Cobalt mined in the Congo not destined for batteries supporting renewable energy.
Last year Channel 7’s flagship current affairs program Spotlight aired an episode claiming that EVs were environmentally and socially damaging because they contained nickel mined in Indonesia. As it turned out, no EVs use nickel produced in that country, and most EVs don’t use nickel at all.
Well, Spotlight is at it again. Last Sunday, the program asserted that big batteries, home batteries and EV batteries all use cobalt, and that this cobalt is mined under appalling conditions in the Congo.
So, how does this claim stack up?
Well, while the show is no doubt correct about the disgraceful treatment of workers in Central Africa, it’s dead wrong about everything else.
The fact is, most modern batteries are no longer manufactured using nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) technology. Instead, they use lithium iron phosphate (LFP) technology, which does not contain cobalt. In Australia, all of the big batteries being installed around the country use LFP, as do all the major brands of home batteries.
As far as EVs are concerned, 60 percent of all those manufactured globally use LFP technology rather than NMC – a figure that is rising every year. 70 percent of all EVs made in China use LFP.
The devices that do all use cobalt are mobile phones, laptops, tablets and power tools. Every single one in them contains it. So, if Spotlight is concerned about cobalt mining in the Congo, it should be protesting against the use of these devices, not bigger batteries.
[Out of interest, cobalt is also used in oil refineries, to remove sulphur from crude oil. So, the fossil fuel industry is also dependent on it!]
A heart-rending scene from the Spotlight story on cobalt mining in the Congo. The conditions being highlighted are real, but the cobalt isn’t destined for the kind of batteries that support renewable energy.