The

The Hello and welcome to behind the news. My name is Doug Henwood.

Orthodoxy remains at the wheel, two guests, two segments. Theoria Francos will talk about the complications of a cleaner, greener future.

And Elisa Batistone will talk about nature with a capital N, an entity that capitalism has long regarded as a free gift to mine and pollute at will.

My first guest is The Theory of Franco's, author of

of Extraction in the Frontiers of Green Capitalism, published by Norton. For many people,

electric cars are fine prescription for dealing with a climate crisis. Just clean up the electrical

grid, replace fossil fuels, wind and solar as a sources of energy, and no more carbon dioxide

or nasty particulates emerging

from millions of tailpipes. There are some problems with this formula, starting with the

scenario's dependence on lots of minerals, notably but not exclusively lithium, the extraction

of which can be a nasty business. It's not just lithium in the vehicle's batteries. A clean electrical

grid depends on lithium batteries to store energy when, in the vehicle's batteries. A clean electrical grid depends on lithium

batteries to store energy when, in the phrase Sarah Palin made famous, the sun don't shine,

and the wind don't blow. How to think about these contradictions? That's the topic of

Thea's book. She's an associate professor of political science at Providence College and co-director

of the Newish think Tank, the Climate and Community

Institute, Thea Rio Francos. The dilemma around which much of your book circulates is that

lithium is central to an energy transition, but it's a very messy business. Let's start with the

importance of lithium to an energy transition. What does that look like? What are the estimates for future

needs? Lithium has this starring role in two big aspects of the energy transition. One is getting

the carbon out of our transportation sectors. And in the U.S., the transportation sector is the number

...