Nicolas Niarchos | Congo, Cobalt & China... The Elements Of Power

Feb 9, 2026

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The Elements of Power - Nicolas Niarchos
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In this episode, New Yorker journalist Nicolas Niarchos discusses the supply chains behind the clean energy transition from child miners and Chinese-owned mega-mines to the coming global scramble for critical minerals.

I’ve been eagerly anticipating his new book, and I reckon it is tailor made for this podcast. It’s the history of cobalt it’s extraction and it’s applications and shows how a single mineral has reshaped geopolitics, powered the rise of China’s technological superiority, and further locked millions of Congolese into one of the most brutal extraction economies on earth.
This is a story that begins with King Leopold the second the original plunder of the Congo but then runs through Cold War dictatorships and kleptocracy, and ends with Apple, Tesla, BYD, and the race to dominate the future of energy.
It’s Nic’s second appearance on this podcast on a similar subject, therefore we avoided to go-over all the same ground as last time. The first episode was about his New Yorker piece on artisanal mining in the Congo, his arrest in the Congo and the foundations for his worldview in covering this issue.
Today we go into his new book. Inside the mines of Katanga, inside the rise of China’s battery empire, inside the corruption that still governs Congo’s political system, and inside the coming resource wars that will define the next half-century.

Eighty percent of the world’s cobalt now comes from the Congo.
Most of it is controlled by Chinese companies.
As much as 20% of it is still dug out of the ground by hand.
Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, is expected to have 40,000,000 people by 2050.

And the world is about to need more of what’s beneath their feet than ever before.