Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future

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A quick rundown of this product’s key features:

The powerful ways the metals we need to fuel technology and energy are spawning environmental havoc, political upheaval, and rising violence — and how we can do better.

An Australian millionaire’s plan to mine the ocean floor. Nigerian garbage pickers risking their lives to salvage e-waste. A Bill Gates-backed entrepreneur harnessing AI to find metals in the Arctic.

These people and millions more are part of the intensifying competition to find and extract the minerals essential for two crucial technologies: the internet and renewable energy. In Power Metal, Vince Beiser explores the Achilles’ heel of “green power” and digital technology – that manufacturing computers, cell phones, electric cars, and other technologies demand skyrocketing amounts of lithium, copper, cobalt, and other materials. Around the world, businesses and governments are scrambling for new places and new ways to get those metals, at enormous cost to people and the planet.

Beiser crisscrossed the world to talk to the people involved and report on the damage this race is inflicting, the ways it could get worse, and how we can minimize the damage. Power Metal is a compelling glimpse into this disturbing yet potentially promising new world.

Our Top Reviews

Reviewer: Angelena
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great Book + Some stuff about Mazda
Review: Got this book recommended to me by the Daily Show on Comedy Central, so far a great read, just from that first paragraph talking about their Mazda 3 dying, which I lowkey don’t get how people do that because my families 2014 Mazda 3 is like damn near perfect condition cause we maintain it. But nevertheless author makes some good points about how we need to succeed in keeping our earth habitable but that doesn’t mean all cars on the road need to be 100% electric, I mean going back the Mazda, they already made an REV or rotary EV (fancy name for a Mazda Hybrid I know right?) but yeah it’s crazy to think all the things listed in the book but it’s reality and reality is often hard to think about especially the future as we always hope for the best but what we manage to do is usually not what we initially hoped for.

Reviewer: Lesley E.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Powerful Message
Review: powerful message that gives us lots to think about.

Reviewer: Bernard . Pucker
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A Way Forward
Review: Excellent presentation of the many demands that the digital and electronic progress have already made upon our planet and its inhabitants. Clearly presented a plethora of details that describe our great challenges. Meticulous exploration of many sites and businesses as each has a piece of the pie that may diminish or save our world. The story told with integrity and clarity that provides with possibilities to mitigate and alleviate the immense problems. Would recommend strongly to all.

Reviewer: Thomas Gray
Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars
Title: An environmentalist pretends to tell the whole story
Review: The book portends to tell about mining of rare earths but ends up saving the planet by getting rid of cars and having everyone ride bicycles. Maybe great in theory but not realistic. I thought there would be more info on mining, not just about how the mines pollute the landscape and subjugate the miners.

Reviewer: Steven
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: An important book for all to read
Review: Fantastic !

Reviewer: Bcstractor
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Not great
Review: Full of anecdotes and scare stories with some airy fairy suggestions for the future. Does a poor job of comparing to the sins and massive pollution of the fossil fuel industries.

Reviewer: Eugene Gallagher
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Beiser’s is the third important book on obtaining the metals needed to combat climate change
Review: I too saw Beiser on “The Daily Show,” but I’d already read his book. it earns a place of honor on my bookshelf next to Siddharth Kara’s 2023 “Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers our Lives” and Helen Scales’ 2021 “The Brilliant Abyss: Exploring the Majestic Hidden Life of the Deep Ocean and the Looming Threat that Imperils It.” All three deal with the crisis of finding sufficient rare Earth metals, like cobalt, Nickel and Neodymium to build the batteries and wind turbines needed to reduce fossil fuel emissions to reduce the impending dire consequences of climate change. Mining of the Clarion Clipperton Zone (CCZ), 3 miles deep and the size of much of the US, is now emerging as one source of these metals, especially since President Trump’s Executive Order paving the way for deep-sea mining, perhaps by Canada’s “The Metal Company.” Trump’s order is in violation of the Law of the Sea Treaty, signed by almost every other country on Earth but the US. Scales, a marine biologist, does a better job describing the highly diverse deep-sea communities that inhabit the CCZ despite being 3 miles below the sea surface with little available food. Kara does a much better job describing the horrid conditions in the Peoples Republic of the Congo. Beiser does describe the potential dire effects of mining on the CCZ with interviews of The Metal Company’s CEO Gerard Baron, but he focuses on the circular economy, i.e., recycling metals from old electronics. He conlcludes with a plea for more bikes, which I view as just a minor part of the solution to the bigger issue of staving off the most disastrous effects of climate change and preserving sufficient portions of the CCZ to prevent the extinction of thousands of species, the vast majority of which remain undescribed but detected by genomic analysis.

