Science and Inquiry discussion

For July 2024, we will be reading Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization by Ed Conway.

Please use this thread to post questions, comments, and reviews, at any time.

I read this book a few months ago and enjoyed it -- here is my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I’m very pleased that this book has been chosen as the July book of the month. I really enjoyed this book and look forward to re-reading it again. It’s a real eye-opener.
It covers 6 materials that underpin our modern world - and not necessarily the ones that you might first think of - sand, salt, iron, copper, oil & lithium. I think you’ll be surprised at how much we depend on these 6 material and the myriad uses that they are put to. It also explains how they are mined, refined & processed and the complicated supply chains that they feed into.
Hope you will enjoy it too.

Although, I'm only at the beginning where the author writes about the material differences of sand, extensive environmental damage due to dredging rivers for sand, and related information about the manufacturing business of glass lenses, both his writing style and the subject matter strike me as blue ribbon prize worthy.

Betsy wrote: "For July 2024, we will be reading Material World: The Six Raw Materials That Shape Modern Civilization by Ed Conway.

Please use this thread to post questions, com..."

Hi Betsy, do we have a reading schedule? Is July the deadline?
Sorry to ask, but my experience with group readings on GR is low! :)

Michael wrote: "Hi Betsy, do we have a reading schedule? Is July the deadline?
Sorry to ask, but my experience with group readings on GR is low! :) ..."

Hi Michael,
We don't have a strict reading schedule. We schedule each book about a month in advance, to give people time to acquire the book and to start reading. But there is no deadline! You can continue to read and post comments in the thread whenever you want. Most people finish and comment on the thread during the scheduled month. But, some people choose to post comments weeks or even months (or sometimes years!) after the month has passed. Not a problem!

David wrote: "But, some people choose to post comments weeks or even months (or sometimes years!) after the month has passed. Not a problem!"

Great to hear! Thanks, David. :)

I just finished Part 1 and am floored by Chapter 3. I had no idea there was only one mine supplying the high-purity quartz used for silicon wafers (page 105). I noticed the author did not provide a source for this. Is it so secretive he couldn't do so? How did he find this information?

Is it possible to imagine an emerging technology eclipsing the magic of electricity and copper? Pretend you were born in the mid 1920s. Now, dream the dreams of your parents, neighbors, and teachers of you becoming an electrician. Your nickname of Merlin is only one of many of their steering pushes. Below is my favorite written image conjured by the author:

At first glance Chuquicamata looks similar to many of the other small, high Atacama desert, mountain towns throughout the north of Chile, which used to be Boliva. Though, a short distance north of the Town's bandstand and small stadium is an enormous crevasse, an all mighty canyon.

But this is no canyon, this is the Chuquicamata copper mine. Longer and wider than New York's Central Park, it is so deep that if you dropped the world's tallest building, Dubai's Burj Khalifa, into it, the whole thing, lightning rod and all, would be completely swallowed by this fissure. Partly because copper has been mined here for centuries, more earth has been removed here than anywhere else in history.

Know, though, that the mine ate the town. The residents were getting sick. By 2008, the state-owned mining corporation, Codelco, moved all 20,000 inhabitants to Calama, the nearest city. Now, it's noticeably in the process of being completely smothered by the waste rock blasted and trucked up from the hole.

Another old copper mine in Utah, Bingham Canyon is technically deeper. If you fly into Salt Lake City, the landing approach will likely take you directly over this shockingly massive mining pit for a bird's eye view.

In the early 1940s, a farmer spoke at a church in rural Tennessee: "Brothers and Sisters," said the man. "I want to tell you this. The greatest thing on earth is to have the love of God in your heart, and the next greatest thing is to have electricity in your house."

The arrival of electricity made possible by mined copper, truly a story of scale and determination, utterly transformed the world.

Copper is the great, unseen substrate that supports the modern world as we know it. In a 2021 report American investment bank Goldman Sachs declared that "copper is the new oil."

As Robert Friedland, a mercurial mining billionaire puts it, "Based on world ecological and environmental problems, every single solution drives you to copper."

Starting it today. It looks like an excellent read.

aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "Starting it today. It looks like an excellent read."

I'll be starting in a few days. Let's see :-)

Jessica wrote: "I just finished Part 1 and am floored by Chapter 3. I had no idea there was only one mine supplying the high-purity quartz used for silicon wafers (page 105). I noticed the author did not provide a..."

I finished this chapter today, and I am in awe of the process and manufacture chain of silicon wafers as well. Unbelievable, right? Wow.

I finished this book today and I have to say it's one of the best non fiction books that I have read in quite some time. I plan to look at the notes for more reading on this subject. An easy 5 stars for me.

