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The Elements of Power: A Story of War, Technology, and the Dirtiest Supply Chain on Earth
How we became addicted to a supply chain that wreaks havoc across the globe.
Epic, shocking, and deeply reported, The Elements of Power tells the story of the war for the global supply of battery metals – essential for the decarbonization of our economies – and the terrible, bloody human cost of this badly misunderstood industry.
Congo is rich. Swaths of the war-torn African country lack basic infrastructure, and, after many decades of colonial occupation, its people are officially among the poorest in the world. But hidden beneath the soil are vast quantities of cobalt, lithium, copper, tin, tantalum, tungsten, and other treasures. Recently, this veritable periodic table of resources has become extremely valuable because these metals are essential for the global “energy transition”—the plan for wealthy nations to wean themselves off fossil fuels by shifting to sustainable forms of energy, such as solar and wind. The race to electrify the world’s economy has begun, and China has a considerable head start. From Indonesia to South America to Central Africa, Beijing has invested in mines and infrastructure for decades. But the U.S. has begun fighting back with massive investments of its own, as well as sanctions and disruptive tariffs.
In this rush for green energy, the world has become utterly reliant on resources unearthed far away and willfully blind to the terrible political, environmental, and social consequences of their extraction. If the Democratic Republic of the Congo possesses such riches, why are its children routinely descending deep into treacherous mines to dig with the most rudimentary of tools, or in some cases their bare hands? Why are Indonesia’s seas and skies being polluted in a rush for battery metals? Why is the Western Sahara, a source for phosphates, still being treated like a colony? Who must pay the price for progress?
With unparalleled, original reporting, Nicolas Niarchos reveals how the scramble to control these metals and their production is overturning the world order, just as the global race to drill for oil shaped the twentieth century. Exploring the advent of the lithium-ion battery and tracing the supply chain for its production, Niarchos tells the story both of the people driving these tectonic changes and those whose lives are being upended. He reveals the true, devastating consequences of our best intentions and helps us prepare for an uncertain future. If you have ever used a smartphone or driven an electric vehicle, you are implicated.
Epic, shocking, and deeply reported, The Elements of Power tells the story of the war for the global supply of battery metals – essential for the decarbonization of our economies – and the terrible, bloody human cost of this badly misunderstood industry.
Congo is rich. Swaths of the war-torn African country lack basic infrastructure, and, after many decades of colonial occupation, its people are officially among the poorest in the world. But hidden beneath the soil are vast quantities of cobalt, lithium, copper, tin, tantalum, tungsten, and other treasures. Recently, this veritable periodic table of resources has become extremely valuable because these metals are essential for the global “energy transition”—the plan for wealthy nations to wean themselves off fossil fuels by shifting to sustainable forms of energy, such as solar and wind. The race to electrify the world’s economy has begun, and China has a considerable head start. From Indonesia to South America to Central Africa, Beijing has invested in mines and infrastructure for decades. But the U.S. has begun fighting back with massive investments of its own, as well as sanctions and disruptive tariffs.
In this rush for green energy, the world has become utterly reliant on resources unearthed far away and willfully blind to the terrible political, environmental, and social consequences of their extraction. If the Democratic Republic of the Congo possesses such riches, why are its children routinely descending deep into treacherous mines to dig with the most rudimentary of tools, or in some cases their bare hands? Why are Indonesia’s seas and skies being polluted in a rush for battery metals? Why is the Western Sahara, a source for phosphates, still being treated like a colony? Who must pay the price for progress?
With unparalleled, original reporting, Nicolas Niarchos reveals how the scramble to control these metals and their production is overturning the world order, just as the global race to drill for oil shaped the twentieth century. Exploring the advent of the lithium-ion battery and tracing the supply chain for its production, Niarchos tells the story both of the people driving these tectonic changes and those whose lives are being upended. He reveals the true, devastating consequences of our best intentions and helps us prepare for an uncertain future. If you have ever used a smartphone or driven an electric vehicle, you are implicated.
480 pages, Hardcover
Published January 20, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
February 20, 2026
fuck King Leopold
March 1, 2026
The book talks about topics that I barely knew anything about. Primarily, the extraction of elements required to make batteries.
It’s an impressive account of hundreds of years of history from locations mostly in Africa and India that today provide almost all the critical mining for batteries. It covers geopolitical history, strategies from countries colonizing or dominating the regions, the technological advances, the sociopolitical impacts, and much much more.
It’s mega comprehensive and detailed.
I just found slow and dragging. I went through because I wanted to learn what the book had to teach, which was a lot. But it wasn’t a pleasant reading.
It’s an impressive account of hundreds of years of history from locations mostly in Africa and India that today provide almost all the critical mining for batteries. It covers geopolitical history, strategies from countries colonizing or dominating the regions, the technological advances, the sociopolitical impacts, and much much more.
It’s mega comprehensive and detailed.
I just found slow and dragging. I went through because I wanted to learn what the book had to teach, which was a lot. But it wasn’t a pleasant reading.
June 6, 2026
Technology, colonialism, war, innovation and the supply chain of battery materials.
