Excellent story! I had briefly heard about this but I didn't know the extent of the issue using children and exploiting poor people. If only Black Lives did Matter. They seem to only matter when someone can get press and donations from it.
Fortunately, in the realm of EVs Chinese companies like CATL are leading the way in the global shift toward LFP batteries, which unlike NMC batteries don't rely on cobalt. CATL is also leading the way in the commercialization of the successor to lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries.
"As my colleague Casey Crownhart explained last week, Ford’s new plant will focus on making LFP batteries, which use iron rather than the cobalt and nickel used in the other main type of lithium battery, known as NMC. Compared with NMC batteries, which are widely used to make EVs in the US and Europe, LFP batteries cost less, have a longer life cycle, and are safer when it comes to the possibility of catching fire.
But just a few years ago, LFP batteries were considered an obsolete technology that would never rival NMC batteries in energy density. It was Chinese companies, particularly CATL, that changed this consensus through advanced research. “That’s purely down to the innovation within Chinese cell makers,” Max Reid, senior research analyst in EV and battery supply chain services at the global research firm Wood Mackenzie, tells me. “And that has brought Chinese EV battery [companies] to the front line, the tier-one companies.” "
Ultimately innovation in battery technology will be what reduces global demand for cobalt. This is a problem that will be solved by innovation rather than through a greater emphasis on corporate ESG.
It is impossible to overstate the difficulty of making a battery that can compete successfully with the internal combustion engine. Atmospheric oxygen is the key: at a stoichiometrically proper mixture (approximately 15:1 air/fuel ratio), an IC-engined vehicle carries only 1/16 the weight it needs to generate power; the rest comes from the ambient air, then dumping ALL of the exhaust weight overboard. And as the fuel is used, the vehicle weighs less, taking even less power to maintain motion. This is critical in aircraft, where weight is everything. A battery, aside from storing very little relative energy, maintains its full weight throughout the cycle. Add to that the long "refueling" times, and it's a no-brainer.
Of course, there's the CO2 argument.
CO2 is a trace gas - 0.04% of the atmosphere - approximately four parts in ten-thousand - equivalent to the first four seconds of a 2-1/2 hour walk of 10,000 steps; yet because plants can extract it from the air at that low concentration, it provides the substrate for the production of 100% of the oxygen that keeps animals - like, say, humans - alive. Add to all the above the fact that man creates only 3% - 97% comes from natural sources like decaying vegetation - and the CO2 Hoax is second only to the Climate Hoax itself.
I am completely skeptical of this claim. Any form of these batteries requires enormous amounts per battery of minerals mined in horrible conditions, using enormous amounts of fossil fuels. Meanwhile, what pushes up cobalt mining exploitation is the overall distortions of markets via the massive green subsidizing of EVs. These market distorting subsidizations seek to close off ICE car production far ahead of any normal market justification for the switch. The bloated demand for LFP batteries will therefore not stop the growth of a bloated demand for cobalt for NMC batteries. The two will rise together and together impose massive costs (including fossil fuel production costs). To say nothing of the horrendous moral costs, imposed by a preening elite deceived by its false ideas and ideology. A huge waste of historical proportions.
When they're contributing bald CCP marketing, they should do it under a non-Chinese name. Pedro McKenzie, or La'amar Proczycz, or Mickey Blankenshipsteinwitz.
I’ve just changed the signature on my emails to read “Sent from my child labor and slave labor-produced IPhone.” I’m going to add a similar signature to the emails I send from my Apple Mac.
The current system of sourcing from China and Congo is totally unacceptable morally.
Thomas Jefferson, himself a slave owner, wrote in a moment of honesty about slavery, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”
It’s high time we American consumers wake up and take responsibility for the crimes our ruling class are committing in order to provide our comfort and convenience.
If anybody has any ideas about what to do please let me know.
I was stunned by this article—I was misled twenty five years ago by an early perversion of “the science” about Thomas Jefferson’s DNA; I also didn’t know about the Virginia law forbidding indebted estates to free their slaves, either.
