Herein, we demonstrate that by a simple treatment of heating and ball-milling, soil is endowed with a 77.2% degree of defects and acts as a high-performance anode material for soil/Li half cells and 18650-type LiNi0.915Co0.075Al0.1O2 (NCA)/soil full batteries that displayed a high and stable capacity of 3200 mA h (corresponding to 176 W h kg(-1) and 522 W h L(-1)) in the 200th cycle at a high current of 4 A.