Department of Energy official visits Novonix

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF) – A high-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Energy visited Chattanooga Friday.

David Turk, the Deputy Secretary of the DOE, visited the Novonix plant on the Chattanooga Westside.

That plant manufactures battery materials and technology such as synthetic graphite.

Currently, America gets nearly all of this material from China, which the Secretary hopes the plant is able to fix.

Secretary Turk said, “That is not where we want to be from a national security perspective, an economic security perspective. These investments are allowing us to diversify our supply chains to produce graphite here, get the jobs here in Tennessee, in the US, and produce it. It is also incredibly clean, green facility in how they are doing it compared to the alternative, so this is a win-win-win, and so we’re out to celebrate this.”

Over $200 million has been invested into Novonix and over 350 jobs have been created.