Lithium for batteries being mined in the Atacama desert (Chile).
John Moore/Getty Images
Power Metal
Vince Beiser (Fire books (United Kingdom, November 20); Riverhead Books(USA, November 19))
The phone you’re reading this article on is probably taking a lot of damage on the planet. If it’s an iPhone, more than 30 kilograms of minerals had to be mined to collect the metals inside it, from the nickel and cobalt in its battery to the rare earths in the touch screen.
Higher volumes of such “critical metals”…
