October 15, 2024
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Book Review: The Huge Cost of Extracting Earth’s Power
Vince Beiser’s ‘Electro-Digital Age’ tour puts resource extraction front and center
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Power Metal: The race for resources that will shape the future
Written by Vince Beiser.
Riverhead, 2024 ($32)
In his unflinching follow-up, a grain of world— The book that turned sand into a fascinating story — Journalist Vince Beiser reveals the cost of mining the “huge amounts” of minerals needed to meet the growing demands of the “electro-digital age” Masu. Visor tracks cobalt and lithium from environmentally destructive excavation sites in Chile’s Atacama Desert and the deep ocean floor, through geopolitically risky supply chains to electric cars and solar panels. While the rise of green energy is failing to rescale Mother Nature (only about 1 in 10 solar panels is recycled), Beiser urges us to rethink our understanding of sustainability.
