Lithium ion batteries like those found in electric vehicles have become dramatically cheaper over the past 10 years. But rising demand for cobalt, as well as supply shocks from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s dominant position, threaten this progress. Cobalt prices have doubled since 2016 as a result.
Cobalt samples in Chile
However, we’re now seeing industry respond in two ways. First, mining interests are expanding beyond Congo to address the supply shortage and also diversify the countries holding jurisdiction over the largest deposits. Bloomberg reports that Chile has emerged as a potential site of some rich cobalt deposits, based on some historical research that country’s officials recently did:
Renewed interest in La Cobaltera [Chile] began to emerge last year after Chilean authorities discovered records long buried in the archives of the national geological agency. They showed more than 7 million tons of cobalt ore was mined in the country between 1844 and 1941. The mineral was extracted mainly by German immigrants, who sent it to Europe presumably to manufacture military equipment.
If this discovery holds up, it could provide an important supply source to break Congo’s monopoly, with its human rights and governance concerns.
Second, and more exciting, battery engineers are developing products that require much less cobalt. Utility Dive discussed this trend at Tesla:
In the company’s first quarter 2018 earnings update, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company had moved to higher density batteries while reducing the cobalt content of its battery packs. And in June, Musk told shareholders his company would continue to push battery costs down, breaking through the $100/kWh barrier for li-ion cells later this year.
Not only would less cobalt in batteries be a good thing for economic and environmental reasons, it also means prices can continue to decrease. And lower prices mean lower-income car buyers will be able to afford more and better electric vehicles, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation.
These two innovations on cobalt therefore represent promising trends that hopefully will continue for battery production, securing the supply chain for this critical clean technology.
Last week I blogged about how electric vehicles (and consumer electronics) run on batteries with cobalt, too-often mined with child labor in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Congo is the world’s biggest producer of cobalt, with more than half of global supplies. And cobalt prices have skyrocketed recently with the growth of EVs.
But reports by Amnesty International point to the human rights risks. The group says that approximately one-fifth of Congo’s cobalt production is mined by hand by “informal miners,” including children, in dangerous conditions. Amnesty recently ranked 29 companies on how well they were tracking their cobalt sources since a January 2016 report spotlighted the issue. Reuters covered the results:
“Apple became the first company to publish the names of its cobalt suppliers … but other electronics brands have made alarmingly little progress,” the statement said.
Most cobalt is produced as a by-product of copper or nickel mining, but artisanal miners in southern Congo exploit deposits near the surface that are rich in cobalt.
The biggest buyer of ore from small-scale miners was Congo Dongfang Mining International, a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese mineral giant Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Ltd, Amnesty found in its report last year.
Since then, Huayou Cobalt “has taken a number of steps” in line with international standards but “gaps in information remain”, Amnesty said.
The group was particularly critical of Microsoft, which was among 26 companies that does not disclose their suppliers’ records on this issue, as well as Renault and Daimler among the automakers (BMW had made the most improvements). Microsoft responded to the criticism, arguing that it’s doing more than the report indicates to clean up and disclose its supply chain.
The Amnesty report shows the value of public pressure on this issue. While a global governance framework to ensure a stable and just supply of battery materials will likely be needed, it’s encouraging to know that old fashioned public pressure can help bring progress, too.
Last week I blogged about the potential environmental and governance harms from clean technology mineral extraction. But what about one specific technology, the lithium ion batteries powering the burgeoning electric vehicle market?
Alex Tilley and David Manley of Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI) discussed the potential boom in lithium mining in specific parts of the globe:
[I]dentified lithium resources are concentrated in salt flats in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile. If the world shifts to lithium-ion batteries to power vehicles and electricity consumption, South America will become a globally strategic region for energy. And if governed well, this industry could be transformative for these countries’ economies.
Fortunately many of these lithium-rich countries have decent standards and processes for mineral extraction, although we’ll need to be vigilant to monitor impacts.
The story is more concerning though for cobalt, also an important metal for EV batteries. Cobalt is a byproduct of copper and nickel mining, and a typical EV contains about 33 pounds of cobalt. Until recently, there were often surplus cobalt supplies, as it was used mostly for steel production. But its ability to conduct electricity so efficiently has made it critical for rechargeable batteries like in EVs and therefore more in demand.
The problem is the location of the supply. Thomas Wilson in Bloomberg News tackled cobalt mining in a recent piece, noting that the relatively rare metal is found mostly in the Democratic Republic of Congo, “a country in the African tropics where there has never been a peaceful transition of power and child labor is still used in parts of the mining industry”:
The country formerly known as Zaire — which hosted boxers Muhammad Ali and George Foreman for their 1974 heavyweight title bout dubbed the “Rumble in the Jungle” — supplies 63 percent of the world’s cobalt. Congo’s market share may jump to 73 percent by 2025 as producers like Glencore Plc expand mines, according to Wood Mackenzie Ltd. By 2030, global demand could be 47 times more than it was last year, Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates.
With demand growing, mining companies including Glencore, Eurasian Natural Resources Corp. and China Molybdenum Co. are pouring more money into Congo. With cobalt prices rising, that government is looking for ways to increase its control of the supply as well as the profits. It’s also creating supply disruptions, as in a recent incident in which the government blocked copper and cobalt exports by the China-Congo joint-venture Sicomines in a dispute over local refining.
Worse, the cobalt mining may entail significant human rights violations. Amnesty International alleges that some “informal” mines may rely on child labor.
Corporations are responding to some of the public pressure around situations like in Congo to address the human rights and environmental implications of the battery supply chain. Apple and Samsung in particular were forced to more fully vet their suppliers. But these companies don’t always know where their cobalt comes from. Ultimately, more than half of the world’s supply of refined cobalt in rechargeable batteries comes from China, which in turn gets 90 percent of its cobalt from Congo.
Without more public pressure and international guidelines and cooperation, we lack guarantees that resource-rich countries will meet decent environmental and governance standards. Not only will residents of these areas be at risk, the supplies for electric vehicles may be held hostage to unstable, corrupt regimes. We’ve been down that road before with oil, and we should avoid repeating it in the coming age of electric vehicles.
