The elements of power, p.44
The Elements of Power, page 44
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
The Iranian Revolution: For example, in the North Sea, in Venezuela, in the U.S.S.R., and in Nigeria.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Gulf oil producers ramped up: Dermot Gately, “Lessons from the 1986 Oil Price Collapse,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 1986, no. 2 (1986): 237.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
energy dried up: Others, like Hamlen, recalled that Exxon was searching for even bigger markets—around $1 billion a year. See Fletcher, Bottled Lightning, 36.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Exxon sold off: 1984 Annual Report (Exxon Corporation, 1985), 2, as cited in J. A. Pratt, “Exxon and the Control of Oil,” Journal of American History 99, no. 1 (2012): 145–54.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Enterprises had made investments: Michael Goodwin, “Exxon’s Innovative Little Offshoots,” New York Times, March 14, 1976.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
The firm’s oil sales: “Exxon to Sell Unit,” UPI, June 9, 1981.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Exxon later decided to: Fletcher, Bottled Lightning, 36. Oxford University, whose laboratories had produced this research, were not even interested in applying for a patent.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Chapter 11: A Cobalt Cathode and a Carbon Anode
took much interest: John B. Goodenough, Witness to Grace (PublishAmerica, 2008), 72.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
In his memoir: Goodenough, Witness to Grace, 51.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“We found that over”: Goodenough, 72.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
The government’s Ministry: Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975 (Stanford University Press, 1982), 16; and Masanao Itoh et al., “Bank of Japan’s Monetary Policy in the 1980s: A View Perceived from Archived and Other Materials,” Monetary and Economic Studies 33 (2015): 106. The first oil crisis, in 1973, affected Japan the most. According to a Bank of Japan monograph: “Firms and households responded in anticipation of higher inflation in the future. They created speculative demand based on speculative accumulation of stocks unrelated to economic activity, which brought about tight demand and supply conditions. Also, substantial pay rises put pressure on corporate profits, which resulted in a subsequent reduction in employment and a decline in capital investments.” Price increases were coupled with job cuts and cost-savings measures by companies. During the second crisis, in 1978, the country was not growing as quickly as it had been in 1973, the central bank moved fast to tighten fiscal policy, and there was less speculation.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
boatloads of licensing agreements: Leonard Lynn, “Japanese Technology: Successes and Strategies,” Current History 82, no. 487 (1983): 366.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
The concerns voiced: Lynn, “Japanese Technology,” 366.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
levying tariffs on Chinese: Jim Tankersley and Mark Landler, “Trump’s Love for Tariffs Began in Japan’s ’80s Boom,” New York Times, May 15, 2019; and Jonathan Soble and Keith Bradsher, “Donald Trump Laces into Japan with a Trade Tirade from the ’80s,” New York Times, March 7, 2016. When Trump first ran for president, in 2016, he began making the same complaints, which confused people.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
summer of 1982: Lynn, “Japanese Technology,” 366.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
headlines read How: Agathe Demarais, “How the U.S.-Chinese Technology War Is Changing the World,” Foreign Policy, November 19, 2022.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
laboratory at Asahi Kasei: “They Developed the World’s Most Powerful Battery,” Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, nobelprize.org/uploads/2019/10/popular-chemistryprize2019.pdf.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Sony sold ten: Meaghan Haire, “The Walkman,” Time, July 1, 2009.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“The battery problem is especially”: Andrew Pollack, “Battery Pollution Worries Japanese,” New York Times, June 25, 1984.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“It was completely disorganized”: Akira Yoshino, interview with the author, January 2022.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
a silvery-gray substance: Tomoki Sawai, “The Invention of Rechargeable Batteries: An Interview with Dr. Akira Yoshino, 2019 Nobel Laureate,” WIPO Magazine, September 2020; and Akira Yoshino, “Nobel Lecture: Akira Yoshino, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019,” December 8, 2019, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, video and transcript, nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2019/yoshino/lecture/. As Yoshino put it, “It could store a lot of electricity, and its performance is very, very stable.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“plastic that conducts electricity”: Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, “Plastic That Conducts Electricity,” press release, October 10, 2000, nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2000/press-release/.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“I needed a positive”: Yoshino, interview.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
He had understood that lithium: “Building on Work of Others Was Key to Lithium-Ion Batteries,” Asahi Shimbun, October 10, 2019, asahi.com/ajw/articles/13059462.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
When he finally applied: Akira Yoshino et al., Secondary Battery, Japanese Patent 1,989,293, filed May 10, 1985, and issued November 8, 1995; and Akira Yoshino et al., Secondary Battery, U.S. Patent 4,668,595, filed May 9, 1986, and issued May 26, 1987.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“I just followed the way”: Yoshino, interview.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
end of December 1983: Yoshino, “Nobel Lecture.”
