Review | The Rare Metals War delves into the dirty industry behind clean energy
French journalist Guillaume Pitron digs up the dirt on rare metals, vital components in clean energy technologies. But while his book is quick to denounce the industry’s politics and extraction methods, particularly in China, his solution is dubious
The Rare Metals War by Guillaume Pitron (translated by Bianca Jacobsohn), Scribe. 3/5 stars
Guillaume Pitron is a prolific French journalist and documentary maker who specialises in raw materials. His book, written in a lively, combative style, is about the many metals whose special properties – hardness, light weight, electrical conductivity – are needed for the new technologies on which a future sustainable economy would run.
Until recent decades only a dozen or so of the 86-plus elemental metals were mined commercially. Today nearly all are used, for solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, mobile phones, computers, lasers, electrical engines and electromagnetic devices.
At present China has a near-monopoly on an important group of 17 metals, which for no good reason are called “rare earth metals”. They are typically found with radioactive elements such as thorium and uranium.
