In the old fossil fuel heartlands of Australia, a new kind of industry is being built, ABC News reports.
At Kwinana south of Perth, not far from the chimneys and silos of a decommissioned oil refinery, land has been secured to produce highly refined battery minerals.
In Geelong, where Ford built cars for almost a century, work is underway on a lithium-ion battery "gigafactory".
In the Hunter Valley, where coal is king, another gigafactory has just opened.
And earlier this month, it emerged that lithium, a central ingredient for batteries, will soon be worth more to WA than oil, gas and coal combined.
The humble rechargeable battery has become a big deal.
A technology developed to power mobile phones has become critical for everything from clean transport to renewable grids.
Global demand for batteries is forecast to increase tenfold over the next decade, and fortyfold by 2050.
Now, one question is being asked, and its answer could shape Australia's prosperity for generations.
"A modern rechargeable battery is a highly advanced piece of technology," says Shannon O'Rourke, CEO of the Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre (FBI CRC), based at Curtin University in Western Australia.
"Though it looks simple from the outside, on the inside it contains precisely engineered materials made from the purest refined products."
FULL STORY
How batteries are made — and how the future of a new industry hangs in the balance (ABC News)
PHOTO
Battery-making "gigafactories", like this Tesla-owned one in Nevada, are popping up all over the world.(Supplied: Tesla)
