The energy transition is often sold as a story of ethereal "green" progress, but if you look at the balance sheets of the companies actually building it, the story is written in soot and high-voltage electricity. While the financial press spends its time obsessing over the price of lithium or the latest solid-state battery breakthrough, a much more grounded, and expensive, reality is setting in. We are entering the era of the engineered anode. New data suggests the market for ultra-high-purity (UHP) graphite is on a trajectory to hit $1.43 billion…