Summary of The War Below by Ernest Scheyder: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives

By Willie M. Joseph

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This book does not in any capacity mean to replace the original book but to serve as a vast summary of the original book.

Summary of The War Below by Ernest Scheyder: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives

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Ernest Scheyder's book, The War Below, provides a detailed account of the global battle for critical minerals, revealing the complexities of the issue. The world must dig more mines to extract essential minerals for electric vehicles, solar panels, and cell phones, but mines are unpopular due to their role in combating climate change and powering technologies. Scheyder's writing highlights the human toll of this war, the struggle for recycling and newer technologies, and Washington's attempts to reduce its reliance on China.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Willie M. Joseph
• Release date: Feb 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223113324

Willie M. Joseph

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A Choice

In 2018, a banking contact advised the author to meet James Calaway, a renowned expert in lithium and starting a lithium company. Calaway had spent his career on various complex ideas, including saving the planet from extreme temperatures and climate change. His family's background, as a sixth-generation Texan, fueled his interest in energy. Calaway's family's background in oil and natural gas companies led him to run two companies underpinning the renewable energy revolution.

In 2016, an enticing opportunity came to Calaway to help build a mine in a remote Nevada desert. The project's significance began to crystallize, and Calaway was intrigued. He studied economics under Walt Rostow, who had been U.S. National Security Advisor to President Lyndon B. Johnson. Calaway found the first way to save the planet was through nuclear arms control, inspired by Rostow's anti-Communist stance. Calaway pursued a graduate degree at Oxford University and spent two years immersed in the politics and policy of halting nuclear arms proliferation.

Calaway's interest in lithium and starting a lithium company was fueled by his family's background and his family's background in oil and natural gas companies.

Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential election led to the formation of Space Industries Inc., a private company aiming to commercialize space travel and space living. However, Space Industries failed due to the NASA bureaucracy's fear of funding being sapped and Congress's concerns about spending too much money on a private venture. The National Research Council urged NASA to scrap the program in 1989, but Space Industries was sold to a company that used its technology for research equipment.

Calaway's legacy in energy and its money kept calling, leading him to start a business focused on 3D seismic technology for the oil and gas industry. After a few years, he quit due to moral concerns about producing oil and gas that would harm the planet for his children and grandchildren. Calaway embarked on a metaphorical wandering in the corporate wilderness, searching for where he could put his entrepreneurial skills to