The List by D Wells
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 Living Minerals, Javiera Barandiar n examines the history of lithium mining and uses during the twentieth century, with a specific focus on the two oldest brine-lithium mines: Silver Peak, Nevada, and Salar de Atacama, Chile, where lithium is found as one more element in a liquid mix of salts, minerals, and organisms. 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 multidimensional approach to minerals and mining, based on the novel Rights of Nature paradigm, and using new archival materials from both Chile and the US, the book argues that decarbonizing society requires that we reckon with these realities--or risk deepening our dependency on an unsustainable mining industry.
TOMOKO AOYAMA Lecturer in Japanese, University of Queensland ADRIAN JONES Senior Lecturer in History, La Trobe University S.P. MACKENZIE Associate Professor in History, University of South Carolina RAJYASHREE PANDEY Senior Lecturer in Japanese, La Trobe University
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781738411306 |
| ISBN 10 | 1738411303 |
| Title | The List |
| Author | Wells D |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Point of Prose Publishing |
| Year published | 2023-11-02 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |