“I thought he had a pocket full of fireworks and then I realized he had an e-cigarette.”

What's all the jubilation about? Well, for one of the last people who touched the little spaceship's battery before it left the earth in 2011, it's a time for joyous celebration. That would be Mike Surline, a guy who knows batteries.

Lithium is an essential component of many consumer tech products.

With shortages of lithium predicted and demand for the element growing, looking for new and cost-effective ways to extract it from one of our largest natural resources certainly makes sense.

There always comes that frustrating moment when your television remote or other electronic device runs out of power, and