Batteries are a critical part of the transition away from fossil fuels. From electric vehicles to grid scale storage for wind and solar, demand for batteries is expected to grow 500% by 2030. In order to meet that demand, we’re going to need a lot more batteries. JB Starubel, Founder and CEO of Redwood Materials (and former Chief Technology Officer at Tesla), says, “I don't see how we make the world sustainable without storage. And right now, batteries, lithium ion batteries largely are the scalable economic solution.” 

Creating a circular battery production process where the materials from decommissioned batteries are recycled to create new batteries would be the most sustainable way to meet our energy storage needs. That’s what Straubel and Redwood Materials are trying to achieve. Straubel says, “we can imagine this future where you don't need to continually extract and supply some chemical into a whole fleet of cars. The batteries today might be economically 95% but technically they’re 99% or more reusable.” 

While a high percentage of batteries are reusable, recycling them is not an easy process. That’s part of the reason why 95% of lithium-ion batteries end up in landfill. In order to recycle a battery, it has to be neutralized in order to prevent fires, and then each of the critical metals has to be purified and separated from each other. Straubel says, “It is a lot harder than notionally taking an old beer can and melting it and then stamping it into a new beer can. Batteries are a kind of a complex mixture of chemistry and chemicals all together. “ 

Some companies are working on new battery chemistries whose materials wouldn’t be as scarce or difficult to obtain. But at the moment, an alternative to lithium-ion batteries doesn’t exist at scale. Straubel says, “The process to mature a battery and to really make sure it's robust and get it to scale is very, very long. So, I learn to take new battery announcements with a little bit of a grain of salt.” 

Until there are enough old batteries being recycled, the critical minerals will still need to be mined. To meet growing demand, lithium mines around the world are opening or expanding, and in the Congo, children as young as six carry sacks of cobalt-laced rocks on their backs. And whether it happens in the U.S. or abroad, there are major environmental impacts from removing those minerals from the earth. 

Aimee Boulanger, Executive Director at the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, says, “There is not a country in the world with laws sufficient to prevent significant harm where mining happens.” 

But that doesn’t mean mining can’t be done more responsibly. The Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance, or IRMA, is working to create high standards that hold mining operations accountable. Despite IRMA being started 16 years ago, only 3 mining companies have released audits scoring their adherence to the IRMA standard so far. But as industry giants like BMW, Mercedes, Ford, GM, Tesla, Rivian and Volkswagen have become members, there is more leverage to get transparency from the mining industry. 

The good news is that there doesn’t need to be new innovation to reduce harm in the mining industry, as Boulanger says, “We don't need 20 years of research and technology to get at best practice mining. This is not nuclear fusion. We absolutely know already how to do mining with less harm.”

Ozark Highlands Radio is a weekly radio program that features live music and interviews recorded at Ozark Folk Center State Park’s beautiful 1,000-seat auditorium in Mountain View, Arkansas.  In addition to the music, our “Feature Host” segments take listeners through the Ozark hills with historians, authors, and personalities who explore the people, stories, and history of the Ozark region.

This week, a special road trip episode.  OHR visits Rogers, Arkansas’ Railyard Live Concert Series featuring singer-songwriters Will Gunselman & Ashtyn Barbaree recorded live at Butterfield Stage in Railyard Park in historic downtown Rogers.  Also, an interview with Ozark original Will Gunselman.

Rogers, Arkansas’ Railyard Live Concert Series began in 2021.  Held on the city’s Butterfield Stage next to Railyard Park in historic downtown Rogers, it features live concerts every weekend throughout the Spring, Summer, and Fall.  All of the Railyard Live events are either free to the public or at very low cost of admission.  The concert series features a wide array of musical styles and interests designed to appeal to the diverse population of Rogers and invite them to experience the newly revitalized Railyard Entertainment District.  The Ozark Folk Center State Park and the City of Rogers, Arkansas partnered to bring Ozark Highlands Radio to capture a little slice of this modern Ozark culture.

Will Gunselman is a singer-songwriter from Bella Vista, Arkansas.  Will’s vivid writer’s voice along with his unique style invents an honest and authentic Ozark story.  Honing his art through decades of live performance, Will has crafted a simple sound that is modern and relatable but reveals a rich patina of life lived.  Although plaintive, his music, rooted in folk, country and blues, dwells on the positive nature of experience and seeking joy in the everyday.  Like traversing the river Will ardently describes in his song Buffalo River Run, sitting with a set of his music is a journey bent with scenic vistas of the soul.

