The battle for mineral resources

The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives, By Ernest Scheyder, paperback 384 pages, ISBN ‎978-1804186374, Ithaka 2025. Kindle edition available.

Ernest Scheyder, a correspondent for Reuters who previously covered the shale revolution in the USA, has written a vivid, many-sided account of the forces shaping the global struggle for control of mineral resources and supply routes.

‘Scheyder has explored some inconvenient truths and advocated for sensible solutions.’

In his research for this book Scheyder has explored some inconvenient truths and advocated for sensible solutions. Though set in America, with a side excursion to a Bolivian salt lake, and written largely from a business point of view, the book contains much to inform and challenge workers here in Britain.

The discovery of a rare and tender flower, a species of buckwheat, whose only known habitat is a bed of lithium, symbolises the dilemma posed throughout the book. How can preservation of nature and civilisation above ground be reconciled with the invasive extraction of what lies hidden beneath – in this case a giant reserve of key battery metal.

More mines

Critical minerals such as lithium, copper and cobalt, and rare earths like molybdenum and thorium, are vital to help adapt to climate change, and are integral to technological development. This means digging more mines.

Competition for the metals is intensifying. National interests are intertwined globally in the quest for energy independence. It’s a conundrum – for the working class as well as capitalists. Outsource the dirty work of extraction, and increase carbon footprint through imports. Or mine in, or as close as possible to, our own backyard.

“If you want to change the climate, industry has to be part of the solution.”

In Britain we see this contradiction played out over oil and gas extraction and steel production. Scheyder quotes a worker at the Perpetua mining company: “If you want to change the climate, industry has to be part of the solution”.

In charting the steady rise of China, with its methodical state-directed planning, Scheyder exposes the disorganisation, waste, and sheer anarchy of the US economic system. That country is rich in critical raw materials. But it has failed to nurture its own assets, outsourcing its entire rare earths industry to China, including its stockpiles of weapons-grade minerals.

Expensive machinery, purchased in a frenzy of lithium speculation, lies rusting to this day under the California sun. So far, the US has developed just one rare earths mine, and no processing facilities, though Tesla is planning a gigafactory to shorten supply routes from Asia.

Reliant

Scheyder sympathises with executives who want an unbroken chain of production “from mine to market”. But that’s a pipe-dream. China's demand for copper is the greatest in the world, yet it is heavily reliant on South America for supply. Major producers like Chile or Australia are dependent on China for processing. The USA itself supplies twice as much copper as China, but is dependent on Chinese processing technology.

American demand for electric vehicles is accelerating. Yet the nation that prides itself as the Ford model for capitalism and car production is dependent on importing from the Congo four times more cobalt than it mines.

Disconnect

Without taking sides, Scheyder points to a disconnect in strategy. Following a one-sided policy of environmental protection, Biden killed off the mining of domestic copper, nickel, cobalt and platinum, and in the process many blue-collar jobs.

In response, the United Steelworkers union declared that electrification means “good-paying union jobs for working people in responsible mining operations that will both supply battery minerals and protect the environment”.

Trump’s recklessness is contrasted with Biden’s hesitancy. If he understood nothing else, Trump knew in his first term that he had to move fast on lithium for EVs to compete with China.

This meant brushing aside complex environmental regulation. This was bad news for the sage grouse, a small bird with a flamboyant mating dance, living amid sagebrush and lithium in Nevada. Docile government departments quietly overruled seasonal protections for these birds.

US companies seek whatever they think is profitable. So they work with Chinese companies, despite Washington’s stated aim of “keeping Communism out”. China’s superior expertise has put it alongside western capital managers in many joint ventures.

Competition

Molycorp (the Molybdenum Corporation of America) owned Mountain Pass Mine in California, an important source of rare earth minerals. The mine stopped production after a toxic waste spill, but did not reopen due to competition from Chinese companies.

After Molycorp went bankrupt, the mine was sold to US hedge funds. Aiming to resume operations they set up a new company, MP Materials – in which Chinese company Shenghe Resources holds a minority stake. But while MP is hopeful of re-creating a US-based supply chain for rare earths, China continues to dominate – and has the upper hand in talks with the US.

Ford is to partner with Chinese company CATL to build a battery plant in Michigan. Bolivia, no longer determined to retain its “lithium sovereignty”, chose CATL rather than a US-led consortium.

Speculative

Scheyder also shows how lithium has become a highly speculative market, notorious for share price-rigging and selling on to the highest bidder. A committed investor is required to risk hundreds of millions of dollars of private capital towards the mammoth task of clearing a tainted site or difficult terrain, building the mining infrastructure, and compensating the locality with schools and hospitals.

‘He doesn’t pull his punches about mining conditions.”

Scheyder doesn’t pull his punches about mining conditions – lethal sludge from a breached dam engulfing a whole community; pipelines leaking radioactive particles; toxic waste scarring the landscape; child labour in the Congo; bullying and sexual harassment at Rio Tinto; the historically brutal treatment of organised workers at the Phelps Dodge copper mine.

Campaign

It doesn’t have to be like this. One of the most gripping passages in the book describes the unexpectedly radical part played by jewellery manufacturer and retailer Tiffany, joining forces with community activists and unions to campaign for responsible mining. Back-room disputes and precipice-edge agreements are narrated in thrilling detail as diverse players, inspired by forestry stewardship, battle to establish international mining standards.

Establishing collaborative control took ten years of compromise and sensitivity to differing topographies, with input from Canada and the World Wildlife Fund, but the end result by 2018 had avoided costly and divisive court battles, and gave encouragement to miners pinning hopes on the transition from iron ore to the metals of the future.

Positive steps are being taken to limit new mines in the future by recycling lithium-ion batteries. Scheyder points to “Daisy”, Apple's robot for breaking apart an iPhone to its glass, aluminium shell and battery. Recycling reduces landfill and makes up for depleted metal reserves like cobalt and nickel. It speeds up production compared with mining from scratch.

Risks

But even if mining is made safer, there are other risks that need to be managed. Lithium is a highly volatile metal. There are dangers in transporting it over long distances and within recycling plants themselves.

Despite differences of opinion, Scheyder’s account is sympathetic and often humorous. He takes the trouble to spend time with the individuals whose views and customs he records: farmers and landowners, canoeists, hikers, and hipsters (“with furious thought taking place under the hairdo”), entrepreneurs bankrupted by lithium mania, geo-scientists and Apache chiefs.

Clash

We learn of a curious clash with tribal protesters over transphobia as their “two spirit” belief system admits of a third gender. We learn that the Church of England uses its £3 billion pension funds to boost the safety of tailings (toxic waste) dams.

We learn the difference between hard-rock mining and brine extraction, and the greater likelihood of finding lithium where previously workers mined for tin (as in Cornwall), or finding copper where prospectors once found gold (as in Wales) – and much more.

Trade deals

Access to the mineral resources of other countries is behind many of trade deals that our government seeks, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CTCPP) it joined in December. And the US is keen on what it can get from Ukraine. The British government wants some of that action too – that depends on what the US leaves behind.

As workers we cannot sit back and trust parliament to act in our interest. Those in power seek to immerse us in the undercurrents of war; this book will inform us about one of the key struggles for resources. And it may help us arrive at some conclusions of our own.

• A shorter version of this review appears in the July/August 2025 issue of Workers magazine.