Lithium batteries may hold the key to an environmentally sustainable, oil-independent future. From electric cars to a "smart" power grid that can actually store electricity, letting us harness the powers of the sun and the wind and use them when we need them, lithium--a metal half as dense as water, found primarily in some of the most uninhabitable places on earth--has the potential to set us on a path toward a low-carbon energy economy.

In Bottled Lightning, Seth Fletcher takes us on a fascinating journey, from the salt flats of Bolivia to the labs of MIT and Stanford, from...