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Podcast: NBN Book of the Day
Episode: Javiera Barandiaran, "Living Minerals: Nature, Trade, and Power in the Race for Lithium" (MIT Press, 2026)
Description: 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 Barandiarán 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...