The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives

Investigative account of the global critical minerals contest underlying the clean energy transition, following the race for lithium, copper, and other materials from mine to market and documenting the political, environmental, and community conflicts that define the extraction frontier. Scheyder’s central tension — between the political unacceptability of new mining in OECD countries and the material requirements of the clean economy — is the same one the EU faces in trying to simultaneously reduce import dependence and meet planning objections to domestic extraction. The book is most useful as a ground-level account of why the gap between minerals policy intent and physical supply delivery is wide.