In answer to the call for electric vehicles to counter the oil embargo and crisis in the Middle East during the mid-1970s, researchers at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa initiated a twenty-year research programme that led to the discoveries of a novel, rechargeable, high-temperature sodium battery and new materials for ambient-temperature lithium batteries. The latter research laid the foundation for advances in lithium-ion technology that now commands a multibillion-dollar industry. Running with Lithium--Empowering the Earth follows the path of science from materials' discovery to commercial use and the protection of intellectual property. Author Michael Thackeray shares his memoir and a story about decision-making and the consequences of choice on the course of a life in a highly competitive world while encountering big changes, experiences, and remarkable coincidences along the way. Running with Lithium--Empowering the Earth emphasizes the need for clean energy and a rapid redirection of human ingenuity to undo the ecological damage that has been inflicted on earth since the Industrial Revolution some two hundred years ago. Follow Michael's journey and be inspired to engage in a scientific career--at a time when the world's growing number of inhabitants have an increasingly unequal share of its resources and in which life and survival are being challenged by an urgent need for clean energy and an electrification of the planet.