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This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

Given how much Donald Trump says he loves mining, you would think the blood of every environmentalist in the world is now running cold.

One possible exception may be the journalist, Vince Beiser.

Beiser's recent book is called Power Metal,

and it's about what's called Rare Earth Metals,

elements you've possibly never heard of,

but that power every device you own.

Vince Beiser spoke with the New Yorker's Elizabeth Colbert,

herself an environmental journalist of great

renowned and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Vince, you've written that to make that iPhone in your pocket 75 pounds of ore had to be

pulled up, crushed, and smelted, which is kind of an astonishing figure. And you also note that a cell phone

can contain as many as two-thirds of the elements on the periodic table. Can you pick maybe one of the

more obscure elements in there and trace its journey for us? Sure. One of my favorite super obscure

metals in your phone is probably europium. There are tiny, tiny amounts of

Europium in your cell phone screen that make it capable of showing the color red. So what in the

world is Europium? Europium is one of 17 metals, this basket of metals that are called

Rare Earth metals. There's 17 of them. They're all,

like down in this corner in the periodic table. They've all got weird names. And all of them are

incredibly important for renewable energy across the board, for electric vehicles in addition to

...