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
vapor-grown carbon fiber: Gary G. Tibbetts, “Vapor-Grown Carbon Fibers,” in Carbon Fibers Filaments and Composites, ed. J. L. Figueiredo et al., NATO ASI Series, vol. 177 (Springer, 1990), 73; and Munehiro Ishioka et al., “Electrical Resistivity, Magnetoresistance, and Morphology of Vapor-Grown Carbon Fibers Prepared in a Mixture of Benzene and Linz–Donawitz Converter Gas by Floating Catalyst Method,” Journal of Materials Research 8, no. 8 (1993): 1866.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“grown” in a laboratory: Yoshino et al., Secondary Battery, U.S. Patent 4,668,595.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
China placed export: Tony Alderson (Benchmark Mineral Intelligence), interview with the author, December 2024. See also Nicolas Niarchos, “Beijing Calls Washington’s Bluff on Strategic Metals,” Nation, January 2, 2025, thenation.com/article/world/china-export-minerals-trump-tariffs/.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
When the slug came: “Building on Work of Others Was Key to Lithium-Ion Batteries,” Asahi Shimbun.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Chapter 12: The Milking Cow Falls Ill
once won a scholarship: Augustin Katumba Mwanke, Ma vérité (EPI, 2013), 32.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“He was very quiet”: Mwamba Wanzala, interview with the author, July 27, 2023.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“Life at that time”: Katumba, Ma vérité, 39.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
even Gécamines orchestras: Agence France-Presse, “RDC: La Gécamines, de la petite musique du déclin à l’espoir bleu cobalt,” posted March 26, 2021, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6MyRT22aYk.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“He was God”: Katumba, Ma vérité, 39.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Gécamines was still: “Zaire: Inciting Hatred: Violence Against Kasaiens in Shaba,” News from Africa Watch 5, no. 10 (June 1992): 19, hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/ZAIRE936.PDF.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
dictator’s personal piggy bank: Jimmy Burns et al., “How Mobutu Built Up His $4 Billion Fortune,” Financial Times, May 12, 1997.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
according to an analysis: Steve Askin and Carole Collins, “External Collusion with Kleptocracy: Can Zaïre Recapture Its Stolen Wealth?,” Review of African Political Economy, no. 57 (1993): 72–85.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
as bouffer l’argent: Eric Lipton and Dionne Searcey, “Congo Ousts Mining Leader in a Cloud of Corruption Claims,” New York Times, December 3, 2021.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“Layer by layer”: George Arthur Forrest, Un siècle de rêves: Ensemble, bâtissons l’avenir (Le Cherche Midi, 2022), 102.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“Gécamines was facing real”: Forrest, Un siècle de rêves, 103. Forrest’s phrase—“Petits gisements, petits rendements” in the original French—recalls King Leopold II’s famous put-down of Belgium: “Petit pays, petit esprit” (Small country, small spirit).
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Forrest was in charge: Andrew L. Gulley, “One Hundred Years of Cobalt Production in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Resources Policy 79 (2022): fig. 1a, doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2022.103007.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
known as “cobaltists”: By the early 1980s, Étienne Tshisekedi had broken with Mobutu Sese Seko, who imprisoned him and forced his family into exile, first in Kasai, then in Belgium. In the post–Cold War era, Tshisekedi tried to push for democracy, briefly becoming prime minister three times in 1991 and 1992.
In 1960 and 1961, Tshisekedi had been closely involved in the project of Kasaian secession—in fact, he was a minister in that region’s secessionist government. Later, he joined the national government in Kinshasa and supported Mobutu as the dictator consolidated power and executed rivals. Historians are divided on whether this was opportunism or something more genuine. See Benjamin Rubbers, “La dislocation du secteur minier au Katanga (RDC),” Politique Africaine 1, no. 93 (2004): 28.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
He was a recognizable: Philipp Sandner, “Obituary: Étienne Tshisekedi, 84,” Deutsche Welle (DW), February 2, 2017, dw.com/en/obituary-etienne-tshisekedi-84/a-37380033.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“The Kasaians are foreigners”: “Zaire: Inciting Hatred,” News from Africa Watch.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“These events were disastrous”: Forrest, Un siècle de rêves, 59.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
At least 661: Olivier Lanotte, “Chronology of the Democratic Republic of Congo/Zaire (1960–1997),” Mass Violence & Resistance, April 6, 2010, sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/chronology-democratic-republic-congozaire-1960-1997.html. For more on the massacre of the Kasaians, see Thomas Bakajika Banjikila, Épuration ethnique en Afrique: “Les Kasaïens” (Katanga 1961–Shaba 1992) (L’Harmattan, Études Africaines, 1997).
