Book Reviews

Despite its subtitle, “Volt Rush” is a delicious journey of discovery that focuses mainly on the winners—the people, companies and countries that profit from the current EV mania. Spoiler alert: The battery-money gusher is not flowing into, but out of, Europe and the U.S., with the largest share going to Chinese refineries and upstream from there to mines—some in China, and most in places as far ranging as the Congo, Chile and Indonesia, with many owned by China. – Mark P. Mills, Wall Street Journal

The longtime commodities and mining reporter for the Financial Times, Sanderson may well have sold this book on the idea that “going green” was actually taking us in dark directions. And indeed his in-depth reporting – stronger on corporate histories than on-the-ground interviewing – shows the corruption that underlies many of the mining schemes for the minerals used in batteries, the human rights abuses and environmental troubles that can come from that mining and the geopolitical complications that emerge when countries such as China and Russia control crucial parts of the trade. – Bill McKibben, The Guardian