Material World

Ed Conway examines six materials in the new economy; sand (for concrete), salt (fertiliser), iron (and steel), copper (electrical wires), oil and lithium. He crosses the world to many mines and quarries, as well as the high-tech factories that need what they produce, to drive home an awkward truth. We still live in a material world and rely on drilling machines and explosives to feed it. He shows the scale of the environmental problem and the irony of new demand created by efforts to wean ourselves off oil and onto batteries. Meanwhile, without copper and fibre optics, “there would be… show more.