
Power Metal
The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future
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Narrated by:
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Vince Beiser
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By:
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Vince Beiser
About this listen
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.
©2024 Vince Beiser (P)2024 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Unflinching. . .Beiser urges us to rethink our understanding of sustainability." —Scientific American
“Journalist [Vince] Beiser enumerates the precious metals comprising the electronics we consume with near-thoughtless abandon…[but] counters the darkness with bright stories of entrepreneurs salvaging the metals, giving old batteries repurposed afterlives,and repairing electronic devices to extend their lives…[This is] a book that alarms even as it leads us to solutions.”—Booklist
“Power Metal is a necessary, illuminating, and often shocking read. Fast-paced, fascinating, and alive with colorful characters, it’s a whirlwind tour of the epochal energy transition currently underway as we enter what Vince Beiser so aptly calls the ‘electro-digital age.’” —John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather
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Engrossing and Informative
- By Katherine Barton on 05-24-25
By: Tim Minshall
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The Grid
- The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future
- By: Gretchen Bakke
- Narrated by: Emily Caudwell
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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The grid is an accident of history and of culture, in no way intrinsic to how we produce, deliver and consume electrical power. Yet this is the system the United States ended up with, a jerry-built structure now so rickety and near collapse that a strong wind or a hot day can bring it to a grinding halt. The grid is now under threat from a new source: renewable and variable energy, which puts stress on its logics as much as its components.
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A disappointment
- By Ronald on 09-24-16
By: Gretchen Bakke
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How the World Ran Out of Everything
- Inside the Global Supply Chain
- By: Peter S. Goodman
- Narrated by: Michael David Axtell
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In How the World Ran Out of Everything, award-winning journalist Peter S. Goodman reveals the fascinating innerworkings of our supply chain and the factors that have led to its constant, dangerous vulnerability. His reporting takes listeners deep into the elaborate system, showcasing the triumphs and struggles of the human players who operate it—from factories in Asia and an almond grower in Northern California, to a group of striking railroad workers in Texas, to a truck driver who Goodman accompanies across hundreds of miles of the Great Plains.
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Must Read!
- By Adam W Jones on 10-05-24
By: Peter S. Goodman
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Volt Rush
- The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green
- By: Henry Sanderson
- Narrated by: Rory Barnett
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Can someone edit out all the inhales?
- By Amazon Customer on 11-26-22
By: Henry Sanderson
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How Infrastructure Works
- Inside the Systems That Shape Our World
- By: Deb Chachra
- Narrated by: Kathe Mazur
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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A soaring bridge is an obvious infrastructural feat, but so are the mostly hidden reservoirs, transformers, sewers, cables, and pipes that deliver water, energy, and information to wherever we need it. When these systems work well, they hide in plain sight. Engineer and materials scientist Deb Chachra takes listeners on a fascinating tour of these essential utilities, revealing how they work, what it takes to keep them running, just how much we rely on them—but also whom they work well for, and who pays the costs.
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Mistitled
- By Eric on 01-09-24
By: Deb Chachra
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Chip War
- The Quest to Dominate the World's Most Critical Technology
- By: Chris Miller
- Narrated by: Stephen Graybill
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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You may be surprised to learn that microchips are the new oil—the scarce resource on which the modern world depends. Today, military, economic, and geopolitical power are built on a foundation of computer chips. Virtually everything—from missiles to microwaves—runs on chips, including cars, smartphones, the stock market, even the electric grid. Until recently, America designed and built the fastest chips and maintained its lead as the #1 superpower, but America’s edge is in danger of slipping, undermined by players in Taiwan, Korea, and Europe taking over manufacturing.
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Great history, but could poor narration
- By Lily Wong on 10-26-22
By: Chris Miller
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No Trade Is Free
- Changing Course, Taking on China, and Helping America's Workers
- By: Robert Lighthizer
- Narrated by: Charles Constant
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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America is the first country in history to fund the rise of its rivals. We need to stop now, before it’s too late.
