The political winds are pushing the energy industry ever further toward the green, promoting renewable power sources and electrification over fossil fuels. The irony in this is that certain rare metals, essential to a green energy economy, have taken on a new importance. In a sense, lithium is the new coal. This point was driven home just this month, when the Chinese battery maker CATL, a leader in the global market for electric vehicle battery packs, announced a changing to its pricing strategy