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 20th 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 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.
一項令人警醒的調查，探討了電動車對鋰的需求、鋰礦開採的問題歷史，以及對可持續性的影響。
如今，消費者購買搭載鋰離子電池的電動車，出於相信這樣做是有益的，並能減少社會的碳排放。但可持續的鋰開採是否可能？在《Living Minerals》中，Javiera Barandiarán 研究了20世紀鋰礦開採和使用的歷史，特別聚焦於兩個最古老的鹽水鋰礦：內華達州的Silver Peak和智利的Salar de Atacama，這裡的鋰作為鹽、礦物和生物的液體混合物中的一種元素存在。
六十年來，礦業專家未曾詢問水資源的使用、廢物或鹽水洩漏的問題，以及在脆弱沙漠中的生態系統影響。相反，他們依賴於各種關於儲量大小、洩漏鹽水命運或廢物在促進礦山開發中的價值的虛構故事。這些虛構故事根植於鹽水鋰的物質特性，得以持續存在，因為強大的礦業記憶慶祝資源民族主義。本書以獨特的歷史和多維度的礦物與礦業研究方法，基於新穎的自然權利範式，並使用來自智利和美國的新檔案材料，主張減少社會碳排放需要我們面對這些現實——否則將冒著加深對不可持續礦業依賴的風險。
Javiera Barandiaran is Associate Professor in Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and director of UCSB's Center for Restorative Environmental Work. She has published four books, including Science and Environment in Chile (MIT Press) and Rights of Nature. For her research on lithium mining, she won a Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin and a fellowship at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center.
哈維拉·巴蘭迪亞蘭（Javiera Barandiaran）是加州大學聖塔芭芭拉分校（University of California, Santa Barbara）全球研究的副教授，並且是該校修復環境工作中心（Center for Restorative Environmental Work）的主任。她出版了四本書籍，包括《智利的科學與環境》（Science and Environment in Chile，麻省理工學院出版社）和《自然的權利》（Rights of Nature）。因為她對鋰礦開採的研究，她獲得了美國柏林學院的柏林獎（Berlin Prize）以及洛克菲勒基金會貝拉焦中心（Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center）的獎學金。
