7-minute read
Tantalum, tellurium, indium, niobium, germanium, dysprosium, rhenium, yttrium, neodymium, titanium, lithium, tungsten, cobalt. These are but some of the many chemical elements that are collectively known as rare metals. You will probably recognize only a few of them, but trace quantities are in products and structures all around you, making things stronger, faster, and lighter. They are used to make smartphones, laptops, and fibre-optic cables; but also cars, airplanes, and military weapon systems; and even photovoltaic panels and wind turbines. We live in the Rare Metal Age, writes natural resources strategist David S. Abraham here.
I have been meaning to read this book for ages. With the recent publication of Guillaume Pitron’s The Rare Metals War, now is the right time. Thus, this is the first of a two-part review dealing with these little-known elements that have silently come to dominate our lives.
The Elements of Power: Gadgets, Guns, and the Struggle for a Sustainable Future in the Rare Metal Age, written by David S. Abraham, published by Yale University Press in June 2017 (paperback, 319 pages)
Before proceeding, about that name, rare metals. Also known as minor metals, it is a blanket term that includes rare earth elements. And though metallurgists cannot agree on a definition, the Minor Metals Trade Association currently recognizes 49 metals, encompassing pretty much everything that is not a base (e.g. iron or copper) or precious metal (e.g. gold or silver). The rarity can refer to their limited consumption (hundreds vs. millions of tons annually), but also their geological occurrence. Some are scarce, while others are plentiful but so dilute that they rarely can be mined profitably.
Nomenclature aside, there are many reasons why rare metals are exceptional, unpredictable, and troublesome. The Elements of Power explores numerous facets of our use of them, and I found this book to be remarkably balanced and comprehensive in its coverage.
First off, simply developing a mine is not straightforward. Their geology means there are only limited places where a metal can be profitably mined, allowing a few countries or companies to monopolise the world’s supply. This leads to geopolitical tensions, and when China restricted rare earth exports in 2010, it rattled industries around the world.
“Every mineral vein is different and optimising the production process can take years of trial and error.”
Furthermore, extraction and purification are expensive and “[m]any rare metals are so technically challenging for chemists to produce that it is better to think of them as chemical creations rather than geological minerals” (p. 69). Every mineral vein is different and optimising the production process can take years of trial and error. Several decades can pass between a mining company finding willing investors and producing metals. There is no cookbook you can turn to. Well, there is, but even so, a lot of knowledge is hard-earned and jealously guarded. And with rare metal specialists a dying breed due to the lack of dedicated university departments in Europe and the US, there has been a brain-drain towards Asia.
Then there is the lack of openness in the trading sector. Commodity traders are already a shady bunch, but as Abraham’s interviews with anonymous sources reveal, this sector is “a web of small companies of specialty traders“, with materials having to travel “through a murky network of traders, processors, and component manufacturers” (p. 90). There are no exchanges such as for oil with accepted benchmark prices. Business is very much about who you know—backroom deals, smuggling, and distrust are rife. “No one really knows the true size of these markets. Even the U.S. Geological Survey […] won’t hazard a guess […]” (p. 91). And given that many rare metals are recovered as by-products of other mining activities, there is no neat supply-and-demand relationship, resulting in volatile prices.
The economic side of rare metals is, in short, complex. And that is a problem, as we use much. Abraham gives numerous examples of their use in our gadgets, cars, airplanes, and weapons. The iPhone “relies on nearly half the elements on the planet” (p. 2), while “the newest weapon systems like the F-35 are flying periodic tables” (p. 168). And we will need even more in the future for green technologies: for the magnets in wind turbines and the batteries in electric cars. Once Abraham works through these examples, you realise that these technologies are anything but “green”.
“[…] we will need even more [rare metals] in the future for green technologies: for the magnets in wind turbines and the batteries in electric cars. Once Abraham works through these examples, you realise that these technologies are anything but “green””
Mining in general “[…] speeds up otherwise relatively benign natural processes that usually occur over millennia […] (p. 180). Some have even called it planetary plunder. But rare-metal mining is even more taxing on the environment. Abraham describes the different refining steps—the crushing of rock, the leaching of ores using strong acids—highlighting how energy-intensive and polluting these practices are. And in case you are wondering, recycling “[…] is not a panacea. It too has its own environmental consequences […]” (p. 177). Next to the challenges of gathering the waste and getting people to recycle rather than discard, separating complex devices back into their component elements is no less energy-intensive and polluting. An important point Abraham makes is that “the combination of metals in products like batteries and even steel are in far more complex alloys than the finite set found in nature” (p. 190). Often, whether recycling is even possible has simply not been studied yet.
