Living Minerals - Nature, Trade, and Power in the Race for Lithium

A sobering investigation of the rush for lithium for electric vehicles, the problematic history of lithium mining, and the consequences for sustainability. Consumers today are buying electric vehicles with lithium-ion batteries motivated by the belief that they are doing good and decarbonizing society. But is sustainable lithium extraction possible? In For six decades, mining experts have failed to ask about water usage, about waste or brine leakage, and about the ecosystem impacts in delicate deserts. Instead, they have relied on various fictions about the size of reserves, the fate of leaked brine, or the value of waste in facilitating mine development. These fictions, rooted in brine-lithium’s material qualities, could be sustained thanks to powerful mining memories that celebrated resource nationalism. Unique in its historical and multi-dimensional approach to minerals and mining, based on the novel Rights of Nature paradigm, and the use of new archival materials from both Chile and the U.S., the book argues that decarbonizing society requires that we reckon with these realities--or risk deepening our dependency on an unsustainable mining industry.

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Javiera Barandiaran
• Verlag: The MIT Press
• Sprache: Englisch
• Produktform: Taschenbuch
• Erscheint: 13.01.2026
• EAN: 9780262553704
• ISBN: 978-0-262-55370-4
• Seiten: 280
• Serie: Urban and Industrial Environments
• Themen: POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Environmental Policy, TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Power Resources / General, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Energy Policy, Energy technology & engineering, Central / national / federal government policies, Environmental policy & protocols, Energy resources, Central government policies, Energy technology and engineering, Environmental policy and protocols