Description:
In the twentieth century, wealth and power was dictated by access to oil. This century will have different kingmakers, perhaps different wars.
We depend on a handful of metals and rare earths to power our phones and computers. Increasingly, we rely on them to power our cars and our homes. Whoever controls these finite commodities will become rich beyond imagining.
Sanderson journeys to meet the characters, companies, and nations scrambling for the new resources, linking remote mines in the Congo and Chile's Atacama Desert to giant Chinese battery factories, shadowy commodity traders, secretive billionaires, and a new generation of scientists attempting to solve the dilemma of a "greener" world.
Brief description:
Henry Sanderson covered commodities and mining for the Financial Times for seven years. Prior to that he lived and worked in Beijing, where he was a correspondent for Bloomberg and coauthored a book, China's Superbank, about China's state capitalism and its impact on countries from Venezuela to Ethiopia. He tweets at @hjesanderson.
Review Quotes:
"A vital contribution to the emerging literature that's pulling back the curtain on energy realities."
-- "Wall Street Journal"