage in 2020. Where will it come from? Our guest today is Jack Lifton, a physical chemist who has worked for the past 60 years on the purification of rare metals for the electronics and energy storage industries. He is the co-chairman of the Critical Minerals Institute, an international professional organization focused on battery and technology materials, and an advisor to One World Lithium, a lithium extraction technology company. One World Lithium has developed a lithium carbonation process that Jack suggests can produce more battery-grade…