April 1, 2026
Written all over the place, fails to have a narrative structure and ends up like a Netflix style documentary where so many various stories are mixed in together, making it easy to be confused.
Giving it 3/5 because Part 5 and some chapters before it were pretty good on the geopolitical issues described. This book had so much potential but the writing ruined it by creating a dense mess.
Giving it 3/5 because Part 5 and some chapters before it were pretty good on the geopolitical issues described. This book had so much potential but the writing ruined it by creating a dense mess.
July 10, 2026
The Elements of Power is a solid work of narrative journalism that explains how the global race for critical minerals is reshaping economics, geopolitics and the clean energy transition. Drawing on extensive field reporting from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, China and elsewhere, Niarchos humanises what could otherwise be an abstract discussion of batteries and supply chains. He demonstrates that the transition to a low-carbon economy is neither simple nor cost-free, exposing the environmental damage, governance failures and geopolitical rivalries embedded in the extraction of cobalt, nickel and lithium. The book’s greatest strength lies in its ability to connect individual lives with global strategic forces.
Despite its many strengths, The Elements of Power is not without limitations. Most stem from its deliberate choice to privilege narrative over systematic analysis.
Thoughts:
1. It explains “what” better than “why”
Niarchos vividly documents events but spends less time developing general explanations. We learn that China came to dominate critical minerals, but the book offers only a partial analytical framework for why China’s industrial strategy succeeded while similar ambitions elsewhere often failed.
How it could be improved: A concluding chapter comparing China’s experience with Japan, South Korea, the EU and the United States would strengthen the broader lessons.
2. Limited economic analysis
Readers gain a rich understanding of mining and supply chains but relatively little insight into the economics of commodity markets.
Topics that receive relatively little attention include:
* price cycles
* investment incentives
* cost curves
* marginal producers
* capital allocation
* financing constraints
* long-run commodity supercycles
These factors are central to understanding investment decisions.
How it could be improved: Incorporating simple economic frameworks and industry data would make the book more useful to investors and policymakers.
3. Governance is illustrated rather than analysed
Corruption, weak institutions and state failure are recurring themes, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
However, governance is treated descriptively rather than theoretically.
The reader encounters many examples but less discussion of questions such as:
* Why do some institutions improve?
* Why do resource-rich countries diverge?
* Under what conditions does the resource curse emerge?
How it could be improved: Greater engagement with scholars such as Douglass North, Acemoglu and Robinson, Mushtaq Khan, Francis Fukuyama or Elinor Ostrom would deepen the analysis.
4. Africa dominates the narrative
This reflects the centrality of Congo to cobalt production, but it creates an imbalance.
Australia, Canada, Chile, Argentina and several Scandinavian countries receive comparatively limited treatment despite their importance to global supply chains.
How it could be improved: A broader comparative perspective would help readers distinguish which problems are specific to fragile states and which are common across mining jurisdictions.
5. The treatment of industrial policy is incomplete
China’s success is well documented, but the mechanisms behind it receive less systematic examination.
Important issues receive only limited attention:
* state-owned enterprises
* directed finance
* local government incentives
* technology transfer
* export discipline
* industrial clusters
How it could be improved: A more structured comparison of competing industrial models would strengthen one of the book’s central arguments.
6. Little attention to investors’ decision-making
The book explains how supply chains operate but rarely considers how investors assess risk.
Questions that remain largely unexplored include:
* sovereign risk
* political risk
* ESG trade-offs
* contract stability
* taxation
* expropriation risk
* local content requirements
How it could be improved: Including investor case studies would bridge the gap between journalism and decision-making.
7. Limited discussion of technological uncertainty
The book recognises advances in battery chemistry but largely assumes continued strong demand for today’s critical minerals.
Technological disruption could significantly alter these assumptions.
For example:
* sodium-ion batteries
* solid-state batteries
* lithium iron phosphate (LFP)
* recycling
* substitution
could all reshape future mineral demand.
How it could be improved: A more explicit discussion of alternative technology pathways would make the book more forward-looking.
8. Few explicit policy prescriptions
Niarchos is careful not to advocate simplistic solutions, but this restraint sometimes leaves readers uncertain about the implications.
Having demonstrated the problems, he offers relatively limited guidance on:
* improving governance
* designing mining codes
* balancing environmental protection with development
* sharing mining revenues
* promoting downstream industries
How it could be improved: A concluding chapter outlining practical policy options would increase the book’s value for governments and development institutions.
Nevertheless, its reporting is exceptional, balanced and deeply informed. For investors and policymakers, the enduring lesson is that control of critical mineral supply chains—and the quality of the institutions governing them—will increasingly shape economic and geopolitical power. It is one of the most important books yet written on the political economy of the energy transition.
Despite its many strengths, The Elements of Power is not without limitations. Most stem from its deliberate choice to privilege narrative over systematic analysis.
Thoughts:
1. It explains “what” better than “why”
Niarchos vividly documents events but spends less time developing general explanations. We learn that China came to dominate critical minerals, but the book offers only a partial analytical framework for why China’s industrial strategy succeeded while similar ambitions elsewhere often failed.
