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? The Powerhouse is a real-time, two-year account of big invention, big commercialization, and big deception. It exposes the layers of aspiration and disappointment, competition and ambition behind this great turning point in the history of technology.  More Information

 

Steve LeVine is Quartz's Washington Correspondent. He writes about the intersection of energy, technology and geopolitics. He is a Future Tense Fellow at the New America Foundation and an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. LeVine is the author of two prior books: The Oil and the Glory, a history of oil told through the 1990s-2000s oil rush on the Caspian Sea; and Putin's Labyrinth, a profile of Russia through the lives and deaths of six Russians. Full Bio