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interesting and educational learning
- By Mark Johnson on 05-14-25
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Marketcrafters
- The 100-Year Struggle to Shape the American Economy
- By: Chris Hughes
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 17 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Economist and writer Chris Hughes takes us on a journey through the modern history of American capitalism, relating the captivating stories of the most effective marketcrafters and the ones who bungled the job. He reveals how both Republicans and Democrats have consistently attempted to organize markets for social and political reasons, like avoiding gasoline shortages, reducing inflation, fostering the American aviation and semiconductor industries, fighting climate change, and supporting financial innovation.
By: Chris Hughes
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Think You'll Be Happy
- Moving Through Grief with Grit, Grace, and Gratitude
- By: Nicole Avant
- Narrated by: Nicole Avant
- Length: 6 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Nicole Avant—diplomat, philanthropist, filmmaker—grew up surrounded by some of the most extraordinary artists of our time: Bill Withers, Oprah Winfrey, Quincy Jones, Sidney Poitier. Her parents—entertainment mogul, Clarence Avant, and legendary philanthropist, Jacqueline Avant—turned their home into a place of refuge and inspiration for a generation of geniuses. Nicole drew on that magical upbringing to create a stellar career in the music business, become the U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas, and produce critically acclaimed award-winning films and documentaries.
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Religious
- By Shannon M. Holt on 11-18-23
By: Nicole Avant
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The Coming Wave
- AI, Power, and Our Future
- By: Mustafa Suleyman, Michael Bhaskar - contributor
- Narrated by: Mustafa Suleyman
- Length: 12 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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We are approaching a critical threshold in the history of our species. Everything is about to change. Soon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organize your life, operate your business, and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy.
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Click bait
- By Buyer on 09-11-23
By: Mustafa Suleyman, and others
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Money, Lies, and God
- Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy
- By: Katherine Stewart
- Narrated by: Patricia Rodriguez
- Length: 11 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Why have so many Americans turned against democracy? In this deeply reported book, Katherine Stewart takes us to conferences of conspiracy-mongers, backroom strategy gatherings, and services at extremist churches, and profiles the people who want to tear it all down.
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Describes a well funded international fascist cult
- By marwalk on 03-24-25
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Technofeudalism
- What Killed Capitalism
- By: Yanis Varoufakis
- Narrated by: Yanis Varoufakis
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Technofeudalism says Yanis Varoufakis, is the new power that is reshaping our lives and the world, and is the greatest current threat to the liberal individual, to our efforts to avert climate catastrophe—and to democracy itself. It also lies behind the new geopolitical tensions, especially the New Cold War between the United States and China. Drawing on stories from Greek myth and pop culture, from Homer to Mad Men, Varoufakis explains this revolutionary transformation: how it enslaves our minds, how it rewrites the rules of global power, and, ultimately, what it will take overthrow it.
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The narration is literally the worst.
- By Shakeiad on 09-24-24
By: Yanis Varoufakis
The scope and scale of the metal issue
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Fascinating, dire, hopeful
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What makes this book so good is Mr. Beiser's ability to deftly contextualize each level of the process, from the materials themselves to their economic impact to their environmental and human costs.
This is an important addition to the pantheon of contemporary materials science non-fiction, joining the likes of The War Below and Cobalt Red.
Another fantastic feature of this book, one that is far too often lacking in similar publications, is the set of tangible policy recommendations set forth by Mr. Beiser in the last two chapters.
This is also the only area of the book where Mr. Beiser does, in my opinion, become slightly myopic--though, again--with a more panoptic view than most.
Excellent book by Vince Beiser
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Don’t missunderstand. The reader reads well, the content is somewhat interesting, but I don’t know which rock you have lived under if you think the working conditions in a Congolese mine is fine. So not really much new information for those that have paid attention
So the book if fine if you want to dig deeper into the problematic sides of metals. If you on the other hand wants to learn about metals and their use or importance; look elsewhere
Misleading title
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Nice Outline for Dangers and Opportunities
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