If rare metals are so problematic, can we not just swap one metal for another? The answer is no, but outside material scientists, few understand the subtleties. The performance we now routinely demand from our technology is such that we cannot simply substitute one metal for another without sacrificing performance, affordability, structural integrity, or weight. And what is true of weapons, “[w]ithout some of these minor metals you would have to go back to 1960s or 1970s performance” (p. 166), holds for most applications.
“The performance we now routinely demand from our technology is such that we cannot simply substitute one metal for another without sacrificing performance, affordability, structural integrity, or weight.”
The combination of few mines, opaque and complex supply chains, and the booming demand for these metals makes for a very uncertain future that has analysts and governments concerned. Demand is likely to outstrip supply, at least in the short term: “[…] we could be condemned to a fossil fuel world, if we cannot bolster the rare metal supply lines we need to support our green technologies” (p. 136), warns Abraham. When even the former CEO of mining giant Vale is quoted as saying “[t]he reality is the planet is very small for the number of inhabitants we will see in 2025” (p. 219), I cannot help but wonder how much of this an endless rat race of techno-fixes that are doomed to fail. Nevertheless, Abraham’s envisioned solution is not to shy away from using them but to double down: “to search for more sources, use them more efficiently, and advance our knowledge of geology, metallurgy, and material science” (p. 219).
The Elements of Power tackles this topic from many angles, and Abraham is a knowledgeable guide, not least because of his insider perspective of what is happening in China and Japan. This book was everything I hoped for and provided numerous “aha” moments. If you want to better understand what the deal is with rare metals, this book comes highly recommended.
Can Pitron add to this? I will turn to The Rare Metals War next to find out, but, spoiler alert, the answer is yes. Foremost, Pitron will give you reason to pause and question the cost of the transition to green technologies.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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More from Less makes the optimistic case that our impact on the planet is diminishing. We are past “peak stuff” and thanks to continued technological innovation our economy is dematerializing. That is to say, economic growth has become decoupled from resource consumption. Or, as the title puts it succinctly, we are getting more from less.
I was initially sceptical when I learned of this book. My outlook on the state of the world is not nearly as optimistic. So, from the blurb’s counterintuitive claim that “we’ve stumbled into an unexpected balance with nature”, to Steven Pinker’s triumphant endorsement that those who think we’re doomed by overpopulation and resource depletion are wrong – I was ready to go bananas on this book. But I would be a poor reviewer if I let my prejudices get the better of me.
More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources – And What Happens Next, written by Andrew McAfee, published in Europe by Simon & Schuster in October 2019 (hardback, 352 pages)
More from Less starts with Andrew McAfee (a former Harvard Business School professor who is now a research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management) asking the reader to keep an open mind. He was initially sceptical too: surely, as our economies grow, we consume more resources? To understand how we got to believe this, he first provides some history and background. Starting, as one must, with Malthus’s famous Essay on the Principle of Population, McAfee highlights how population growth was kept in check by food supply for the longest time. Until it wasn’t. Malthus did not foresee all the technological advances that came during and after the Industrial Revolution: urbanisation, combustion engines, electricity, indoor plumbing (underappreciated, writes McAfee), plentiful synthetic fertiliser thanks to the Haber-Bosch process, and (thank you Norman Borlaug) the Green Revolution.
McAfee balances this by pointing out the dark side: the Industrial Revolution was achieved on the back of slavery, child labour, colonialism, pollution, and the wholesale extermination of animals. This ultimately led to concerns: Earth Day, Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb, the Club of Rome’s report The Limits to Growth (and its update), the IPAT equation (Impact = Population × Affluence × Technology), Jevons paradox (efficiency gains are often spent elsewhere, not reducing impact after all), Kenneth Boulding’s concept of Spaceship Earth… again, McAfee hits most of the relevant notes here.
For many decades, economical growth and resource consumption increased in lockstep with each other, until we hit what McAfee has earlier called the Second Machine Age, hinting at the power of computers. Since then, resource use has stabilised or decreased while the economy has kept growing, at least in the US. Examples discussed here include metals, agricultural input, wood, building materials such as sand and gravel, and energy consumption.
“For many decades, economical growth and resource consumption increased in lockstep with each other, until we hit what McAfee [calls] the Second Machine Age […]. Since then, resource use has stabilised or decreased while the economy has kept growing,”
McAfee sees four factors driving this dematerialization. First, unsurprisingly, technological progress, which has resulted in increased efficiency and reduced resource consumption when manufacturing goods. Second, capitalism, with competition encouraging companies to invent above technologies and cut costs by using less raw materials. The third, public awareness, refers to people’s willingness to embrace progress (the resistance to GMOs and nuclear power are given as examples of progress stalling when this does not happen). The fourth, responsive governments, means governments that are willing to listen (to their people, to new ideas), capable of governing and enforcing rules, and free from corruption. Democracies excel at this, argues McAfee.