How it could be improved: A concluding chapter comparing China’s experience with Japan, South Korea, the EU and the United States would strengthen the broader lessons.
2. Limited economic analysis
Readers gain a rich understanding of mining and supply chains but relatively little insight into the economics of commodity markets.
Topics that receive relatively little attention include:
* price cycles
* investment incentives
* cost curves
* marginal producers
* capital allocation
* financing constraints
* long-run commodity supercycles
These factors are central to understanding investment decisions.
How it could be improved: Incorporating simple economic frameworks and industry data would make the book more useful to investors and policymakers.
3. Governance is illustrated rather than analysed
Corruption, weak institutions and state failure are recurring themes, particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
However, governance is treated descriptively rather than theoretically.
The reader encounters many examples but less discussion of questions such as:
* Why do some institutions improve?
* Why do resource-rich countries diverge?
* Under what conditions does the resource curse emerge?
How it could be improved: Greater engagement with scholars such as Douglass North, Acemoglu and Robinson, Mushtaq Khan, Francis Fukuyama or Elinor Ostrom would deepen the analysis.
4. Africa dominates the narrative
This reflects the centrality of Congo to cobalt production, but it creates an imbalance.
Australia, Canada, Chile, Argentina and several Scandinavian countries receive comparatively limited treatment despite their importance to global supply chains.
How it could be improved: A broader comparative perspective would help readers distinguish which problems are specific to fragile states and which are common across mining jurisdictions.
5. The treatment of industrial policy is incomplete
China’s success is well documented, but the mechanisms behind it receive less systematic examination.
Important issues receive only limited attention:
* state-owned enterprises
* directed finance
* local government incentives
* technology transfer
* export discipline
* industrial clusters
How it could be improved: A more structured comparison of competing industrial models would strengthen one of the book’s central arguments.
6. Little attention to investors’ decision-making
The book explains how supply chains operate but rarely considers how investors assess risk.
Questions that remain largely unexplored include:
* sovereign risk
* political risk
* ESG trade-offs
* contract stability
* taxation
* expropriation risk
* local content requirements
How it could be improved: Including investor case studies would bridge the gap between journalism and decision-making.
7. Limited discussion of technological uncertainty
The book recognises advances in battery chemistry but largely assumes continued strong demand for today’s critical minerals.
Technological disruption could significantly alter these assumptions.
For example:
* sodium-ion batteries
* solid-state batteries
* lithium iron phosphate (LFP)
* recycling
* substitution
could all reshape future mineral demand.
How it could be improved: A more explicit discussion of alternative technology pathways would make the book more forward-looking.
8. Few explicit policy prescriptions
Niarchos is careful not to advocate simplistic solutions, but this restraint sometimes leaves readers uncertain about the implications.
Having demonstrated the problems, he offers relatively limited guidance on:
* improving governance
* designing mining codes
* balancing environmental protection with development
* sharing mining revenues
* promoting downstream industries
How it could be improved: A concluding chapter outlining practical policy options would increase the book’s value for governments and development institutions.
Nevertheless, its reporting is exceptional, balanced and deeply informed. For investors and policymakers, the enduring lesson is that control of critical mineral supply chains—and the quality of the institutions governing them—will increasingly shape economic and geopolitical power. It is one of the most important books yet written on the political economy of the energy transition.
April 15, 2026
poorly written and way way too much detail/context on the history of the Congo
June 7, 2026
I was surprised to read the reviews on a book like this were averaging out so low! I’m not sure I would have read it based on the reviews so I’m really glad I didn’t look at them beforehand because I loved this book.
I first came across it from a China- Global South podcast episode, which was really good framing for how I understood this book. I certainly don’t agree with reviewers that said it was too long, too detailed, too anti-China, too winding and chaotic. Rather, I found the tone of the book approachable, fair, and human-centered. The author was present and I appreciated that he allowed the incomplete and disordered nature of the reality of research and encounters to show rather than a clean packaged narrative. This is an incredibly complex topic and where I thought the book shined were in the following points:
1. Driving home the global nature of the battery mining industry (people in different places facing similar issues with the same companies and even people— NO the Indonesia portion should not have been another book). If the industry is global, so can be solution-oriented solidarity work.
2. Showing the irony of ‘green’ technologies: it’s always about profit, not the environment.
3. Fairly treating the complexity of what “Chinese” means. We’ve got humanized small bosses who occupy this weird place of simultaneously exploiters and exploited right alongside the heads of giant companies that came from the poorest of backgrounds. We’ve got critiques of Chinese companies, but also the understanding that they are part of a larger problematic global system that thrives on exploiting the many for the benefit of the few. And it is made very clear in the book that European/ North American/ Israeli/ Australian (but also Chinese!) colonizers and neo-colonizers are at fault for creating and upholding this system.
There’s more things I could say, but I definitely recommend this as a worthwhile read. And check out the podcast too!
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Gt0...
