Black transit activists in the US are calling attention to the plunder of the Congo for cobalt mining.
  • Sonori@beehaw.org
    16·
    30 days ago

    Neglecting that Cobalt isn’t even used in non-luxury EV’s in favor of cheaper chemistries like LFP or Sodium Ion, it’s worth noting that while so called ‘artisanal mining’ has been supplying much of the cobalt needed for over a half century now in oil processing, it’s being replaced by larger and cheaper industrial mines as demand for cobalt in electronics and premium EVs grew.

    Not that such industrial mining doesn’t come with local environmental costs, or that we shouldn’t work on better recycling capture for personal electronics, but sticking with oil sure hasn’t done anything to help the Congo so far.

      • Sonori@beehaw.org
        2·
        29 days ago

        Ment to hedge that with the qualifier often, as some manufacturers with little competition or reason to make cheap EVs do just use a cut down high end cobalt battery bank and pass the large additional cost onto the customer. It is a practice that is increasingly going away, and when it comes to things like moving everyone to EVs the general assumption is that regardless of what Amarican manufacturers want, most of them will go with the lower cost and longer lived chemistries over the premium density ones.