## Metadata - Author: [[Ed Conway]] - Full Title: Material World - Category: #books ## Highlights - China spends more money on importing computer chips these days than it does importing oil. Indeed, according to Chris Miller, the author of a history of silicon chips, China’s semiconductor import costs as of 2017 were greater than Saudi Arabia’s total revenue from oil exports, or for that matter the entire global trade in aircraft. “No product,” he says, “is more central to international trade than semiconductors.”[8] ([Location 1672](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BV6DCB8Y&location=1672)) - Crude oil is, alongside its sister fuel natural gas, the greatest energy force of the past century. If steel is the skeleton of the modern world and copper its veins, then oil is the food that sustains us. ([Location 4351](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BV6DCB8Y&location=4351)) - There is a certain empirical logic that secures lithium’s place as one of the six key members of the Material World. This is a magical metal: alongside hydrogen and helium it was one of the three primordial elements created in the Big Bang, making it one of the oldest pieces of matter in the universe. ([Location 5211](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BV6DCB8Y&location=5211)) - In much the same way as we scaled up the exploitation of copper and iron in Chile and Australia, we have scaled up the flows of commerce: a single one of today’s container ships can carry more freight than the entire English merchant fleet could in the sixteenth century. ([Location 6186](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BV6DCB8Y&location=6186)) - Back in 1801 it took us, on average, 150 hours of human labour to produce a hectare of wheat; today, thanks to steel ploughs, diesel engines and semiconductors guiding combine harvesters, it takes us less than 2 hours—and we pack much more wheat into each hectare. A century ago it took 230 hours of human labour to produce a tonne of copper; today it takes about 18. ([Location 6197](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B0BV6DCB8Y&location=6197))