Our world is shifting away from hydrocarbons and fossil fuels to renewable forms of power that rely more than ever on batteries. As demand for these products has grown, so has the need for minerals that are used in their production, in particular cobalt, a metallic element that is overwhelmingly mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, site of the world''s largest cobalt reserves. In The Elements of Power , New Yorker writer Nicolas Niarchos takes the reader on a vivid, deeply-reported journey from the mines of Congo to the factories of China to trace the elements that have become indispensable for the technology upon which modern society is based. He explores how we became addicted to a supply chain that wreaks havoc across the globe, is defining US/China relations and extracting a terrible price in child labour, corruption and exploitation. From the origins of battery technology in the 1970s, via Cold War manoeuvring, right up to the present day with companies like Tesla and Apple''s reliance on cobalt, The Elements of Power will be the definitive account of the new mineral rush, doing for cobalt what Daniel Yergin''s Pulitzer-winning The Prize did for oil.

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Nicolas Niarchos

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ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL WRITING FINALIST 2026

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 MOORE PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WRITING

'A tale of rapacious colonialism, Cold War spy games, dazzling technical innovation, big business rivalry, big power geopolitics [...] an unflinching, landmark work on the nature of extractive capitalism' Patrick Radden Keefe

'Joseph Conrad called colonial ventures in Africa "the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience". After reading this book you might want to add the words "until now"' The Times

How we became addicted to a supply chain that wreaks havoc across the globe.

Epic, shocking, and deeply reported, The Elements of Power tells the story of the war for the global supply of battery metals - essential for the decarbonization of our economies - and the terrible, bloody human cost of this badly misunderstood industry.

Congo is rich. Swaths of the war-torn African country lack basic infrastructure, and, after many decades of colonial occupation, its people are officially among the poorest in the world. But hidden beneath the soil are vast quantities of cobalt, lithium, copper, tin, tantalum, tungsten, and other treasures. Recently, this veritable periodic table of resources has become extremely valuable because these metals are essential for the global "energy transition"-the plan for wealthy nations to wean themselves off fossil fuels by shifting to sustainable forms of energy, such as solar and wind. The race to electrify the world's economy has begun, and China has a considerable head start. From Indonesia to South America to Central Africa, Beijing has invested in mines and infrastructure for decades. But the U.S. has begun fighting back with massive investments of its own, as well as sanctions and disruptive tariffs.

In this rush for green energy, the world has become utterly reliant on resources unearthed far away and willfully blind to the terrible political, environmental, and social consequences of their extraction. If the Democratic Republic of the Congo possesses such riches, why are its children routinely descending deep into treacherous mines to dig with the most rudimentary of tools, or in some cases their bare hands? Why are Indonesia's seas and skies being polluted in a rush for battery metals? Why is the Western Sahara, a source for phosphates, still being treated like a colony? Who must pay the price for progress?

With unparalleled, original reporting, Nicolas Niarchos reveals how the scramble to control these metals and their production is overturning the world order, just as the global race to drill for oil shaped the twentieth century. Exploring the advent of the lithium-ion battery and tracing the supply chain for its production, Niarchos tells the story both of the people driving these tectonic changes and those whose lives are being upended. He reveals the true, devastating consequences of our best intentions and helps us prepare for an uncertain future. If you have ever used a smartphone or driven an electric vehicle, you are implicated.