Vince Beiser's book Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future was released Nov. 19.Spencer Lowell/Supplied
American-Canadian journalist Vince Beiser has won the Balsillie Prize for Public Policy for his book Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future.
The winner was presented by the Writers’ Trust in Toronto at a private dinner on Tuesday. The purse for the annual Canadian prize funded by businessman Jim Balsillie jumped $10,000 this year to $70,000 for the winner, with $7,500 (up from $5,000) going to the three other finalists.
Published by Riverhead Books, the winning title was praised by the three-person jury for deftly illustrating that the underbelly to combatting and solving climate change would be the huge volumes of critical minerals required.
“As Canada looks to maximize its geological endowment amidst an increasingly uncertain geopolitical landscape, this book raises essential considerations and uncomfortable questions for policymakers and citizens alike,” the jury said. “It invites them to walk a tightrope − balancing the need to minimize our dependencies and reduce our environmental footprint, while still achieving our green goals.”
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The jury of author/physician Samantha Nutt, policy expert Taki Sarantakis and digital strategist Scott Young considered 58 books submitted by 35 publishers.
The other finalists were Vass Bednar of Ancaster, Ont., and New York’s Denise Hearn, for The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians, published by Sutherland House Books; Fredericton’s Stephen J.A. Ward, for Irrational Publics and the Fate of Democracy, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press; and Kingston’s Pamela Cross, for And Sometimes They Kill You: Confronting the Epidemic of Intimate Partner Violence, published by Between the Lines.
Vancouver-based Mr. Beiser is the son of Order of Canada recipient Morton Beiser, a professor, psychiatrist and epidemiologist. Vince Beiser’s first book, 2018’s The World in a Grain: The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization, was a finalist for a PEN America Award.