Volt Rush The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green, reviewed

We look at this timely and relevant book which examines the tricky issues to be faced for EVs (electric vehicles) as the world tries to move to pollution, and reduced CO2 emissions. You can see more about Volt Rush The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green, written by Henry Sanderson on the publishers website here.

Volt Rush The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green, reviewed

EVs has been touted as the technological solution that will help to save our planet, and, potentially to save us from ourselves. The switch to electric vehicles would reduce CO2 emissions, pollution, keeping (potentially) fossil fuels in the ground. Henry Sanderson however takes us on a carefully considered and well explained journey to show that it may not be as simple a transition as we hoped for.

Sanderson has chapters specifically analysing the key elements, often rare earth minerals, that are vital to the creation of the necessary batteries to drive these vehicles. Lithium, cobalt and nickel among others are all forensically considered, with often concerning impacts on people and planet.

It may seem wonderful if Norway’s fleet of vehicles is increasingly EV powered, but what is the wider benefit if the ecological impact is merely outsourced to Congo, Chile and other politically fragile countries where the local workers are exploited and work in dangerous and life shortening conditions. Where once we had blood diamonds, will we now have blood lithium, cobalt and other rare but necessary minerals for the production of electric batteries.

Sanderson does a good job of getting the reader up to speed in terms of what goes into an electric battery, and why we need to be cognisant of the environmental impacts of manufacturing these batteries in the quantities that the world requires. Overall we found the book very informative and well written in terms of the potentially toxic brew required to power EVs.

We felt there was a dearth of material around what might be better solutions or options to the current ways of doing things. Maybe Sanderson does not yet know himself, as these are difficult questions to answer, but we found the relative dearth of discussion around potentially better options to be a minor disappointment. Perhaps that might come in a second edition?

Overall this is a relevant and vital book to read, check it out.

More supply and expectations of rising oil prices have "brought about a boom in the new energy vehicle market" in June, China's CPCA says. NEV sales (EVs and plug-ins) hit 571,000, a year-on-year increase of 141.4% pic.twitter.com/lhk4OLKah5

— Henry Sanderson (@hjesanderson) July 8, 2022

More about the book ->

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, linking remote mines in the Congo and Chile’s Atacama Desert to giant Chinese battery factories, shadowy commodity traders, secretive billionaires, a new generation of scientists attempting to solve the dilemma of a ‘greener’ world.

‘The urgency of a green transition means the world faces new power struggles over access to scarce metals and minerals.  Sanderson carefully walks us through the minefields that are the world’s finite supplies of lithium, cobalt and nickel and reveals with startling immediacy the Machiavellian machinations for control over these precious resources. A riveting guide to our perilous future.’

Ann Pettifor, author of The Case for the Green New Deal

More about the author

Henry Sanderson has covered commodities and mining for the Financial Times in London for the last six years, and has written widely about the resource implications of our move towards clean energy. He was previously a reporter in China for Bloomberg, where he co-authored an academic book about China’s state capitalism and its largest overseas lender, China’s Superbank (Bloomberg Press, 2013). A Chinese speaker, he has been interviewed by the BBC, Bloomberg Television, CNBC, and Charlie Rose. He tweets at @hjesanderson.

See more on his website here.

See more reviews here.