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Paper short abstract

Following end-of-life lithium batteries in Norway's electromobility boom, this fragmented ethnography shows the diversity of social-ecological-material relations of lithium recycling. Analysing industrial circular imaginations as 'supraterranean', it argues for more messy, grounded battery stories.

Paper long abstract

1. At the reception of the electric car repair workshop, between several framed certificates for high-voltage battery work and an impressionistic painting of a Tesla car, I shake hands with one of the mechanical engineers. I spot a battery tattoo on his wrist.

2. In a historically steel-producing town, I eat a kanellknute with an employee of the prospected lithium battery gigafactory that is supposed to transform this place into green industrial capital. I ask her about industrially recycling metals from batteries. She is hopeful: 'batteries are the new oil for Norway' - a green alternative source of wealth.

3. In the university laboratory, a chemical engineer water-filters shredded battery mass, aiming for sustainable ways to recover lithium. He explains recycling suffers under fast-changing battery designs, worries that labelling recycled batteries 'green' will legitimise overconsumption, and shares concerns about the geographical politics of battery recycling job opportunities.

4. In a nature reserve in a southern fjord and estuary, the tensions between circular industrial area and ecological restoration site can be felt. Birds, noise, wind and waste ignore the border intended to separate both. Notions of circularity, borrowed from natural cycles and ecosystems, are seeping into green company imaginaries, while old chemicals start to leak into the nature reserve as industrial expansion takes new shapes.

Following end-of-life lithium batteries in Norway's electromobility boom, this fragmented ethnography tells of the diversity of social-ecological-material relations of lithium recycling. Regarding the industrial circular imagination as supraterranean, it argues for more messy, grounded battery stories.