357) Guillaume Pitron: The shifting conflicts and costs of ‘green’ energy

  “The sooner we are able to get rid of these two commodities, oil and coal, the better it will be... But 'green' technologies such as electric cars, solar panels, and wind turbines, don’t come out of thin air.” –Guillaume Pitron In this episode, we revisit our past conversation with Guillaume Pitron, an award-winning journalist and documentary-maker for some of France’s leading TV channels. From Chinese rare earth metals, oil extraction in Alaska, to Sudanese gum arabic and khat trading in Djibouti, he focuses his work on commodities and on the economic, political, and environmental issues associated with their use. His first book, The Rare Metals War: The Dark Side of the Energy Transition and Digitalization, explores our new dependence on rare metals. Support our community-powered show: GreenDreamer.com/support (The musical offering in this episode is Power to Change by Luna Bec.)