Disturbing reality of cobalt mining

Maybe we’ll go full circle and learn @EVTrucking is involved with this in Idaho.

This has been at the a common theme on mainstream news for over 6 years now, yet very little seems to be done about it.

With the costs of battery production rising, it will enable new market opportunities within countries that have stricter laws on such mining.

With demand levels, there is no way that companies purchasing Cobalt have any leverage to improve these conditions. If you say "I'm not buying Cobalt unless it is ethically mined using machinery, not artisanal miners." They would say, "Fine" and move to the 100 companies behind you in line who also want it.

There's a whitepaper from the WEF about this. Their proposal for improvement is not to abolish the artisanal scale operations (ASM) in favor of the large scale operations (LSM). But rather to actually formalize ASM operations to the extent they can still ensure a ethic/safe practice. This is based on the finding that the ~30% ASM operations in the DRC are not going away, so it might as well be done safely instead of discouraged.

If you care about Cobalt, I guess this is worth a read.


Promote ASM formalization
Adopt common standards and metrics
Establish a monitoring and assessment process
Share knowledge and responsibility

I don’t care enough to read anything from the WEF. 😂