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posted by martyb on Tuesday October 25 2016, @07:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the not-many-options dept.

You are probably reading this article on a tablet, smartphone, or laptop computer. If so, your device could very well contain cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo, an impoverished yet mineral-rich nation in central Africa, that provides 60 percent of the world's cobalt. (The remaining 40 percent is sourced in smaller amounts from a number of other nations, including China, Canada, Russia, Australia and the Philippines.)

Cobalt is used to build rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, an integral part of the mobile technology that has become commonplace in recent years. Tech giants such as Apple and Samsung, as well as automakers like Tesla, GM, and BMW, which are starting to produce electric cars on a mass scale, have an insatiable appetite for cobalt. But unfortunately, this appetite comes at a high cost, both for humans and for the environment.

The Washington Post has an in-depth story, THE COBALT PIPELINE - Tracing the path from deadly hand-dug mines in Congo to consumers' phones and laptops. It summarizes the situation:

The Post traced this cobalt pipeline and, for the first time, showed how cobalt mined in these harsh conditions ends up in popular consumer products. It moves from small-scale Congolese mines to a single Chinese company — Congo DongFang International Mining, part of one of the world's biggest cobalt producers, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt — that for years has supplied some of the world's largest battery makers. They, in turn, have produced the batteries found inside products such as Apple's iPhones — a finding that calls into question corporate assertions that they are capable of monitoring their supply chains for human rights abuses or child labor.

How much culpability do regular people have when they do not have a choice of the source of the components that go into their devices?


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  • (Score: 2) by Techwolf on Wednesday October 26 2016, @01:35AM

    by Techwolf (87) on Wednesday October 26 2016, @01:35AM (#418799)

    I would like to buy a LiFePO4 for my devices. They last 10 years and no toxic materials. Does anyone know of a good source of these?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @02:27AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @02:27AM (#418819)

    http://www.powerstream.com/b.htm [powerstream.com]
    http://www.powerstream.com/liprism.htm [powerstream.com]

    Beware of "drop in" 12V lead-acid battery pack substitutes. These work, but they're much less reliable than properly managed LiFePO4 battery packs.

    Read this first:
    http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/lifepo4_on_boats [pbase.com]
    then build it yourself. It doesn't matter if you want the batteries for boats, RV, home solar, DIY electric car, or whatever. I think LiFePO4 is a vastly underrated battery chemistry because most people balance the batteries improperly. But they are not flammable (if massively overcharged they will vaporize their electrolyte which will freak out the fire department but they will not catch fire), tolerate reasonable overcharge, and are generally the most tolerant and easy rechargeable lithium chemistry.