The resources race is on. Powering our digital lives and green technologies are some of the Earth’s most precious metals ― but they are running out. And what will happen when they do? 
The green-tech revolution will reduce our dependency on nuclear power, coal, and oil, heralding a new era free of pollution, fossil-fuel shortages, and crossborder tensions. But there is a hidden dark side to this seemingly utopian vision. 
In this international bestseller, award-winning journalist and documentary-maker Guillaume Pitron reveals that, by breaking free of fossil fuels, we are in fact setting ourselves up for a new dependence ― on rare metals such as cobalt, gold, and palladium. 
These are essential to electric vehicles, wind turbines, and solar panels, as well as our smartphones, computers, tablets, and other technologies. But we know very little about how rare metals are mined and traded, or their environmental, economic, and geopolitical costs; meanwhile, China has captured the lion’s share of the market and is using it to consolidate its position as a leading global power. 
Drawing on six years of research across a dozen countries, The Rare Metals War is a vital exposé of the ticking time-bomb that lies beneath our new technological order.

The Rare Metals War: the dark side of clean energy and digital technologies

Business & Money

Pitron, Guillaume

Economics

Scribe UK

Is the shift to renewable energy and digital devices going to free us from severe pollution, material shortages, and military tensions? Rare metals are essential to electric vehicles, fighter jets, wind turbines, and solar panels, and also to our smartphones, computers, tablets, and other everyday connected objects. But consumers know very little about how they are mined and traded, or the environmental, economic, and geopolitical costs of this dependence. This book reveals the dark side of the world that awaits us. It is an undercover tale of a technological odyssey that has promised much, and a look behind the scenes. Behind it all lurks China, which has captured the lion's share of the ownership and processing of rare metals we now can't do without. Drawing on six years of research across a dozen countries, this book shows that by breaking free of fossil fuels, we are in fact setting ourselves up for a new dependence--on rare metals that have become vital to our new ecological and digital society.

The Rare Metals War: The Dark Side of Clean Energy and Digital Technologies

Scribe US

A gripping new investigation into the underbelly of digital technology, which reveals not only how costly the virtual world is, but how damaging it is to the environment. The Dark Cloud is the searing exposé of the immense toll the "cloud" takes on our environment. A simple "like" sent from our smartphones mobilizes a cascade of invisible consequences. This small notification, crossing the seven operating layers of the internet, travels around the world, using submarine cables, telephone antennas, and data centers, going as far as the Arctic Circle in what will soon constitute the largest infrastructure built by man. It turns out that the digital world, essential for communicating, working, and consuming, is much more tangible than we would like to believe. Today, it absorbs 10 percent of the world's electricity and represents nearly 4 percent of the planet's carbon dioxide emissions. We are struggling to understand these impacts, as they are obscured to us in the mirage of "the cloud." In this follow-up to his global bestselling book, The Rare Metals War, Pitron, a journalist, researched the dark truth behind the easy mirage of our digital world, in an investigation carried out over two years, across four continents. The result shows the anatomy of a technology virtual only in name. Pitron argues that the cloud needs to be exposed and understood--because our future is implicated. Praise for The Rare Metals War: "Pitron weighs the awful price of refining the materials, ably blending investigative journalism with insights from science, politics and business." Simon Ings, New Scientist "[E]xposes the dirty underpinnings of clean technologies in a debut that raises valid questions about energy extraction." Publishers Weekly "An expert account of a poorly understood but critical element in our economy ... Pitron delivers a gripping, detailed, and discouraging explanation." Kirkus Reviews

The Dark Cloud: The Hidden Costs of the Digital World

Reference

Después de la máquina de vapor y el motor de combustión interna, las tecnologías «verdes» han puesto a la humanidad en vías de una tercera revolución industrial y energética. Como las dos anteriores, se basa en un recurso primordial, una materia prima tan vital que los especialistas, los tecnoprofetas, los jefes de Estado y los estrategas militares la llaman «el petróleo del siglo xxi». Pero que los consumidores, a diferencia de lo que ocurría con el carbón y el petróleo, no conocen. En absoluto. 
Vanadio, germanio, platinoides, antimonio, berilio, renio, tántalo... Son algunos de los nombres que se esconden tras la materia prima en cuestión, los metales raros, que Guillaume Pitron lleva seis años investigando, y que se supone que va a llevarnos a una nueva era energética, esta vez mucho más ecológica, sostenible y mejor para todos. 
Sin embargo, ¿sabemos qué precio vamos a pagar por esta apuesta? ¿Quiénes son los vencedores y quiénes los vencidos en el ajedrez del capitalismo verde? ¿Con qué coste para nuestras economías, para el ser humano y para el medio ambiente conseguiremos garantizar el suministro? Al querer emanciparnos de las energías fósiles, ¿acaso no nos estaremos sumiendo en una dependencia aún más fuerte y quizá peor?\nBook Description\nUn grito de alarma sobre un tema poco conocido, pero que forma parte de nuestra vida cotidiana (los metales raros son necesarios para la fabricación de los móviles).

La guerra de los metales raros: La cara oculta de la transición energética y digital

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

Ediciones Península

La guerre des métaux rares: La face cachée de la transition énergétique et numérique

LIENS LIBERENT

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