I first came across it from a China- Global South podcast episode, which was really good framing for how I understood this book. I certainly don’t agree with reviewers that said it was too long, too detailed, too anti-China, too winding and chaotic. Rather, I found the tone of the book approachable, fair, and human-centered. The author was present and I appreciated that he allowed the incomplete and disordered nature of the reality of research and encounters to show rather than a clean packaged narrative. This is an incredibly complex topic and where I thought the book shined were in the following points:
1. Driving home the global nature of the battery mining industry (people in different places facing similar issues with the same companies and even people— NO the Indonesia portion should not have been another book). If the industry is global, so can be solution-oriented solidarity work.
2. Showing the irony of ‘green’ technologies: it’s always about profit, not the environment.
3. Fairly treating the complexity of what “Chinese” means. We’ve got humanized small bosses who occupy this weird place of simultaneously exploiters and exploited right alongside the heads of giant companies that came from the poorest of backgrounds. We’ve got critiques of Chinese companies, but also the understanding that they are part of a larger problematic global system that thrives on exploiting the many for the benefit of the few. And it is made very clear in the book that European/ North American/ Israeli/ Australian (but also Chinese!) colonizers and neo-colonizers are at fault for creating and upholding this system.
There’s more things I could say, but I definitely recommend this as a worthwhile read. And check out the podcast too!
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Gt0...
April 30, 2026
Hmm somewhere in the 3.5-3.75 range
June 28, 2026
Unbelievably thorough! And a good book to point to whenever someone sings the praises of “renewable” energy
June 16, 2026
Solid 3.5. It was an easy to read book and quite compelling given the authors thorough research and lived experience reporting rom Africa. I also enjoyed the weaving back of forth between two storylines - advancements in battery / clean tech layered on top of the colonization and development history in the Congo and Indonesia.
Reason it’s not higher rated is that it was very similar in subject matter to cobalt red so I didn’t feel like I took away a ton. I also slightly preferred the character development in cobalt red where the people he interviewed felt more compelling.
Reason it’s not higher rated is that it was very similar in subject matter to cobalt red so I didn’t feel like I took away a ton. I also slightly preferred the character development in cobalt red where the people he interviewed felt more compelling.
May 28, 2026
Note to self: buy used electronics. Never EVER purchase a new smartphone unless it's Fairphone or Shift. Otherwise, you ARE complicit in extreme exploitation.
February 27, 2026
Wow. Extremely well written, but not a subject that will be interesting to everyone. Corruption, exploitation, greed, power, manipulation, torture, and so much more - and all for the production of batteries. The energy crisis is much more complicated than I thought before listening to this book.
June 7, 2026
I don’t find fault with this book the way other astute reviewers found.
Certain parts of our planet are endowed with metals which are only valuable once they’ve been mined and processed into something else. Land above the minerals can be taken and mortgaged to great wealth ends. When I sold my house in Texas, I kept the mineral rights beneath it. The annual income usually buys 2-3 bottles of good red wine. But a lot of oil field work in Texas pays exceptionally well. Ditto coal mining in The Appalachian range here, or strip mining, where there’s more excavators than miners.
Not so the metals and minerals in Congo region of Africa,
And the other extracted minerals, from shale to petroleum; their value is only of potential to the owners of the land above them, and the demand chain of supply to drivers of electric cars.
Conflict occurs when sovereignty is asserted over those rights, in spite of who or what is already living. Beings equal to you and me suffer disproportionately.
Which gives a fancy ornamental calligraphy to this book’s title, “The Elements of Power.”
By no means has author Niarchos penned an anthropology study. That’s left to the reader, in the case of me, I could dispropriate one from this Old Testament of a tome studying a religion as old as time: Social and Economic equality among humans.
While we polish our computer screens with microfiber cloth, subsistence living is the goal of miners for copper, lithium,nickel, cobalt, and many other rocks interspersed between the metals. This comprehensive study focuses on the Democratic Republic of Congo with neighbors along a stretch of geology in Africa, the Western Sahara, snaking down to Indonesia and beyond to the Arctic and Americas. Exploitation of its human inhabitants has a founder/villain: King Leopold of Belgium, by no means the first ever of his type; ambitious people have walked in his footsteps to subjugate the homes of people treated less than human because of living where they live.
It’s such a complicated story that someone of Niarchos’ thoroughness would be needed to take it on. And he does, from gory details of suffering to why your iPhone only works when its battery does. Reading it was well worth the challenge. Knowledge of cathodes and anodes is recommended, as well as the ability to read many different sides of many different stories, all expertly filtered by this author.
Where the anthropology comes in, is what should I do about it? (Or is that the psychology of it).
Throw away my iPhone and IPad, because of horrible suffering of my fellow humans? Insist that my tax money fund sustainable mining industries, easier said than done?
Nicolas Niarchos lays it all out here. Human are a work in progress in reverse.
Certain parts of our planet are endowed with metals which are only valuable once they’ve been mined and processed into something else. Land above the minerals can be taken and mortgaged to great wealth ends. When I sold my house in Texas, I kept the mineral rights beneath it. The annual income usually buys 2-3 bottles of good red wine. But a lot of oil field work in Texas pays exceptionally well. Ditto coal mining in The Appalachian range here, or strip mining, where there’s more excavators than miners.
