Q&A WITH JON JACOBS OF WESTWATER RESOURCES Q Charged: Graphite’s a hot property these days. Tell us
about Westwater’s plans.
A Jon Jacobs: Westwater Resources is positioned to be the only vertically integrated natural graphite supplier in the United States. Prior to my joining Westwater, I was really naive about the importance of graphite and the fact that none of it is currently produced in the US. Much like lithium was ten years ago, graphite is a sleeping giant that is about to get a big awakening. The growing EV market and the IRA are now driving incredible demand for domestically produced graphite. If you spend time in the battery industry, you’ll find most of the discussion is about new and promising next-generation materials like silicon anodes or lithium metal. Yet, these technologies still face major technical challenges. Meanwhile, in terms of material by weight, there’s more graphite
in a battery than anything else. Today, over 75% of all the battery graphite comes from China. Unbelievably, none of it currently comes from the US. Along comes the Inflation Reduction Act. It’s amazing what the IRA is driving in terms of new companies and investment. Take Westwater as an example. Westwater transitioned from mining uranium, of all things, to becoming a graphite anode producer—all because of these new trade rules. Fast forward to today and Westwater is building a graphite plant in Alabama, and people are eager to buy our capacity. How much more are people willing to pay to get US graphite compared to Chinese suppliers? Natural graphite from China sells for about $7 a kilogram, yet companies setting up factories in the US are willing to pay more than that to get graphite domestically if it meets the IRA requirements. This is roughly how the math works: In 2023, 40% of the
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