Cobalt and What Cost for Human Life, Blood, Sweat, and Batteries.

You may not have given much thought to Cobalt since high school chemistry, but the brittle, silver-blue metal is key to powering much of our modern lives. (In this article you will find links to excellent reporting incl. video)

That’s because cobalt is often used in rechargeable batteries, from mobile phones to electric cars, unique in its ability to maintain its strength at high temperatures.

While Australia, Cuba, and the Philippines are major cobalt mining countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) takes the title for having the world’s largest reserves of cobalt.

And it’s here that cobalt is tainted by dangerous child labor, with kids as young as four of five working in the mines. I would like to introduce you to read two well document articles in from Fortune Magazine and Washington Post

Amnesty International documented child labor in cobalt mines, citing a lack of due diligence between artisanal mining operations in the DRC and their sale on the global market.

Still, there are promising alternatives to procuring cobalt mined through child labor: recycling cobalt, using blockchain tracking, and developing cobalt-free batteries.

Is it possible to transition away from cobalt-based lithium batteries?

Although running out of lithium is not an immediate concern, the criticality of cobalt is. Cobalt is rare in the earth’s crust and there is very little primary cobalt mining. The mining that produces cobalt is embroiled in geo-political and human rights issues. For these reasons, other battery chemistries, such as lithium manganese oxide or lithium iron phosphate, are preferable. Similarly, synthetic graphite is preferable to natural graphite. Although synthetic graphite is most often derived from petroleum or coal, which is an energy intensive process, it results in a high purity graphite that requires much less refining than natural graphite. Also, the supply chain is more secure, since it does not depend upon limited resources of natural graphite. Materials such as lithium, nickel, manganese and graphite have been linked to pollution, water shortages and other environmental and social concerns. Read here about the Human toll of graphite in batteries.

Can we close the loop for lithium batteries?

Another key issue as the production of lithium-ion batteries continues to grow is the challenge of closing the loop. A concerted effort needs to be put forward to create extended producer responsibility (EPR) policies to facilitate the collection and proper recycling of lithium batteries. Perhaps the largest obstacle to efficient recycling is the lack of standardization. This lack of standardization goes beyond simply how the batteries are built and designed to the amount, grade, and composition of the materials themselves. Without strong policy, or industry cooperation, it is likely that companies will continue to adopt differing technologies, which could make it difficult to advance lithium-ion battery recycling. Right now relatively little legislation and few regulations exist. Such policies, however, cannot wait until the first generation of electric car batteries are retired. For the lithium-ion battery industry to advance sustainability, there is an urgent need to plan for end-of-life management now.

Vancouver-based American Manganese has developed a way to extract cobalt from recycled batteries, a process that the company sees as far more productive. “Rather than mining ore that’s 2 percent cobalt, you’re mining a battery that has 100 percent cobalt in it,” said American Manganese president Larry Reaugh.

Maybe it’s the right time for innovation for example blockchain technology, which creates an immutable, public ledger could potentially help trace a bag of cobalt from a mine all the way to a technology manufacturer.

Kumbaya doesn’t make its own battery cells, it does make a big deal of its “efficient, nontoxic and enduring” LFP products.

With thanks to

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