Reviewer: Claire Zuma
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Details to know RE: green energy, EVs, industry materials, mining, recycling & electronics
Review: “Power Metal” by Vince Beiser [2024] is an easy to read volume with what seems mostly less told part of producing digital devices and going “green.” Many energy leaders speak and write on working to reduce global warming and climate change with details/data, but Vince Beiser adds what seems the less told, detailed information about current mining, recycling, embodied carbon and labor practices involved. I highly recommend those involved in “green” energy, electronics, going “all-electric,” the electricity industry and/or using various electronic devices, including cell phones to read this work. Vince’s perspective is unusually rich with pertinent international reasons, plus difficult and dangerous news stories on why all ought to continue to pay attention to the full pros/cons story, not just the business hype, for improving their continued investments.In addition, I was pleasantly surprised and amazed to read the book’s last chapter explaining why bicycling, e-bikes, public transportation and bicycling infrastructure makes sense to invest in for community health, giving current, already well invested examples from Amsterdam and other large cities.Thank you Vince Beiser.

Reviewer: David Vernon
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Everybody should read this book. Excellent!

Reviewer: The Engineer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Excellent book

Reviewer: Jeffrey A. McNeely
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Power Metal, by Vince Beiser, gave me some interesting and relevant information about what goes into manufacturing my iPhone, my laptop computer, the solar panels on my roof, and even my electric car. What I learned gave me a sense of deep concern about how much nature is paying to enable the applications of modern technology that are making my life much more productive. I can continue working on conserving nature with a focus on the biological diversity and ecosystem services that provide multiple benefits to people. Power Metal showed me that each mobile phone contains ingredients from two-thirds of the Periodic List, and that the new capacities of the high quality iPhones contain many “rare earths” that are being mined in many parts of the world today. Vince Beiser gives an easy way to think about how these various bits must be interacting while they carry out their duties to make our IT machines work: “It’s like the pepper in a meatball”. I was interested to learn how diverse are the bits of “pepper” in my mobile phone and lap-top computer that keep me in touch with the world, and are essential to my happiness. Beiser explains that what he calls the “critical earths” play significant roles enabling the new “Electro-Digital Age” that includes the internet and digital technology, renewable energy, and electric vehicles. These draw on “critical resources” that enable today’s comfortable way of living for some and serious challenges for others. With plenty of ingredients, he gives us a recipe and at least some of the ingredients that are supporting the way people live today in the well managed countries that are good case studies that help us understand what are these exotic earths and where they come from. The natural resources that are building my iPhone include elements from all of the “critical resources”, and mining them is a painful process for the people who are living in and around the mines that yield critical earths. These mineral resources are being exploited from a wide range of natural habitats in many parts of the world, with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Brazil, Chile, and Indonesia among the countries whose biological resources are being over-exploited. As Beiser concludes, “The real problem is the sheer amount of natural resources that human beings devour.” He provides some intriguing ways to deal with this conflict between what humans want and what nature is able to provide sustainably. Power Metal identifies those who are earning the profits while nature is paying the expense, and suggests ways forward that include bicycles and increased individual responsibilities for the environmental and social problems being caused by exploitation of natural resources at rates that cannot be sustained. Power Metal shows where the power is and how the world’s consumers of natural resources can pay the real costs of consumption.

Reviewer: brian young
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This book was equally as interesting if not more so than Beiser’s first book. Great Read.