Thank you for bringing this information to my attention!
You are quite welcome. I live about 50 miles from Mr. Jefferson's Home and until last year made one pilgrimage per year to go through the same tour again and again. And I always said a silent prayer as I walked down the mountain past his grave: "Help us."
But not now. Monticello has been invaded by the Woke mob; instead a discussion of the Rights of Man, the Declaration of Independence, numerous other writings, the inventions (major improvement on the plow and many others), we are now drowned in Sally Hemmings. Personally, I don't care if he took a bed-wench - as they were called - after the death of his wife. It was a different time, and the mark of an amateur historian is judging historical figures by contemporary social mores.
Make no mistake - the denigration, perversion, and erasure of history is right out of the communist playbook - and with the same intent. I'll have none of it.
Oh please. Stop swallowing that leftist swill. As if Jefferson was the only slave owner in the world. Virtually every nation allowed slavery during Jefferson's life.
More important, as you correctly observe, how about nations today - including the barbaric Chinese communists - who practice slavery on a massive scale?
Bruce, it’s worth reading the article. There’s information I didn’t know and far from “swallowing Leftist swill” I know a fair bit about Jefferson. I was duped by an early example (1998) of ideologically driven researchers lying about “the science” regarding Jefferson’s DNA but back in the day, I still trusted scientific articles in journals that were still prestigious at the time. We’ve all learned our lesson since then.
Being actually honest about the morality involved is a strong beginning. As for what can actually be *done*, I'm reminded of a Police song from 40 years ago:
Hide my face in my hands
Shame wells in my throat
Our comfortable existence is reduced
to a shallow, meaningless party
Seems that when some innocents die
All we can offer them
is a page in some fucking magazine
Too many cell phones and not enough food
This what we've seen
Driven to tears.
Driven to tears.
Driven to tears.
Driven to tears.
Sting has been as guilty as anyone of glamorous celebrity activism, but he nailed the situation pretty starkly with that song.
Confirming this quote: "Congo has three-quarters of the world’s cobalt, as well as monopolies on coltan and tungsten—which are vital for batteries and circuits, and enable devices to vibrate." It didn't pass a sniff test and I checked the numbers - it took about 10 minutes to confirm the errors via multiple sources
- Tungsten is mined in many countries with China, Russia and Vietnam being the largest producers. Not that those countries are fabulous, but DRC doesn't have a monopoly.
- As of 2022 Brazil plus Rwanda mine as much Coltan/Tantalum as DRC. Again, not a monopoly.
- The USGS estimates on Cobalt Reserves place DRC at slightly less than 50%. By production, the numbers are closer to 80% of current estimates. The 75% value seems to mix up stocks and flows.
And why do you think there is such a drive to "level the playing-field" for minorities? (But not Asian minorities; oh no, we can't have THAT; after all, they're nearly white!)
It's so that people can lie to themselves and pretend that their own failure to thrive is someone else's fault, but certainly never their own.
What is the total cost to consumer of the cobalt and other rate earth minerals used in tech and batteries? How much would the costs increase if mining were done humanely and in environmentally conscious ways?
Green revolution advocates do not readily explore the human and environmental costs associated with tech, solar, wind, vegetarian, dense populations, etc.
In the words of Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. Thomas Sowell expresses it perfectly: The real cost of anything is still its value in alternative uses. By distorting the market in picking winners and losers, the government ALWAYS increases the cost of anything it touches. This is to say they raise the cost to everyone, since the government has no money, except what it takes from citizens at the point of a gun. (Don't think they do it by force? Don't pay your taxes this year.)
Yes, we will eventually drive electric vehicles; the advantages are too great to ignore, but we need to let the system work and bring us these good things in due course; all government intervention does is to make it longer, harder, and more expensive.
The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver, 2009) opened my eyes to the ongoing exploitation & tragedy of the Congo. To learn it has only gotten worse is heartbreaking. Thank you for exposing the hypocrisy of the companies claiming they are doing good while in reality are enslaving children and polluting the environment.
