Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future

James Morton Turner

ISBN 10: 0295752181 / ISBN 13: 9780295752181

Published by University of Washington Press, 2022

About this Item

2023. Reprint. Paperback. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780295752181

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Charged: A History of Batteries and Lessons for a Clean Energy Future
• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Publication Date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0295752181
• ISBN 13: 9780295752181
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Winner of the 24th Annual Susanne M. Glasscock Humanities Book Prize
Finalist for the 2023 Cundill History Prize
Gold Medal Recipient, Nautilus Book Awards, Sustainability

To achieve fossil fuel independence, few technologies are more important than batteries. Used for powering zero-emission vehicles, storing electricity from solar panels and wind turbines, and revitalizing the electric grid, batteries are essential to scaling up the renewable energy resources that help address global warming. But given the unique environmental impact of batteries―including mining, disposal, and more―does a clean energy transition risk trading one set of problems for another?

In Charged, James Morton Turner unpacks the history of batteries to explore why solving "the battery problem" is critical to a clean energy transition. As climate activists focus on what a clean energy future will create―sustainability, resiliency, and climate justice―the history of batteries offers a sharp reminder of what building that future will consume: lithium, graphite, nickel, and other specialized materials. With new insight on the consequences for people and communities on the front lines, Turner draws on the past for crucial lessons that will help us build a just and clean energy future, from the ground up.

About the Author

James Morton Turner is professor of environmental studies at Wellesley College. He is author of The Promise of Wilderness: American Environmental Politics since 1964 and coauthor of The Republican Reversal: Conservatives and the Environment from Nixon to Trump.