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Chapter 13: A Battery and a Bubble
“Sony’s yearning for”: “Chapter 13: Recognized as an International Standard,” Sony Corporation, accessed March 6, 2025, https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/CorporateInfo/History/SonyHistory/2-13.html.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“By shooting three”: “Chapter 13: Recognized as an International Standard,” Sony Corporation.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Sony had almost: Charles Murray, Long Hard Road: The Lithium-Ion Battery and the Electric Car (Purdue University Press, 2022), 127.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“The question of how”: Murray, Long Hard Road, 129.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
battery would be called: Murray, 135.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
would be a long time: And, indeed, a long time before airport security measures that made it so lithium-ion batteries were forbidden from being transported in checked luggage. Such rules resulted in the seizure of a rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack at Zurich’s airport during a reporting trip for this book.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
no one seemed particularly: K. B. Shedd, “Cobalt,” in Metal Prices in the United States Through 2010: Scientific Investigations Report 2012–5188, ed. U.S. Geological Survey National Minerals Information Center Staff (U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, 2013), 37–40; and Andrew L. Gulley, “One Hundred Years of Cobalt Production in the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” Resources Policy 79 (2022): art. 103007, doi.org/10.1016/j.resourpol.2022.103007.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
the Soviet Union collapsed: During the Cold War, lithium was stockpiled to be used in the production of tritium, an isotope of hydrogen used in nuclear fission. Lithium will also be vitally important to the creation of fusion power in the future. A fusion reactor, which creates energy in much the same way as the sun or stars, would rely on lithium-produced tritium. The website for the ITER’s nuclear fusion project is informative on this front: “Lithium from proven, easily extractable land-based resources would provide a stock sufficient to operate fusion power plants for more than 1,000 years. What’s more, lithium can be extracted from ocean water, where reserves are practically unlimited (enough to fulfill the world’s energy needs for ~6 million years).” Is there currently enough lithium around to fuel fusion reactors? In a 2022 article for Science, the science journalist Daniel Clery said that he thought so, but online, some skeptics have raised the specter of a shortage. See ITER, “Fuelling,” iter.org/sci/FusionFuels; Daniel Clery, “Out of Gas,” Science 376, no. 6600 (June 2022): 1372–76; and Steven B. Krivit, “#97 Lithium, Lithium, Everywhere, and None to Use for Fusion Reactors,” New Energy Times, updated January 27, 2022, news.newenergytimes.net/2022/01/08/lithium-lithium-everywhere-and-none-to-use-for-fusion-reactors/.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
the material was mainly: Joyce A. Ober, “Lithium,” in Minerals Yearbook: Minerals and Metals, ed. U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Department of the Interior (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998), 477.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“lithium prices were generally”: Alessio Miatto et al., “The Rise and Fall of American Lithium,” Resources, Conservation and Recycling 162 (November 2020): art. 105034, doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105034.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“The idea of Japanese economic”: David Pilling, Bending Adversity (Penguin Books, 2014), 97–98.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
its third-generation battery: Murray, Long Hard Road, 147.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
the spring of 1996: Murray, 148.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Chapter 14: Getting Rich Is No Sin
Iseard met Aronson when: Barry Iseard (Apollo Energy Systems), interview with the author, May 2022.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
China had started pursuing: “The goal of the contract system,” Frank Dikötter writes, “besides introducing greater flexibility, was to achieve greater growth, not to improve development.” See Frank Dikötter, China After Mao: The Rise of a Superpower (Bloomsbury, 2022), 60–61, 69.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
As Deng told the CBS: Evelyn Iritani, “Great Idea but Don’t Quote Him,” Los Angeles Times, September 9, 2004.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
Encouraged by their reports: House Hearing: U.S.-China Trade Relations and Renewal of China’s Most-Favored-Nation Status, 104th Cong., 152–60 (1995) (testimony of Robert R. Aronson).
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
“It’s very slow but”: Douglas B. Feaver, “McDonnell Douglas, China Sign Pact,” Washington Post, April 13, 1985.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
the plant was up: House Hearing: U.S.-China Trade Relations and Renewal of China’s Most-Favored-Nation Status, 152–60.
GO TO NOTE REFERENCE IN TEXT
like Elon Musk and many: House Hearing: U.S.-China Trade Relations and Renewal of China’s Most-Favored-Nation Status, 152–60.
