Power Metal

September 9, 2024
The insatiable demand for metals used in digital technology, electric vehicles, and renewable energy infrastructure is harming the environment and destroying lives, according to this striking report. Journalist Beiser (The World in a Grain) explains that toxic byproducts from rare earth metal mines in Baotou, China, have “sown skeletal deformities and cancers” among the region’s residents, and that Western countries are so desperate for Russia’s nickel reserves they’ve exempted the material from sanctions, effectively helping to fund Russia’s war in Ukraine. Recycling metal is more environmentally friendly than mining, but “also far more difficult, dirty, and dangerous than most people realize,” Beiser contends, describing the horrific conditions in a Lagos dump where thousands of workers earning only a few dollars per day toil amid “highly toxic dioxins” without safety gear while harvesting valuable metal from discarded electronics. Beiser’s main solution is to reduce the need for cars—both gas and electric—by reconfiguring American cities around bicycle lanes and public transport lines, a proposal that feels at once ambitious and yet too narrowly focused to address the role countless other products play in driving the metal market. Still, he does an impressive job of showing how going electric isn’t a silver bullet for stopping climate change. This is sure to spark debate. Agent: Lisa Bankoff, Bankoff Collaborative.