If we don’t build battery stewardship — a process in which state and local governments can play an important role — electrification will continue to generate growing public risks, from fires to hazardous waste to the loss of critical minerals needed to power the future.
Working in renewable energy and public policy, I’ve watched electrification accelerate. Teslas went from novelty to normal. Cities and school systems began adopting electricity-powered transportation. Utilities began building renewable generation with ambitious goals for the years ahead. But every new solution brings unintended consequences.
For electrification, that consequence is clear. Batteries have become the issue no one wants to talk about.
Ask any firefighter and they’ll tell you: Lithium battery fires are different. They burn hotter, can reignite and create their own new operational hazards. When batteries are mishandled or improperly discarded, we also risk environmental contamination of our waste streams. Local fire departments, waste agencies and other public facilities are increasingly dealing with battery incidents without consistent standards.
Yet the deeper problem is even simpler: Batteries are disappearing. They vanish into warehouses. They disappear into facility storage rooms and property lockers. They disappear into closets and trash bins. And yes — they disappear into landfills.
That’s not just a waste management problem. It’s a governance problem.
Lithium-ion batteries are built from minerals and materials that are finite, expensive and increasingly essential. When batteries vanish, they don’t just threaten safety — they represent the loss of recoverable resources needed to sustain electrification itself. In other words, when lithium batteries are mishandled or discarded, the risks aren’t just local. They scale nationally.
Electrification is a path to a cleaner future, but anything that stores energy at scale must be respected and managed with discipline. We would never accept a world where industrial chemicals are shipped and discarded with no tracking, no documentation and no accountability. We shouldn’t accept that model for lithium batteries either.
Even those who disagree on climate policy should be able to agree on this: Our future will depend on batteries more than we realize. The rise of electronics, robotics and AI will only accelerate energy demand. Data centers are expanding. Battery-powered equipment is growing in nearly every sector — from homes to hospitals to fleets and industrial operations.
So, we face a choice: We can treat battery retirement as an afterthought, or we can build stewardship systems that match the scale of the moment.
Battery stewardship means treating batteries not as disposable consumer waste but as high-value, high-risk assets that require life cycle management: identification, safe storage, incident handling, verified retirement and traceable recycling. This doesn’t mean tracking every household battery — it means focusing on higher-energy lithium batteries used in transportation, tools, and fleet and facility environments where risk and volume concentrate.
Some statehouses are already moving in the right direction, with lawmakers introducing legislation that requires producers to identify recyclers and take greater responsibility for end-of-life management. That momentum is encouraging — but it is not enough. Lithium batteries require more than recycling availability. They require chain-of-custody accountability.
State and local governments can help make stewardship real. That includes:
• Standard handling protocols for damaged, confiscated and high-risk batteries.
• Auditable chain-of-custody logging in facilities, warehouses, fleets and waste pathways.
• Incentives from insurers and risk engineers that reward compliant battery management.
• Verified proof of retirement so batteries don’t disappear into informal disposal routes.
• Clear state-level stewardship standards that make documentation the norm, not the exception.
If we don’t modernize this now, incidents will grow. Fires will increase. Improper disposal will continue. And critical minerals will keep leaking out of the U.S. economy — not only through geopolitics but through neglect.
Electrification is one of the most important transitions of modern society. We shouldn’t pretend it is automatically clean or safe simply because it reduces tailpipe emissions. We built the future. Now we have to manage it.
David Sedbrook works at the intersection of electrification, renewable energy and public policy. He has led government and policy initiatives across multiple U.S. markets focused on transportation electrification and lithium-ion battery risk. He is the founder of Valtera, an early-stage battery stewardship initiative.
Governing's opinion columns reflect the views of their authors and not necessarily those of Governing's editors or management.
