Volt Rush

The Winners and Losers in the Race to Go Green

By: Henry Sanderson

Narrated by: Rory Barnett

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, and a new generation of scientists attempting to solve the dilemma of a "greener" world.

©2022 Henry Sanderson (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

How the Future of Transportation is Being Built

We can no more resist changes in transportation, than calvary officers could resist a change to tanks and armored vehicles.

This book is hardly a treatise on global warming. It points out many of the pitfalls of the transition to EVs. It talks about the cobalt mines in the Congo, monopolies, Chinese state investment, the hazards of ocean mining. However, it isn’t a doomed book about the infeasibility of the EV shift. Rather, it is a straightforward, well researched book about the mining and production companies that are in this space. Who are the key players in lithium, cobalt, and nickel production? Who is getting rich and are different companies structuring their economies to deal with the industrial change? It was a very informative book about the mining of resources and production of clean energy materials.

Very informative

Great rendition of the global community and as title indicated it was a look on the rush for making electricity cleverly compared with gold rush - also natural resources, the language was great!

Mindblowing content! Outstanding writing!

I could not stop listening to/reading the book. As passionate pro-environment person, I had no idea about the “dirty/bloody” side of so called environmentally friendly products.
What an eye opener!
I still believe environmentally conscious business making is the only way forward if we want to save the planet but (!) it all takes strict regulations, rigorous monitoring, sophisticated anti corruption measures and dedication.
Thank you for this treasured book!

Tne most important part.

Informative and enjoyable. The battery behind the electric car and the players I have the technklogy of the critical part of the EV.

Fascinating book about the global value chain of the battery industry, the challenges ahead to transition to electrification

High educational value about the industry for anyone seeking to understand the landscape and what it will take to scale the supply of critical materials and electrifying our future. You will appreciate the role of industry policy to diversify/regionalize the investments while addressing the inherent transition risks in global supply chains…. Great narration as well, easy to follow as audiobook.

Can someone edit out all the inhales?

I was looking forward to this but I can’t get past the sharp inhale before every sentence it’s driving me mad. I’ve listened to audible for years so it seems abnormal.

Sheds the light on batteries

Solid history of the lithium battery the needed resources to make them and the high impacts to extract them

Must read for understanding the green transition

Gives a balanced view of the challanges related to raw materials extraction, raw materials markets, geopolitics and environmental aspects. It primarily focuses on lithium, cobolt, nikkel and copper.

Good narration.