This country is unlikely to outdo Germany on gigafactories. It is unlikely to compete with Belgium's Umicore on cathode materials. It is unlikely, despite the best efforts of British Lithium, to outdo Chile or Australia.

But it could plausibly be the most important hub in Europe for anode ...

From the outside, the Humber Refinery does not look like a part of Britain's green future - and that's putting it mildly.

This is the very image of the country's fossil fuel industry, a mammoth plant that churns out petrol, aviation fuel and other such products. It is a spaghetti junction o...

Just over a hundred miles north of the Humber Refinery is the town of Blyth. Here on the glorious Northumberland coast, at a site which was once the coal store for a now defunct power station, work is under way on one of the most important projects in contemporary UK industrial history.

Thi...

Much is made these days about the lithium inside batteries or the cobalt that also goes into the cathodes. Far less is said about the other end of the battery. Yet without the kind of graphite produced from Humberside coke (and this refinery turns out to be one of the world's most important produ...