Thea Riofrancos, Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism
Monday, October 13th, 2025
4-6PM
Halton Room, Atkins Library
Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism
Will green capitalism save us from the climate crisis? “Clean” technologies and renewable energy are certainly growing sites of capitalist investment, with government policies playing a key role in making these sectors profitable. But the supply chains that produce the technologies pose vexing dilemmas for the energy transition. These dilemmas are most dramatic at the extractive frontiers of green capitalism: where the natural resources needed to manufacture electric vehicles and build windmills are extracted. Thea Riofrancos’ new book, Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism, unpacks these challenges through the lens of lithium, a so-called “critical mineral” essential for its role in decarbonizing one of the most polluting sectors: transportation. With forecasters predicting an enormous surge in lithium demand, exceeding existing supplies, Global North governments and downstream firms scramble to “secure” lithium, resulting in a new state-corporate alliance and the return of vertical integration. Meanwhile, environmental and Indigenous movements contest the rapid expansion of extraction, defending ecosystems, livelihoods, and waterways already under pressure from global warming from a new boom in mining. It is in the play of these forces, unfolding amidst geopolitical rivalry and economic turbulence, that the energy transition will be forged. To conclude, Riofrancos explores the possibility of a less mining-intensive pathway to zero carbon transportation.
Thea Riofrancos is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College, a Strategic Co-Director of the Climate and Community Institute, and a fellow at the Transnational Institute. Her work focuses on resource extraction, climate change, the energy transition, the global lithium sector, green technologies, social movements, and the Latin American left. She is the author of Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador (Duke, 2020) and coauthor of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal (Verso Books, 2019). Her newest book is Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism (W.W. Norton, 2025).