Ashtyn Barbaree is an internationally touring gritty Americana singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Fayetteville, Arkansas.  Sweet, soulful, charming and relatable, her lyrics have found their way into the hearts of folks from all walks of life.  She has a smokey, yet silky voice accompanied with harmonies, guitar, tenor 8-string ukulele, upright bass, pedal steel, drums and piano.
https://www.ashtynbarbaree.com/about

In this week’s “From the Vault” segment, OHR producer Jeff Glover offers a 1981 archival recording of bluegrasser Lenny Wallace performing the tune “Take Your Shoes Off Moses,” from the Ozark Folk Center State Park archives.

In this week’s guest host segment, renowned traditional folk musician, writer, and step dancer Aubrey Atwater explores the theme of riddles and trick questions in traditional folk music.

Around the globe, journalists, human rights activists, scholars and others are facing digital attacks from Pegasus, military-grade spyware originally developed to go after criminals. Some of the people targeted have been killed or are in prison.

In this episode, Reveal partners with the Shoot the Messenger podcast to investigate one of the biggest Pegasus hacks ever uncovered: the targeting of El Faro newspaper in El Salvador.

In the opening story, hosts Rose Reid and Nando Vila speak with El Faro co-founder Carlos Dada and reporter Julia Gavarrete. El Faro has been lauded for its investigations into government corruption and gang violence. The newspaper is no stranger to threats and intimidation, which have increased under the administration of President Nayib Bukele.

Reid and Vila also speak with John Scott-Railton of Citizen Lab, a Toronto-based digital watchdog group. Scott-Railton worked to identify the El Faro breach, and it was one of the most obsessive cases of spying Citizen Lab has ever seen.

Over the course of one year, 22 members of the newspaper’s staff had their phones infected with Pegasus and were surveilled by a remote operator. Researchers suspect Bukele’s government was behind the spying, though officials have denied those allegations. The breach forced El Faro’s journalists to change the way they work and live and take extreme measures to protect sources and themselves. 

Then Reid talks with Reveal’s Al Letson about growing efforts to hold the NSO Group, the company behind Pegasus, accountable for the massive digital attacks.

A decades-old lunar mystery gets an update in this week's Planetary Radio. Matt Siegler from the Planetary Science Institute shares his team's surprising findings about the granite formation that might lie beneath Compton-Belkovich, a thorium-rich hot spot on the far side of the Moon. Then Bruce Betts, chief scientist of The Planetary Society, shares What's Up in the night sky.

Deep dive: Mercury’s tantalizing promise of endless gold in South America. Mercury’s a known pollutant in fish, but did you know one of the biggest mercury emitters is actually small-scale gold mining? From sunken ships to shihuahuaco trees, we take a deep dive into the astounding history and science of mercury and the solutions that could break its toxic cycle.

ClassicalWorks (Episode 182)

We’re calling on Hannah Arendt for the twenty-first century—could she teach us how to think our way out of the authoritarian nightmare? Arendt wrote the book for all time on Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union. And then she famously covered the trial in Israel of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi minister of death. Her study of the origins of totalitarianism keeps her current fifty years after her death and, pointedly, in our own rancorous presidential campaign of 2024.

In this podcast, the surprise turns on finding a profound humanity and hope, believe it or not, in the collected wisdom of Hannah Arendt. She noted in one essay, “We are free to change the world.” Our guest, Lyndsey Stonebridge, lifted that line for the title of her gripping, fresh take on Hannah Arendt. We Are Free to Change the World is her title, and thinking has everything to do with it. 

From Donegal, to Sliabh Luachra, to Scotland and beyond, the fiddle is the core instrument in traditional Celtic music. This week, Katie Marie and Joe bring you foot-stomping dance music featuring fiddlers from Ireland, Scotland, the US and Canada.

The musicians this week: Michael Coleman, Charlene Adzima, Matt Molloy, Altan, Johnny Doherty, Emma O'Leary, Denis Murphy-Julia Clifford, Padraig O'keeffe, Paddy Cronin, The Fire, Bonnie Rideout, Ashley MacIsaac, Cassie & Maggie, Mick O'Brien & Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, and Antóin Mac Gabhann & Caitlín Nic Gabhann (with Brian McGrath).

Our FairPlé score this week: 56