Reform has to come internally, the people need to want it. We cannot and should not be the savior, as so many past interventions have taught us it invariable turns into a disaster. Hopefully a focus on this issue will bring about some sustainable solutions where the locals can take advantage of their natural resources to advance their society without endangering lives. To stop using their exports will probably mean the poorest don't earn their next meal, that is not a solution for the Congolese, it's just something to help us feel less guilt.
Are there enough children in Congo to supply minerals for all Gavin and Joe’s electric cars?
As an longtime resident of Africa, and a student of African history, this isn’t the first time the Congo was exploited to benefit western technologies and tastes. When it was the hobby nation of King Leopold of Belgium, peoples’ hands were cut off and smoked to preserve them as evidence that local Belgium commissioners were employing adequate discipline to get maximum ivory and rubber production from the people in his district. To the world’s credit, an international outrage caused Leopold to hand the Congo over to the Belgian government, a very modest improvement.
It’s past time to crackdown on those who gain so much from those who have so little. Mr. Newson and Mr. Biden, are your electric dreams worth the life of even a single child? If so, then your lives are worth nothing.
I dunno. Maybe it was in some parallel dimension, but I was sure I heard they'd reduced auto emissions by 70-90% and that working from home, efficient delivery systems and streaming data and media had reduced demand for driving anyway. IOW, American automobile use is not a major factor in the end of the earth through carbon-caused warming.
Also that the carbon output of China/India was multiples of what the US puts out, much as we all want to hammer the US as the source of all evil.
Maybe my facts are off, but it seems a real misdirection of resources to switch from internal combustion engines to electric. Overstated benefit, understated externalities.
Nice article. Did the author really needed a click bait title? This story stands on its own. I was hoping not to see this cheap attention gathering tactic on thefp.com. Hopefully the author can unlearn this annoying approach seen in all other news site.
My son lived in Kinshasa for a year. The situation in DCR is so much more complicated and nuanced than the author discusses. He reads like a sensationalist look-at-me do gooder with no real grasp of the international political and local economic realities of Congo. "The children!!" SMH; elites don't give a damn about "the children". (See: 1985 Live Aid Concert.)China has almost total control of the mining; and other international players, including the US and Russia, are constantly throwing in insurgents and gorilla groups to destabilize the region politically, with the end goal to gain a monopoly through regime change. It is extremely dangerous there; my son was a Marine and they were instructed never to travel alone in the city and were forbidden to go outside of it. The authors claim that he was able to interview and see all these people and mines is dubious at best. Lastly, there is a great deal of research being done in improving battery technology and battery life. The "smart people" are highly incentivized to achieve both goals. My take on that is that necessity is always the mother of invention, so in due time, amazing discoveries will be made in both areas. In the meantime, I'd like to ask the author one question; in 2023, if no one has made headway in this area already, and with trillions of dollars at stake, what could possibly change politically to make that happen? We already know the answer.
Anything with lithium batteries I would imagine. That would be pretty much anything portable these days. There are similar issues with tungsten and rare earths used in the magnets in wind farm generators and EV motor/generators I believe. This article kind of elides between these suspiciously though.
It sure sounds like the author has a bias against Apple. ALL mobile phones, tablets and desktops have essentially the same parts. Why single out one company? 🤔
Excellent story! I had briefly heard about this but I didn't know the extent of the issue using children and exploiting poor people. If only Black Lives did Matter. They seem to only matter when someone can get press and donations from it.
Fortunately, in the realm of EVs Chinese companies like CATL are leading the way in the global shift toward LFP batteries, which unlike NMC batteries don't rely on cobalt. CATL is also leading the way in the commercialization of the successor to lithium-ion batteries, sodium-ion batteries.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/22/1069032/ev-batteries-politicization-china-us/
"As my colleague Casey Crownhart explained last week, Ford’s new plant will focus on making LFP batteries, which use iron rather than the cobalt and nickel used in the other main type of lithium battery, known as NMC. Compared with NMC batteries, which are widely used to make EVs in the US and Europe, LFP batteries cost less, have a longer life cycle, and are safer when it comes to the possibility of catching fire.
