In Quest for Battery Metals, U.S. Takes On Cobalt’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’
Wall St Journal via MSN | 24 Aug 2023 | Alexandra Wexler, Yusuf KhanThe U.S. is turning to a much-criticized source as it races to secure supplies of battery metals to meet the growing demand for electric vehicles.
To do so, it is homing in on cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s informal mining sector, where miners, sometimes including children, often work with no safety equipment in dangerous, hand-dug mines. Congo supplies around 70% of the world’s cobalt, a key metal in the lithium-ion batteries used in EVs, with about a third of that coming from these so-called artisanal miners.
The U.S. Agency for International Development said earlier this year that it would issue grants to companies that source critical minerals from Congo and were willing to support artisanal miners. Meanwhile, the Labor Department has been working with officials in the country to help improve working conditions and oversight.
Liberals excel at cognitive dissonance. Its what lets them get to the outcomes they want.
Perhaps they would prefer “professional bollers”…
The future will not come without a price Comrade.
Digging battery minerals by hand can be both a positive and a negative experience..