Not so the metals and minerals in Congo region of Africa,
And the other extracted minerals, from shale to petroleum; their value is only of potential to the owners of the land above them, and the demand chain of supply to drivers of electric cars.
Conflict occurs when sovereignty is asserted over those rights, in spite of who or what is already living. Beings equal to you and me suffer disproportionately.
Which gives a fancy ornamental calligraphy to this book’s title, “The Elements of Power.”
By no means has author Niarchos penned an anthropology study. That’s left to the reader, in the case of me, I could dispropriate one from this Old Testament of a tome studying a religion as old as time: Social and Economic equality among humans.
While we polish our computer screens with microfiber cloth, subsistence living is the goal of miners for copper, lithium,nickel, cobalt, and many other rocks interspersed between the metals. This comprehensive study focuses on the Democratic Republic of Congo with neighbors along a stretch of geology in Africa, the Western Sahara, snaking down to Indonesia and beyond to the Arctic and Americas. Exploitation of its human inhabitants has a founder/villain: King Leopold of Belgium, by no means the first ever of his type; ambitious people have walked in his footsteps to subjugate the homes of people treated less than human because of living where they live.
It’s such a complicated story that someone of Niarchos’ thoroughness would be needed to take it on. And he does, from gory details of suffering to why your iPhone only works when its battery does. Reading it was well worth the challenge. Knowledge of cathodes and anodes is recommended, as well as the ability to read many different sides of many different stories, all expertly filtered by this author.
Where the anthropology comes in, is what should I do about it? (Or is that the psychology of it).
Throw away my iPhone and IPad, because of horrible suffering of my fellow humans? Insist that my tax money fund sustainable mining industries, easier said than done?
Nicolas Niarchos lays it all out here. Human are a work in progress in reverse.
March 24, 2026
A sprawling and detailed research account of the history of lithium ion batteries and the exploited communities providing the materials to create them. The overarching argument of exploitation is something you learn straight away, and is one clearly evidenced and reiterated across explorations of not only the Congo, but Indonesia and the Western Sahara as well as other communities. At its heart, this is a very human book that tries to capture the stories of individuals as well as document the deals of mega-corps.
I enjoyed the breadth and detailed insight of each chapter, and found the length compelling enough to not overwhelm me with sheer information. However, for me, some of the more technical sections about battery development and trade deals did run a little dry - there are only so many abbreviations I can commit to memory, and without much of a reference point on the specifics, I often found myself glazing over the more dense sections. I’m sure to a more experienced and astute researcher these areas would be full of juicy takeaways, but I personally struggled to always find the connections between an individual company take-over and the wider arc of the narrative.
As it was, I was both excited to read this book at every pick-up, while being quite quick to put it down again. It does get incredibly dense in places but it is, nonetheless, incredibly interesting. I particularly enjoyed the first-hand accounts of Niarchos’ reporting and found many of the anecdotes harrowing, portrayed in a simple yet very engaging prose.
I did hope for some more accessible takeaways from this book, but overall I think it’s still an important read for anyone interested in the path of exploitation used in battery production. Reading this straight after Alexander Clapp’s ‘Waste Wars’, I am now very acutely aware of the murky history and likely violence that has led the materials from the very phone I type this on to my hands today. Niarchos, at the very end, does briefly allude to a potential solution (or, at least, improvement) to the batteries we use - changing to a sulphur/sodium ore, which can be formed from power plant waste, instead of the much rarer lithium - but, as this is a very new and underdeveloped area of research, I can understand why it was only offered as more of a footnote to the book. I would have loved a little more investigation into what individual or business-level consumers could do to mitigate the current problems, but I suppose that might be another book entirely.
I enjoyed the breadth and detailed insight of each chapter, and found the length compelling enough to not overwhelm me with sheer information. However, for me, some of the more technical sections about battery development and trade deals did run a little dry - there are only so many abbreviations I can commit to memory, and without much of a reference point on the specifics, I often found myself glazing over the more dense sections. I’m sure to a more experienced and astute researcher these areas would be full of juicy takeaways, but I personally struggled to always find the connections between an individual company take-over and the wider arc of the narrative.
As it was, I was both excited to read this book at every pick-up, while being quite quick to put it down again. It does get incredibly dense in places but it is, nonetheless, incredibly interesting. I particularly enjoyed the first-hand accounts of Niarchos’ reporting and found many of the anecdotes harrowing, portrayed in a simple yet very engaging prose.
I did hope for some more accessible takeaways from this book, but overall I think it’s still an important read for anyone interested in the path of exploitation used in battery production. Reading this straight after Alexander Clapp’s ‘Waste Wars’, I am now very acutely aware of the murky history and likely violence that has led the materials from the very phone I type this on to my hands today. Niarchos, at the very end, does briefly allude to a potential solution (or, at least, improvement) to the batteries we use - changing to a sulphur/sodium ore, which can be formed from power plant waste, instead of the much rarer lithium - but, as this is a very new and underdeveloped area of research, I can understand why it was only offered as more of a footnote to the book. I would have loved a little more investigation into what individual or business-level consumers could do to mitigate the current problems, but I suppose that might be another book entirely.
