The CME plans to launch a futures contract for lithium, seeking to capitalize on growing demand for a metal that helps to power electric vehicles.

The contract will be for lithium hydroxide delivered to China, South Korea and Japan, where most batteries globally are produced, CME said Thursday. If the futures contract is approved by regulators, it will begin trading on May 3.

Google Quad Campus sits atop one such site; for several months in 2012 and 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found employees of the company were inhaling unsafe levels of TCE in the form of toxic vapor rising up from the ground beneath their offices.