The last part of the book then describes how these four factors have gone global, and what they have achieved. McAfee’s argumentation is again, in one word, balanced. Some achievements are good (increased health and wealth), others are a mixed blessing (urbanisation and fewer but larger companies), and some are worrying (a decline in so-called social capital: the disappearance of jobs has led to a feeling of disconnection in communities, especially in the US). Nor is he blind to the challenges ahead, such as climate change. Everything is not alright. But he thinks the way out is through. We need to step on the proverbial accelerator and spread all four drivers of dematerialization far and wide (though see Geoffrey West’s Scale for an interesting critique of whether this acceleration in technological breakthroughs can be maintained).
More from Less flows well, its chapters following logically on from each other. Despite my initial apprehension, I found much here to agree with. Like McAfee, I wholeheartedly support continued scientific research and technological development (I have written about GMOs and other biotech tools before). Still – and I take note here of his remarks about the power and persistence of negative thinking – I do not share his optimism to the same extent. My objections are threefold.
“Everything is not alright. But [McAfee] thinks the way out is through. We need to step on the proverbial accelerator and spread all four drivers of dematerialization far and wide.”
First, does the decrease in US resource consumption account for production that has moved overseas? McAfee mentions that US Geological Survey data on mineral consumption includes imports and exports, but I am not sure this is the same. A footnote says resources in finished goods are excluded but argues that, at 4% of the economy, they are negligible. I question whether that is a useful comparison in a service-industry-heavy economy such as the US. What percentage of all US goods does this represent? The scope of the data underlying other examples is less clear and McAfee does not clarify this point. A major theme of The Irresponsible Pursuit of Paradise was that developed countries smugly claim to have cleaned up their act when in reality they have shifted the burden of resource extraction to developing countries. As McAfee acknowledges, without sufficiently detailed data you cannot establish if dematerialization is a global or local phenomenon. And, given a globalised economy, we need to exclude the possibility it is an artefact of not doing your bookkeeping on resource extraction properly.
Second, some critical factors go unmentioned. So, the smartphone is held up as a shining (shiny?) example of capitalism giving us one device where there used to be many. But McAfee fails to mention that those very same companies have given us planned obsolescence, devices that cannot be easily repaired, and relentless marketing to push consumers into upgrading to the latest model. That negates much of your efficiency gains. And what of all the new wants and needs that capitalism has created? Another point: McAfee seems little concerned with the non-renewable nature of many resources – known reserves have increased because we are looking harder. “Earth is finite […] but also very, very big […] The image of a thinly supplied Spaceship Earth […] is deeply misleading” (p.120-121). Putting aside for a moment the question of whether this justifies ever-more intrusive extraction techniques such as mountain-top removal and deep-sea mining, there is no mention here of the hard limit imposed by Energy Returned on Energy Invested, a concept discussed in Ugo Bardi’s Extracted. Not all of a resource can be economically exploited. McAfee will likely reply that this holds until innovation overcomes this – we have underestimated its power before. And although Earth Day features here, there is no mention of the concept of humanity’s ecological footprint and Earth Overshoot Day (which has been criticised, but if anything is an underestimate), or the framework of planetary boundaries developed by Johan Rockström and colleagues. It seems unlikely that a former Harvard professor is not aware of these factors.
“Dematerialization is worth pursuing, but I am not convinced it is a panacea – [our impact] is a complex problem for which there is no single silver bullet.”
Third and final point: although McAfee’s argument seems logical, I am concerned it is too little, too late. To understand this, let’s return to the IPAT equation (Impact = Population × Affluence × Technology). McAfee’s book revolves around reducing Technology. Population is still increasing but a plateau is in sight. As mentioned in my review of Empty Planet, I do think current numbers already have an outsized environmental impact, so the questions posed in Should We Control World Population? remain on the table for me. That leaves Affluence, which is increasing rapidly globally. Eileen Crist’s call in Abundant Earth for scaling down and pulling back seems apt here. Given the above, you would need manifold efficiency gains from dematerialization just to keep Impact constant, let alone decrease it. More caution, as expressed by Vaclav Smil in Making the Modern World, seems warranted. Dematerialization is worth pursuing, but I am not convinced it is a panacea – Impact is a complex problem for which there is no silver bullet.
Overall then, More from Less highlights an interesting phenomenon and I found quite a few things in McAfee’s outlook to agree with. However, some curious omissions make me question how much of a saviour dematerialization really is.
Disclosure: The publisher provided a review copy of this book. The opinion expressed here is my own, however.
Other recommended books mentioned in this review:
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