But just a few years ago, LFP batteries were considered an obsolete technology that would never rival NMC batteries in energy density. It was Chinese companies, particularly CATL, that changed this consensus through advanced research. “That’s purely down to the innovation within Chinese cell makers,” Max Reid, senior research analyst in EV and battery supply chain services at the global research firm Wood Mackenzie, tells me. “And that has brought Chinese EV battery [companies] to the front line, the tier-one companies.” "
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/business/china-sodium-batteries.html
Ultimately innovation in battery technology will be what reduces global demand for cobalt. This is a problem that will be solved by innovation rather than through a greater emphasis on corporate ESG.
It is impossible to overstate the difficulty of making a battery that can compete successfully with the internal combustion engine. Atmospheric oxygen is the key: at a stoichiometrically proper mixture (approximately 15:1 air/fuel ratio), an IC-engined vehicle carries only 1/16 the weight it needs to generate power; the rest comes from the ambient air, then dumping ALL of the exhaust weight overboard. And as the fuel is used, the vehicle weighs less, taking even less power to maintain motion. This is critical in aircraft, where weight is everything. A battery, aside from storing very little relative energy, maintains its full weight throughout the cycle. Add to that the long "refueling" times, and it's a no-brainer.
Of course, there's the CO2 argument.
CO2 is a trace gas - 0.04% of the atmosphere - approximately four parts in ten-thousand - equivalent to the first four seconds of a 2-1/2 hour walk of 10,000 steps; yet because plants can extract it from the air at that low concentration, it provides the substrate for the production of 100% of the oxygen that keeps animals - like, say, humans - alive. Add to all the above the fact that man creates only 3% - 97% comes from natural sources like decaying vegetation - and the CO2 Hoax is second only to the Climate Hoax itself.
I am completely skeptical of this claim. Any form of these batteries requires enormous amounts per battery of minerals mined in horrible conditions, using enormous amounts of fossil fuels. Meanwhile, what pushes up cobalt mining exploitation is the overall distortions of markets via the massive green subsidizing of EVs. These market distorting subsidizations seek to close off ICE car production far ahead of any normal market justification for the switch. The bloated demand for LFP batteries will therefore not stop the growth of a bloated demand for cobalt for NMC batteries. The two will rise together and together impose massive costs (including fossil fuel production costs). To say nothing of the horrendous moral costs, imposed by a preening elite deceived by its false ideas and ideology. A huge waste of historical proportions.
Yeah sure. The Chinese are our saviors. Aren't they the same freaks who sold escaped North Korean women into sex slavery?
"Advanced research" in this case is a euphemism for "industrial espionage".
When they're contributing bald CCP marketing, they should do it under a non-Chinese name. Pedro McKenzie, or La'amar Proczycz, or Mickey Blankenshipsteinwitz.
Because then I'd totally be fooled.
I’ve just changed the signature on my emails to read “Sent from my child labor and slave labor-produced IPhone.” I’m going to add a similar signature to the emails I send from my Apple Mac.
The current system of sourcing from China and Congo is totally unacceptable morally.
Thomas Jefferson, himself a slave owner, wrote in a moment of honesty about slavery, “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.”
It’s high time we American consumers wake up and take responsibility for the crimes our ruling class are committing in order to provide our comfort and convenience.
If anybody has any ideas about what to do please let me know.
I just read an interesting short article on Mr. Jefferson. After doing so, "Jefferson, himself a slave owner," took on a bit of a different light.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/04/thomas_jefferson_deserves_respect_from_all_americans.html
Wow Jim—that’s a game-changer!
I was stunned by this article—I was misled twenty five years ago by an early perversion of “the science” about Thomas Jefferson’s DNA; I also didn’t know about the Virginia law forbidding indebted estates to free their slaves, either.
Thank you for bringing this information to my attention!
