A slowdown in the growth of electric vehicle (EV) demand has led to entire mines being shut down as the supply of rare earth minerals essential for EV components exceeds demand, according to The Wall Street Journal.
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In order to facilitate electric vehicle (EV) production, the U.S. is seeking to spend taxpayer dollars to develop cobalt supply chains from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), a country which is known for high prevalence of unsafe child labor in its mines, many of which are controlled by Chinese interests, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of Labor (DOL) are jointly committing $23 million in taxpayer funds to U.S. firms and other mining companies to integrate local Congolese operations and “artisanal” mines into their supply chains, as well as to improve labor standards for miners in the DRC, which are essentially non-existent in most cases, according to the WSJ. Chinese-controlled interests dominate the DRC’s cobalt industry, refining about 75% of the global cobalt supply and manufacturing approximately 70% of the world’s lithium-ion batteries, which are cobalt-intensive products that power EVs.
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Geologists and mining experts say Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula may provide a solution for an obstacle facing the electric vehicle transition.
Minerals are needed, and this area has them.
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EVelution Energy is building the first U.S. solar-powered cobalt processing facility in Yuma County, Arizona.
Construction is expected to begin in 2024, with the facility fully operational in 2026. The $200 million investment will provide approximately 300 construction jobs and 60 on-site jobs. Cobalt sulfate is a key part of the EV supply chain. With EVelution’s new factory, approximately 33,000 tons of EV battery-grade cobalt sulfate will be produced for 470,000 new EVs per year.
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President Joe Biden’s administration wants to lead an electric vehicle (EV) revolution, but apparently doesn’t want domestic production of rare earth minerals vital to EVs.
The Biden administration announced a two-year study on a proposed Twin Metals copper-nickel mine in northeast Minnesota that could delay it for 20 years and stop one of the few planned copper-nickel mines in the nation while the U.S attempts to pivot to EVs from gasoline-powered internal combustion vehicles.
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by Tim Pearce Cobalt mined under harsh conditions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a key component in items such as electric vehicles and iPhones sold around the world. Congolese freelance workers venture into dangerous mines to collect the valuable mineral with nothing more than shovels and picks. Many use their bare hands, and miners regularly suffer crippling injuries or death, The Wall Street Journal reported. The cobalt mined in Congo ends up all over the world in the form of lithium batteries and electronics. Pressure has mounted on the world’s largest companies to purge hand-mined cobalt from their supply chains since Amnesty International detailed working conditions in Congo in 2016. Many companies have pledged to cut support for such mines, but cleaning up a supply chain is often difficult and seldom foolproof because of the number of parties involved and the stranglehold Congo has on the market. Darton Commodities Ltd., a U.K.-based cobalt-trading firm, found that Congo is the source for roughly two-thirds of the world’s supply of cobalt, WSJ reported. “When we speak to companies along the battery value chain, this is one of the biggest issues they have,” Wood Mackenzie analyst Milan Thakore told WSJ. “How do we…
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