The fate of Tiehm's buckwheat highlights the tradeoffs and tough decisions surrounding "green technologies." Electric vehicles are a cornerstone of President Biden's infrastructure plan , with a $174 billion investment. Experts say Tiehm's buckwheat can grow nowhere else in the world. Calaway said that the US needs to be serious about securing the supply chain for electric vehicles, and the country is already lagging behind China. Klein, the partner at RK Equity who studies lithium, said that while all electric vehicles and most energy storage technologies need lithium, it's relatively abundant, so no one lithium project is of strategic importance to US national security, in terms of having needed minerals for electric vehicles.

Source: CNN May 10, 2021 16:18 UTC