June 10, 2026
Saw someone else do this in a review and thought it was a good idea so--from where I'm sitting I can spot 7 battery powered devices that I use every single day. This book is the story of the supply chain that helped bring them here, with a focus on the adverse effects of this industry on one of the places at the very bottom of the supply chain, Congo.
This book really brings together a lot of subject matter to bring context to the critical metal industry. It uses colonial history, battery science, explanations of finance and financial structures, supply chain logistics, environmental science, international diplomacy, and globalization (among a lot more) to illuminate how it's come to be that the place richest in some of the minerals fueling the technological revolution has also become one of the poorest and most desperate places in the world. It's an overwhelming and sad story. The author tries to inject a little hope into the narrative at the end but that honestly didn't do much for me. This book is really about how the West (and now China) use and then discard the African continent when it's convenient and the financial and governmental structures that facilitate that exploitation. There's a lot of talk about how officials in Congo participate in this web of corruption, too.
Some of my favorite things about this book were the personal stories of people involved in the mining industry in Congo. It feels important to give them a voice in all of this, especially when it feels like there are a LOT of resources that go into making sure they don't have one. I also liked the explanation of the dynamic between China and the US. I would've liked a deeper dive into exactly why the US turned a blind eye while China came to monopolize the processing of critical metals, though. It can't be that they didn't see what was happening or couldn't predict how it could be a problem. I think it will be more of a problem in the near future. Maybe that's not a bad thing?
I do think the narrative tended to meander a little bit. There seemed to be some jumping around in time, and I had a hard time keeping tracks of the names of both people and corporations involved. Not the author's fault there--my brain just isn't used to storing Congolese, French, or Chinese names I think.
I'm rambling but bottom line is probably read this if you use anything with a battery in it.
This book really brings together a lot of subject matter to bring context to the critical metal industry. It uses colonial history, battery science, explanations of finance and financial structures, supply chain logistics, environmental science, international diplomacy, and globalization (among a lot more) to illuminate how it's come to be that the place richest in some of the minerals fueling the technological revolution has also become one of the poorest and most desperate places in the world. It's an overwhelming and sad story. The author tries to inject a little hope into the narrative at the end but that honestly didn't do much for me. This book is really about how the West (and now China) use and then discard the African continent when it's convenient and the financial and governmental structures that facilitate that exploitation. There's a lot of talk about how officials in Congo participate in this web of corruption, too.
Some of my favorite things about this book were the personal stories of people involved in the mining industry in Congo. It feels important to give them a voice in all of this, especially when it feels like there are a LOT of resources that go into making sure they don't have one. I also liked the explanation of the dynamic between China and the US. I would've liked a deeper dive into exactly why the US turned a blind eye while China came to monopolize the processing of critical metals, though. It can't be that they didn't see what was happening or couldn't predict how it could be a problem. I think it will be more of a problem in the near future. Maybe that's not a bad thing?
I do think the narrative tended to meander a little bit. There seemed to be some jumping around in time, and I had a hard time keeping tracks of the names of both people and corporations involved. Not the author's fault there--my brain just isn't used to storing Congolese, French, or Chinese names I think.
I'm rambling but bottom line is probably read this if you use anything with a battery in it.
June 18, 2026
Well, that was certainly an interesting read.
I guess the end users of smart phones / laptops / computers / electric vehicles and so on do not in the main give any thought as to where the raw materials for all this stuff comes from or how it comes to be manufactured ~ apart from, maybe, having heard of Elon Musk and Tesla. This book goes into the murky world of what's involved and where it comes from; who benefits, and at whose expense. At one extreme there's King Leopold of Belgium, and his 19th century colonialists steamrollering their way mercilessly through the Congo and neighbouring countries, to their somewhat more nuanced successors. The book covers the history of the extraction of materials ~ lithium, nickel, copper, cobalt, phosphates etc ~ principally from the Congo (also Indonesia and western Sahara) mainly by China, which seems to be years ahead of anywhere else in terms of their investments and their technology. USA is belatedly playing catch up from time to time, albeit the environmental voice is somewhat louder there. Europe and the UK are very much in the vanguard.
The author portrays in detail the "winners" and the "losers" in all this ~ the losers usually being the displaced locals at the bottom of the food chain, as it were. The winners ranging from the imperialists of Leopold's era to the swashbuckling cowboys of the Wild West type characters that followed in the mid 20th century, in turn followed by the leaders (and their cronies) of the newly independent countries (Congo etc) in the 1960s / 70's, to more recently China and a few multinational mining companies.
I did get a bit lost with the large jigsaw of characters portrayed in the book. Ditto with the chemical processes involved in converting the raw materials into the batteries etc in all our "essential" 21st century devices and vehicles. Mind you, I'm not alone in this last observation. Billions of $/£s are being invested annually in the best brains in the world developing ever more complex products and iterations on the theme.
How will things evolve in the future? I wonder. Read this book; and think about it.
