Cobalt comes from child labor in copper mines and wars in Congo. The materials industry is trying to clean up on corrupt sourcing, while tech companies seek to make better batteries with less cobalt or none at all. Now they face a lawsuit about it.
Some of the biggest technology firms in the United States have been accused in a lawsuit of complicity in the death and maiming of hundreds, if not thousands of African children who mine cobalt, a mineral vital to the production of the lithium-ion batteries in everything from smartphones to electric cars. The defendants named in the suit are Apple, Google parent company Alphabet, Microsoft, Dell and Tesla.
The lawsuit was filed Sunday in the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. by the non-profit organization International Rights Advocates, on behalf of 13 anonymous plaintiffs from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The complaint accuses the tech giants of "knowingly benefiting from and aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children in Democratic Republic of Congo ('DRC') to mine cobalt."
What's going on here?
I am not going to opine on the merits of this case, that is, whether these or other companies are knowingly and culpably involved in this brutality. We can agree that mining in Congo is disastrous, and that tech companies are trying to get off cobalt. Also that fossil fuel companies are deeply involved.
Oil and Gaslighting Again
promoting the sustainable and responsible production and use of cobalt in all forms
Cobalt contributes to a greener society by acting as a catalyst in desulphurisation reactions. These reactions remove sulphur from natural gas and from refined petroleum products.
The Lawsuit
First Lawsuit of Its Kind Accuses Big Tech of Profiting From Child Labor in Cobalt Mines—VICE
Apple, Google, Microsoft, Dell, and Tesla are being sued over their alleged reliance on cobalt mined by children.
"Apple, Alphabet, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla all have specific policies claiming to prohibit child labour in their supply chains," said IRAdvocates in the complaint. "Their failure to actually implement these policies to stop forced child labour in cobalt mining is an intentional act to avoid ending the windfall of getting cheap cobalt."
Apple and other companies have said in recent years that they’ve taken steps to not work with mines that use child labor, but time and time again, reporters and international nonprofits have shown that the global supply chain is convoluted to the point that it is difficult to be sure exactly who is doing the mining.
CBS again
Research by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) estimated that in 2012 there were about 40,000 children working in the DRC mines. More than half of the world's supply of cobalt comes from the DRC, and 20 percent of that is mined by hand, according to Darton Commodities Ltd., a London-based research company that specializes in cobalt.
Google-parent Alphabet, Apple, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla have been accused of "knowingly benefiting from and aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to mine cobalt," a key component of the lithium-ion batteries that these companies obtain from suppliers like Glencore, Umicore, and Huayou Cobalt to power their products.
Cobalt
Cobalt - Wikipedia
Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. Like nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, produced by reductive smelting, is a hard, lustrous, silver-gray metal.
Cobalt Mining
Conflict resource
As of 2010, the conflict resource fueling the world's deadliest war is gold in the Congo.[18] Gold bars are less traceable than diamonds, and gold is abundant in the Kivu conflict region. In any case, no jewellery industry standard exists for verifying gold origination, as it does for diamonds (though jeweler's total outlay on gold is five times that on diamonds).[19] Other conflict minerals being illicitly exported from the Congo include cobalt, tungsten, cassiterite,[20] and coltan (which provides the tantalum for mobile phones, and is also said to be directly sustaining the conflict).[21][22]
Armed conflict and mineral resource looting by the Congolese National Army and various armed rebel groups, including the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), a proxy Rwandan militia group, has occurred throughout the late 20th century and the early 21st century. Additionally, the looting of the Congo's natural resources is not limited to domestic actors. During the Congo Wars (First Congo War (1996–1997) and Second Congo War (1998–2003)), Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi particularly profited from the Congo's resources. These governments continued to smuggle resources out of the Congo to this day.[23]
The profits from the sale of these minerals have financed fighting in the Second Congo War and ongoing follow-on conflicts. Control of lucrative mines has also itself become a military objective.[24]
Batteries
Cobalt is an essential mineral for advanced electronics—necessary for the lithium batteries that power smartphones, personal computers, and electric vehicles.
Rechargeable Batteries | Cobalt Institute
Aug 28, 2019 - Coming in at 27 on your periodic table is cobalt, an essential element in rechargeable batteries and jet engines. In 2018, the U.S. Department ...
Fixing the Trade
Amnesty International: Industry giants fail to tackle child labour allegations in cobalt ...
Nov 15, 2017 - “Our initial investigations found that cobalt mined by children and adults in horrendous conditions in the DRC is entering the supply chains of …
Jan 9, 2017 - It’s the power of cobalt, along with several other energy metals, that keeps your lithium-ion battery running. ... Getting the metal from the source to your electronics is not an easy feat, and this makes for an extremely precarious supply chain for manufacturers. ... The darkest days are ...
Electric vehicles are touted as environmentally friendly, but the metals needed for their batteries are creating other environmental and humanitarian concerns, including the use of child and slave labor.
However, a global partnership between suppliers and automakers — including Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV — seeks to bring transparency to the origins of these raw materials. The goal is to give companies confidence in the responsible sourcing of its materials.
Set to launch commercially in spring 2020, the Responsible Sourcing Blockchain Network creates a step-by-step digital record that tracks cobalt from mine to end-manufacturer. A typical electric vehicle battery requires up to 20 pounds of cobalt.
Fixing the Batteries
A new cathode and electrolyte are the key to doing away with these increasingly scarce metals in lithium batteries.
The Georgia Tech researchers fabricated a new type of cathode from iron fluoride and a solid polymer electrolyte nanocomposite. Iron fluorides have more than double lithium’s capacity of traditional cobalt- or nickel-based cathodes. In addition, iron is 1/300th the cost of cobalt and 1/150th the cost of nickel.
Understanding the Role of Cobalt in Batteries | Design News
Mar 22, 2018 - Cobalt will remain an expensive but necessary ingredient in our battery energy future.