September 15, 2023
A spirited tour of six material things on which our lives depend. Sky News economics editor Conway, an inhabitant of the "ethereal world" in which ideas and services are bought and sold, opens his account with an eye-opening visit to a Utah gold mine where an entire mountain range is being removed in the quest for earthly riches. That hugely destructive pit is a comparative scratch in the ground, though, compared to a vast Chilean copper mine that "can produce comfortably more copper each year...as the amount of gold produced by every mine on the planet since the beginning of time." Gold is somewhat inconsequential, while copper is essential to electronics. So is sand, one of the six commodities Conway examines in rich detail without his prose ever sliding into the miasmas of the dismal science. Sand contains silicon, which yields computer chips and "the fiber optics from which the internet is woven." Silicon combines with cement and asphalt to make buildings and roads; iron provides the infrastructure of the built material world; salt yields hydrogen chloride, another component of computer chips and even solar panels; and oil is implicated in just about everything, including greenhouse-grown vegetables that feed the world. Even in an energy and material regime weaned from fossil fuels, Conway argues, fossil fuels will play a part--and getting that weaning accomplished, he adds, "will mean building untold new energy capacity across the world: solar panels, wind turbines and nuclear plants, a rate humankind has never before achieved." Yet, he adds at the conclusion of this erudite exploration, which ably describes how his chosen commodities interact, it's not an impossibility, thanks to his sixth element: lithium, the basis for the batteries that may lead the way to a renewable energy future. Of course, copper and glass will be involved, too. Lively and impeccably written--a welcome addition to the way-the-world-works literature.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
October 23, 2023
“What are the physical ingredients without which civilization really would grind to a halt, and where do they actually come from?” Conway (The Summit), the economics and data editor at Sky News, sets out to answer that question in this enlightening study. He suggests that copper, iron, lithium, oil, salt, and sand form the bedrock of the modern world, noting that silica, which constitutes “the main ingredient in most sands,” is melted in furnaces to create silicon chips, and that saltpeter’s rich stores of nitrogen make the substance a valuable fertilizer. Reporting on his travels to witness the extraction and processing of the six materials, Conway describes how ore from the Chuquicamata copper mine in Chile is ground to dust and “frothed up in a special liquid solution that helps separate copper from the rest.” The nimble prose transforms chemical and industrial processes into riveting entertainment, and passages tracing how the struggle to access these materials has shaped world history fascinate. For instance, Conway explains that Hitler invaded Ukraine in 1941 to plunder the country’s bountiful iron deposits and that the Saltpeter War between Bolivia and Chile was sparked in 1879 by a dispute over control of lucrative caliche (a salt used in explosives) mines in the Atacama Desert. It’s a sweeping look at the building blocks of the industrialized world.
November 1, 2023
Sand, salt, oil, lithium, iron, and copper. Conway effectively amalgamates geology, history, economics, and material science to demonstrate just how indispensable these six substances are to contemporary life. He explains how they can be physically and chemically altered from their raw state to shape a multitude of useful products. Yet the extraction of these natural resources from the ground can be costly and hazardous. Consider the wonder and benefits of sand. The primary ingredient is silica; glass, silicon chips, and optical fibers are created from it. Sand is also a basic component of concrete. Salt's value goes beyond our body's physiologic need for sodium chloride (NaCl); it's vital to the chemical industry and sanitation. As for oil, the list includes not only fuels but plastics, pharmaceuticals, fertilizers, and asphalt. Lithium's ability to store energy makes lithium-ion batteries efficient. Iron is omnipresent, from the hemoglobin in our red blood cells to steel to the earth's core. The contribution of copper to electrical power is essential. Conway proficiently identifies how these six resources are marvels in distinctive ways and crucial to our lives.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.