I guess the end users of smart phones / laptops / computers / electric vehicles and so on do not in the main give any thought as to where the raw materials for all this stuff comes from or how it comes to be manufactured ~ apart from, maybe, having heard of Elon Musk and Tesla. This book goes into the murky world of what's involved and where it comes from; who benefits, and at whose expense. At one extreme there's King Leopold of Belgium, and his 19th century colonialists steamrollering their way mercilessly through the Congo and neighbouring countries, to their somewhat more nuanced successors. The book covers the history of the extraction of materials ~ lithium, nickel, copper, cobalt, phosphates etc ~ principally from the Congo (also Indonesia and western Sahara) mainly by China, which seems to be years ahead of anywhere else in terms of their investments and their technology. USA is belatedly playing catch up from time to time, albeit the environmental voice is somewhat louder there. Europe and the UK are very much in the vanguard.
The author portrays in detail the "winners" and the "losers" in all this ~ the losers usually being the displaced locals at the bottom of the food chain, as it were. The winners ranging from the imperialists of Leopold's era to the swashbuckling cowboys of the Wild West type characters that followed in the mid 20th century, in turn followed by the leaders (and their cronies) of the newly independent countries (Congo etc) in the 1960s / 70's, to more recently China and a few multinational mining companies.
I did get a bit lost with the large jigsaw of characters portrayed in the book. Ditto with the chemical processes involved in converting the raw materials into the batteries etc in all our "essential" 21st century devices and vehicles. Mind you, I'm not alone in this last observation. Billions of $/£s are being invested annually in the best brains in the world developing ever more complex products and iterations on the theme.
How will things evolve in the future? I wonder. Read this book; and think about it.
March 12, 2026
This book covers much of the same shameful story of artisanal mining in Congo that is in "Cobalt Red." I thought that "Cobalt Red" was a stronger book because it is told with more personal stories and with more compassion so that the reader can feel the depth of the tragedy in his bones. This one has a broader historical perspective, more of a view from 20,000 feet, and so it provides additional information and updates the story of the other book, which it cites as one of its sources. Anyone who is interested in a complete understanding of this problem should read both books, but if you just want a sense of the problem and don't have the patience for two books, read "Cobalt Red." This book also devotes a lot of space to the parallel story of mining in Indonesia, which is also bad, but which for a variety of reasons unrelated to any altruism on the part of the companies that control the exploitation, is a bit less horrid than the mining in Congo. This book would have lost little if the Indonesia material had been omitted and saved for another book.
I'd be willing to bet that at some point in my lifetime battery designers will discover a different way to make better, cheaper batteries with more plentiful materials. Then the mining companies in Congo will fold, but instead of an improvement in living standards we will probably see a general economic collapse in which the poor people will suffer even more. A land rich in natural resources should be a place of bounty for its residents, but somehow it rarely seems to work that way in practice.
I'd be willing to bet that at some point in my lifetime battery designers will discover a different way to make better, cheaper batteries with more plentiful materials. Then the mining companies in Congo will fold, but instead of an improvement in living standards we will probably see a general economic collapse in which the poor people will suffer even more. A land rich in natural resources should be a place of bounty for its residents, but somehow it rarely seems to work that way in practice.
May 2, 2026
Nicolas Niarchos argues that the "green energy revolution" is built on a supply chain as exploitative and bloody as the oil industry at its worst. Every electric vehicle, smartphone, and rechargeable battery contains minerals—cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel—that come from mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, and other developing nations. These mines are controlled by rebel groups, worked by children, protected by corruption, and financed by Chinese companies that look the other way—while Western consumers pat themselves on the back for saving the planet.
But Niarchos spends considerable ink criticizing Chinese mining companies (CMOC, Huayou Cobalt, CNMC) for their "dirty dealings"—offering infrastructure investments in exchange for mining permits, causing pollution, displacing communities, and underinvesting in local labor. He gives relatively little attention to the century of Western extraction that preceded the Chinese arrival, or to the fact that Chinese infrastructure investments—roads, hospitals, stadiums, railways—are more than any Western company has offered Congo in decades.
The West plundered Congo for rubber, copper, and uranium (including for the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki), left the country in ruins, and then abandoned it. China arrived, built infrastructure, and secured mining rights. Is that "dirty dealings" or is that filling a vacuum the West created?
But Niarchos spends considerable ink criticizing Chinese mining companies (CMOC, Huayou Cobalt, CNMC) for their "dirty dealings"—offering infrastructure investments in exchange for mining permits, causing pollution, displacing communities, and underinvesting in local labor. He gives relatively little attention to the century of Western extraction that preceded the Chinese arrival, or to the fact that Chinese infrastructure investments—roads, hospitals, stadiums, railways—are more than any Western company has offered Congo in decades.
The West plundered Congo for rubber, copper, and uranium (including for the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki), left the country in ruins, and then abandoned it. China arrived, built infrastructure, and secured mining rights. Is that "dirty dealings" or is that filling a vacuum the West created?