Jessica wrote: "I finished this book today and I have to say it's one of the best non fiction books that I have read in quite some time. I plan to look at the notes for more reading on this subject. An easy 5 star..."

I also think it’s an excellent non-fiction book, one of the best I’ve read, too.

aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "I also think it’s an excellent non-fiction book, one of the best I’ve read, too.."

Are you still in the process of reading? What section are you on?

I am reading about copper now! So much info I never knew!

aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "I am reading about copper now! So much info I never knew!"

Ohhh I loved the section on copper. Michael has a good ode to copper above. I had no idea how much earth has to be removed to get at copper and we are gonna have to mine a lot more of it if solar panels require 7 times more copper than conventional power stations.

I suspected that copper production from mined ore might show a decline, over time. Not true. Cross your fingers that copper ore isn't present beneath your residence.

The global copper reserves have similarly increased over the same period, and amounted to one billion metric tons as of 2023. Meanwhile, the total global copper production from mines amounted to an estimated 22 million metric tons in 2023, which similarly amounted to an increase of almost 30 percent since 2010.

Copper consumption also rose nearly 30% between 2010 and 2022. 

I am absolutely mesmerized by this book. Much of this information is about stuff I know so little about I wouldn’t even know what questions to ask. So much of what goes on in producing the everyday miracles we take for granted.
The parts about the global supply chains are discomfiting. I realize we have become very interdependent with countries all over the world , but I didn’t realize how much. Breaking one link in a supply chain causes supplies to freeze up drastically.
I’m almost finished… I’ve been savoring this book.

Here is a youtube video link showing a tour of the China CATL battery company making jelly roll batteries:

https://youtu.be/j1jWp9WxGLM?si=A-wV2...

I'll be reading this book in August because of all the very interesting comments I've seen here!

Just one question: does the book contain a lot of images? I'm asking this because I'm considering purchasing the e-book (physical version is a bit pricy) and I know Kindle isn't good at displaying images (only black & white and low resolution) so I'm concerned if this will affect the experience of fully understanding the book.

Hector wrote: "I'll be reading this book in August because of all the very interesting comments I've seen here!

Just one question: does the book contain a lot of images? I'm asking this because I'm considering p..."

I have the Kindle ebook, and there were no images. However, out of curiosity, I looked up some of the companies as well as the processes the author describes, and I found extremely interesting videos!

Thanks, aPriL! I'm looking forward to learning about what has been discussed here

Hector wrote: "I'll be reading this book in August because of all the very interesting comments I've seen here!

Just one question: does the book contain a lot of images? I'm asking this because I'm considering p..."

I have the hardcover copy and I don't recall any images in that either.

I was late starting this book, partly due to the queue at the library and partly because I was immersed in another book. Then when I finally was able to start it, a number of distractions have hampered me. First there was the Olympics. Then the really exciting politics here in the U.S. (I'm something of a politics junkie). And I expect the library will yank it back long before I finish this 560 page book.

But it's really good, so I'll keep at it when I can and re-borrow it when I can. It may be a couple months before I finish it, but I will.

Hurricane Helene disrupts the supply of silicon quartz needed to manufacture microchips. https://www.vox.com/climate/375404/he...

Report from NPR with discussion from Ed Conway
https://apple.news/A0H4WY8oVSSerVxQAj...

I finally finished this book, and really enjoyed it. One of my big takeaways, as some others have noted, is the interconnectedness. All industrialized nations rely utterly on these materials, but it takes many different nations to produce them. Some countries, including the U.S., talk about trying to become self-sufficient, but it's just not possible. The sources are too disparate, the processes too complex, and the needs too universal. So far we have learned how to work together to produce the results we need, but that harmony is always at risk these days.

Here is my review.

Betsy wrote: "One of my big takeaways, as some others have noted, is the interconnectedness."

Read this a while back and thought it was a real page turner, given the topic. I remember the same thing. I also remember some steps in the manufacturing process being so exclusive to one region or corporation... something about a mountain in Tennessee or North Carolina. Anyway... wonder if his other books are just as good.

Also... love these books that show you what's going on behind the scenes, so to speak. I know there is a book out there about cargo containers, for instance.

I'm going through the first section about sand. Tons of information but quite interesting and useful.

I got curious to see how many of the companies mentioned are publicly traded. Maybe some of them could turn out to be good investments (although I might have troubles investing in them from Mexico). Haven't seen NVIDIA mentioned but I know its stock had a relatively recent and attractive spike in price. I'm wondering if there's an investment opportunity there in one of the less known companies.