You are quite welcome. I live about 50 miles from Mr. Jefferson's Home and until last year made one pilgrimage per year to go through the same tour again and again. And I always said a silent prayer as I walked down the mountain past his grave: "Help us."
But not now. Monticello has been invaded by the Woke mob; instead a discussion of the Rights of Man, the Declaration of Independence, numerous other writings, the inventions (major improvement on the plow and many others), we are now drowned in Sally Hemmings. Personally, I don't care if he took a bed-wench - as they were called - after the death of his wife. It was a different time, and the mark of an amateur historian is judging historical figures by contemporary social mores.
Make no mistake - the denigration, perversion, and erasure of history is right out of the communist playbook - and with the same intent. I'll have none of it.
Thank you so much for posting this article! I never doubted Jefferson's character, but for those who did, this is eye-opening.
It should be required reading for Nicole Hannah-Jones, Ibram Kendi and the rest of their ilk, but I know that is wishful thinking...
Thanks! I’ll check it out!
Oh please. Stop swallowing that leftist swill. As if Jefferson was the only slave owner in the world. Virtually every nation allowed slavery during Jefferson's life.
More important, as you correctly observe, how about nations today - including the barbaric Chinese communists - who practice slavery on a massive scale?
Bruce, it’s worth reading the article. There’s information I didn’t know and far from “swallowing Leftist swill” I know a fair bit about Jefferson. I was duped by an early example (1998) of ideologically driven researchers lying about “the science” regarding Jefferson’s DNA but back in the day, I still trusted scientific articles in journals that were still prestigious at the time. We’ve all learned our lesson since then.
Being actually honest about the morality involved is a strong beginning. As for what can actually be *done*, I'm reminded of a Police song from 40 years ago:
Hide my face in my hands
Shame wells in my throat
Our comfortable existence is reduced
to a shallow, meaningless party
Seems that when some innocents die
All we can offer them
is a page in some fucking magazine
Too many cell phones and not enough food
This what we've seen
Driven to tears.
Driven to tears.
Driven to tears.
Driven to tears.
Sting has been as guilty as anyone of glamorous celebrity activism, but he nailed the situation pretty starkly with that song.
Confirming this quote: "Congo has three-quarters of the world’s cobalt, as well as monopolies on coltan and tungsten—which are vital for batteries and circuits, and enable devices to vibrate." It didn't pass a sniff test and I checked the numbers - it took about 10 minutes to confirm the errors via multiple sources
- Tungsten is mined in many countries with China, Russia and Vietnam being the largest producers. Not that those countries are fabulous, but DRC doesn't have a monopoly.
- As of 2022 Brazil plus Rwanda mine as much Coltan/Tantalum as DRC. Again, not a monopoly.
- The USGS estimates on Cobalt Reserves place DRC at slightly less than 50%. By production, the numbers are closer to 80% of current estimates. The 75% value seems to mix up stocks and flows.
Yes because American blacks have such awful lives.
And why do you think there is such a drive to "level the playing-field" for minorities? (But not Asian minorities; oh no, we can't have THAT; after all, they're nearly white!)
It's so that people can lie to themselves and pretend that their own failure to thrive is someone else's fault, but certainly never their own.
What is the total cost to consumer of the cobalt and other rate earth minerals used in tech and batteries? How much would the costs increase if mining were done humanely and in environmentally conscious ways?
Green revolution advocates do not readily explore the human and environmental costs associated with tech, solar, wind, vegetarian, dense populations, etc.
In the words of Ecclesiastes, there is nothing new under the sun. Thomas Sowell expresses it perfectly: The real cost of anything is still its value in alternative uses. By distorting the market in picking winners and losers, the government ALWAYS increases the cost of anything it touches. This is to say they raise the cost to everyone, since the government has no money, except what it takes from citizens at the point of a gun. (Don't think they do it by force? Don't pay your taxes this year.)
Yes, we will eventually drive electric vehicles; the advantages are too great to ignore, but we need to let the system work and bring us these good things in due course; all government intervention does is to make it longer, harder, and more expensive.
Green revolution advocates exist to enrich themselves or are pawns to enrich them.
