A worldwide race is on to perfect the next engine of economic growth, the advanced
lithium-ion battery. It will power the electric car, relieve global warming, and catapult
the winner into a new era of economic and political mastery. Can the United States
win?
Steve LeVine was granted unprecedented access to a secret federal laboratory outside
Chicago, where a group of geniuses is trying to solve this next monumental task of
physics. But these scientists— almost all foreign born—are not alone. With so much at
stake, researchers in Japan, South Korea, and China are in the same pursuit. The
drama intensifies when a Silicon Valley start-up licenses the federal laboratory’s
signature invention with the aim of a blockbuster sale to the world’s biggest carmakers.
The Powerhouse is a real-time, twoyear thrilling account of big invention, big
commercialization, and big deception. It exposes the layers of competition and
ambition, aspiration and disappointment behind this great turning point in the history
of technology.