We live in times where many people would like to see a green world. A world with a perfectly clean environment and no global warming, clean oceans and vivid green forests and rainforests.
The world where fossil fuels are not used anymore to power cars, motorbikes, trains, trucks, and even planes.
Instead of fossil fuels, all the houses or even whole cities would be powered by green electricity. And all the vehicles like cars, trucks, and motorbikes would be only electric. People would use even more high tech devices than now with a focus on weeks-long battery life.
Some of the things are already happening, and the world is slightly changing.
On the other hand, there are people and companies that do not care about such things as the environment and sometimes even human life. And if they somehow happen to care, they still play it safe and focus on their profits.
Cobalt in batteries.
One of the things that are having a huge negative impact on the environment but is extremely overlooked is the cobalt usage in the battery business.
A business that is so huge in value that the number showing it would not fit the calculator screen on your mobile phone.
And why the cobalt usage in battery business has such a negative impact on the environment? Let’s have a deeper look at it.
What is cobalt?
Cobalt is a chemical that is found in the Earth’s crust. It has a Co symbol and it is the number 27 on the Mendeleev periodic table.
Cobalt is a hard blueish metal that has been discovered already in Egyptian and Persian jewelry from the 3rd millennium BC. Later on, it was found also in Pompei that was destroyed by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and Chinese dynasties Tang and Ming.
The first mines appeared in Norway and Sweden but also in Hungary around the 16th century. In 1904 a large deposit of cobalt was discovered in Ontario, Canada. Later on, in 1914 another huge deposit was discovered in Katanga province in DR Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo) and the majority of the mining shifted there.
How is cobalt mined?
The cobalt is scattered from the Earth’s crust in open mines. But it is also extracted from the arsenide ores. Normally it is connected as a by-product to a nickel and copper production.
The majority of the miners mainly use hand tools which make mining very difficult and dangerous. Safety regulations and injury prevention are at a very low level. Injuries and even deaths are appearing very often. Only in DR Congo, there are around 100 thousand miners.
Who are the biggest cobalt mining countries?
DR Congo is the biggest cobalt producer with a yearly production of 64 thousand tonnes.
DR Congo is the biggest cobalt producer with a yearly production of 64 thousand tonnes. DR Congo also has the largest deposit of 3,5 million tonnes.
The second-largest producer of cobalt is Russia with a yearly production of 5,6 thousand tonnes and reserves of 250 thousand tonnes.
Russia is followed by Australia with 5 thousand tonnes, Canada, Cuba, and the Philippines with a bit larger production than 4 thousand tonnes yearly.
Australia has also the second-largest reserves of 1,2 million tonnes.
Other countries where cobalt is mined are Madagaskar, Papua New Guinea, Zambia, South Africa, and the United States.
What is the impact of cobalt mining on the environment?
In 2018 Forbes published an article that was about cobalt and a so-called “Blood Batteries“.
People would love to get electric cars and devices that have perfect and long-lasting batteries. But they have to be aware that the cobalt that is used in them might come from the poorest places of the earth. Like DR Congo.
According to Forbes, there are several problems impacting the environment. For example, high corruption, extreme poverty among miners and child labor. Especially the last one is unfortunately really popular. There are kids among miners that are waking up in the early morning, going to work for 12 hours and getting paid $9 for it.
Human rights activist investigated the issue further and found out that child labor is indeed present in Congolese mines. After the results of the investigation got public the tech giant Apple have stopped purchasing the cobalt from its supplier Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt. One of the biggest cobalt suppliers in the world.
Later on, Apple disclosed the list of its suppliers to show that their cobalt is child labor free. But still many large companies like Microsoft keep the origin of their cobalt and suppliers as secret.
Why is cobalt used in batteries?
In 2018 majority of the cobalt was used in rechargeable batteries used in all kinds of devices, but mainly cell phones. Nowadays, the usage shifted to batteries present in fully electric and hybrid-electric cars.
And why it is used in batteries?
Cobalt is used mainly in Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery cathodes, the positively charged electrodes. When such a battery is charged the positive lithium cathodes flow to the negative anodes where they are stored.
Cobalt is present to do two things. To give a battery thermal stability so it does not catch fire (as the well known Samsung Galaxy Note 7) and keep the high energy density to transfer even more energy.
Cobalt gives to the batteries thermal stability and high energy density.
It can be also found in nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cd) and nickel-metal-hydride (Ni-MH) batteries.
Cobalt compounds that are used in batteries are cobalt oxide, cobalt hydroxide, and cobalt metal.
And where exactly are they used? In all the portable devices like cell phones, tablets, laptops, cutting tools, electric cars, hybrid electric cars, electric bikes, and even home storages or energy power stations.
Who are the biggest users of cobalt?
Cobalt production is already a $30 billion business. By 2024 it will be around $75 billion globally. Thanks to the extreme demand the price of cobalt quadrupled in the past few years. Growing each year even higher.
Among the biggest users are tech giants like Apple, Samsung, or Panasonic. Also, many electric car producers like Tesla, BMW, General Motors, Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda or FIAT.
How can cobalt be eliminated from the batteries?
The best way to eliminate cobalt from batteries is to simply replace it with other metals.
There are several projects and companies working on this issue already. Even Elon Musk from Tesla has stated recently that he wants cobalt out of his batteries. Tesla is currently using a combination simply called NCA (nickel, cobalt, aluminum) but they are working on leaving the cobalt out completely. Over the last 6 years, Tesla has reduced the usage of cobalt by 60%.
Metals like phosphorus or iron are being used and the performance of such batteries is slowly getting to the level of the Li-ion ones. Also, there is a pilot project that has used rock salt in the batteries.
There are also few prototypes of sodium-ion batteries as well, but those will not hit the mass production so soon.
So at the end of the day, you can ask yourself a question. Do you still really want the green world?
As you see, the word GREEN doesn’t come for free. There will always be some kind of cost that you have to pay. But it is definitely better to pay more for cobalt from sustainable sources than a kid’s life from Congolese mines.
To me, it seems that the solution (besides eliminating cobalt from batteries) is to live a more minimalistic life. There is really no point in buying a new phone each year just because the battery lasts 1 hour longer.
Child miners image credit: Freight Waves
Cobalt image credit: Mining.com
Battery comparison image credit: Wealth Daily