April 11, 2026
Counting all the battery powered devices, from my laptop on which I type this to the e-reader on which I read Elements of Power, I am surrounded by 9 of them. And those are just my personal devices I use directly and yet I have never thought about what got it here, Until NOW
Cobalt, Nickel and Lithium are just some of the critical minerals used in the manufacturing of the lithium-ion batteries that power the world, and is supposed to be the solution of a green future. Yet, the path these materials take from the mines of Congo and Indonesia to the factories of China to get into our hands for as low a price, comes at a significant cost to the environment and humans. Niarchos weaves a story talking about the people and children who mine the cobalt, to those financing the companies and corruption that enables it, and the CEOs who run these Battery Powerhouses.
However, while following the history of Congo was tough for someone unfamiliar with the region, and could have used a deeper dive into the environmental and health effects all along the production chain. This book is a harrowing read, yet important as it dives into something that we are all part of.
Cobalt, Nickel and Lithium are just some of the critical minerals used in the manufacturing of the lithium-ion batteries that power the world, and is supposed to be the solution of a green future. Yet, the path these materials take from the mines of Congo and Indonesia to the factories of China to get into our hands for as low a price, comes at a significant cost to the environment and humans. Niarchos weaves a story talking about the people and children who mine the cobalt, to those financing the companies and corruption that enables it, and the CEOs who run these Battery Powerhouses.
However, while following the history of Congo was tough for someone unfamiliar with the region, and could have used a deeper dive into the environmental and health effects all along the production chain. This book is a harrowing read, yet important as it dives into something that we are all part of.
April 1, 2026
This was a very dense, detailed account on how colonialism and exploitive means have destroyed communities in Africa and India providing the wealth of lithium-ion batteries to the world. The main focus is in Congo with cobalt (which I learned a great deal about in Cobalt Red). Niarchos goes through various channels to get to the heart of the story, sometimes to the threat of his own life but I appreciate the effort to get the true story out there. As stated, there are parts of this book that I glazed over in that there was a lot of information and detail to the letter. I still thought that this was an important book to read because we use these tools from these countries in our technology everyday and the communities that provide them are exposed and given very minimal pay for hard, often dangerous work.
March 29, 2026
Well-researched, but often feels like a performance of that research. The author's default of NPR moralism causes him to never quite land on any true insights insights beyond "isn't this a pity." There are like a thousand names here, many that resemble each other, and Niarchos only manages to make like six of them feel like people other than just names. There's a killer article lurking inside this dense book.
April 1, 2026
Lots of eye-opening bits behind the global battery supply chain: geopolitical, economical, cultural.
Minus a star because it got too detailed towards the end with lots of names, companies, dates and etc, which made it very hard to follow the story. It read more like a collection of journalist's observations rather than a holistic book about the topic.
Minus a star because it got too detailed towards the end with lots of names, companies, dates and etc, which made it very hard to follow the story. It read more like a collection of journalist's observations rather than a holistic book about the topic.
April 29, 2026
OK, I'm going to cheat and say that I read this when really I had to stop at page 162 because it was due back at the library and there is another project I'm working on that is going to consume all of my reading time until the end of June. But I really appreciate what I read! It is very dense though.
May 28, 2026
Superb book to have an insight on who and what is the source of all our Lithium Ion battery.
Mainly poverty and modern esclavagism trough capital and companies in Republique Democratique du CONGO
I'll think twice now before buying a tech gadget and will prefer a good old cable !
Mainly poverty and modern esclavagism trough capital and companies in Republique Democratique du CONGO
I'll think twice now before buying a tech gadget and will prefer a good old cable !
want-to-acquire-or-be-gifted
February 17, 2026Recommended by @Climatehistories@mastodon.social in https://mastodon.social/@Climatehisto...
Read
April 16, 2026DNF
May 30, 2026
Detailed
July 1, 2026
I went into this with somewhat high hopes, considering that some of the most impactful reads I had last year were King Leopold's Ghost and Cobalt Red. But what I got instead was a disorganized mess of chapters from someone that both does not understand battery science and is committed to willful ignorance when it comes to the most blatant message, China. The author's sinophobia drenches this book in a way that makes it completely impossible to be objective, through his research he knows that in particular BYD car batteries have been LFP, devoid of cobalt, for almost a decade and yet he implies in the first part that since a salesperson would not answer his questions that they must be hiding their entanglement with atrocity. At best disingenuous, at worst, fully malicious. This is topped with a ham-fisted comparison of Belgian exploitation with what Chinese companies currently do that reeks of Western jealousy that others are reaping the fruits of neocolonialism.
Aside from the science and sinophobia I honestly do not know if he really cares about the people that have to live in this situation, there is a certain dispassion when it comes to the lives that are ruined by foreign interference that only becomes ire when Chinese companies are the ones at play. Don't read this, read Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara who has both better research into contemporary history as well as real connection and empathy for the situation that we, citizens of the globe, put the people of the Congo into.
Aside from the science and sinophobia I honestly do not know if he really cares about the people that have to live in this situation, there is a certain dispassion when it comes to the lives that are ruined by foreign interference that only becomes ire when Chinese companies are the ones at play. Don't read this, read Cobalt Red by Siddharth Kara who has both better research into contemporary history as well as real connection and empathy for the situation that we, citizens of the globe, put the people of the Congo into.
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