The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver, 2009) opened my eyes to the ongoing exploitation & tragedy of the Congo. To learn it has only gotten worse is heartbreaking. Thank you for exposing the hypocrisy of the companies claiming they are doing good while in reality are enslaving children and polluting the environment.
Likewise! Amazing book
Is there a ethical organization that we can donate to?
Reform has to come internally, the people need to want it. We cannot and should not be the savior, as so many past interventions have taught us it invariable turns into a disaster. Hopefully a focus on this issue will bring about some sustainable solutions where the locals can take advantage of their natural resources to advance their society without endangering lives. To stop using their exports will probably mean the poorest don't earn their next meal, that is not a solution for the Congolese, it's just something to help us feel less guilt.
Are there enough children in Congo to supply minerals for all Gavin and Joe’s electric cars?
As an longtime resident of Africa, and a student of African history, this isn’t the first time the Congo was exploited to benefit western technologies and tastes. When it was the hobby nation of King Leopold of Belgium, peoples’ hands were cut off and smoked to preserve them as evidence that local Belgium commissioners were employing adequate discipline to get maximum ivory and rubber production from the people in his district. To the world’s credit, an international outrage caused Leopold to hand the Congo over to the Belgian government, a very modest improvement.
It’s past time to crackdown on those who gain so much from those who have so little. Mr. Newson and Mr. Biden, are your electric dreams worth the life of even a single child? If so, then your lives are worth nothing.
I dunno. Maybe it was in some parallel dimension, but I was sure I heard they'd reduced auto emissions by 70-90% and that working from home, efficient delivery systems and streaming data and media had reduced demand for driving anyway. IOW, American automobile use is not a major factor in the end of the earth through carbon-caused warming.
Also that the carbon output of China/India was multiples of what the US puts out, much as we all want to hammer the US as the source of all evil.
Maybe my facts are off, but it seems a real misdirection of resources to switch from internal combustion engines to electric. Overstated benefit, understated externalities.
Nice article. Did the author really needed a click bait title? This story stands on its own. I was hoping not to see this cheap attention gathering tactic on thefp.com. Hopefully the author can unlearn this annoying approach seen in all other news site.
Essential journalism. Thank you Free Press.
My son lived in Kinshasa for a year. The situation in DCR is so much more complicated and nuanced than the author discusses. He reads like a sensationalist look-at-me do gooder with no real grasp of the international political and local economic realities of Congo. "The children!!" SMH; elites don't give a damn about "the children". (See: 1985 Live Aid Concert.)China has almost total control of the mining; and other international players, including the US and Russia, are constantly throwing in insurgents and gorilla groups to destabilize the region politically, with the end goal to gain a monopoly through regime change. It is extremely dangerous there; my son was a Marine and they were instructed never to travel alone in the city and were forbidden to go outside of it. The authors claim that he was able to interview and see all these people and mines is dubious at best. Lastly, there is a great deal of research being done in improving battery technology and battery life. The "smart people" are highly incentivized to achieve both goals. My take on that is that necessity is always the mother of invention, so in due time, amazing discoveries will be made in both areas. In the meantime, I'd like to ask the author one question; in 2023, if no one has made headway in this area already, and with trillions of dollars at stake, what could possibly change politically to make that happen? We already know the answer.
The article makes it sound like it’s just iPhones that are the problem, but it’s all cell phones, right? May want to be careful there!
Anything with lithium batteries I would imagine. That would be pretty much anything portable these days. There are similar issues with tungsten and rare earths used in the magnets in wind farm generators and EV motor/generators I believe. This article kind of elides between these suspiciously though.
I also reviewed Cobalt Red last week, if you'd like to hear more about and also get some quotes directly from the book.
https://theunhedgedcapitalist.substack.com/p/book-review-cobalt-red
It sure sounds like the author has a bias against Apple. ALL mobile phones, tablets and desktops have essentially the same parts. Why single out one company? 🤔
Exploitation and deceit are the salt and pepper of humanity.