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posted by n1 on Wednesday June 14 2017, @11:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the jobs-for-the-boys-and-girls dept.

A number of metals are crucial components in a range of technologies, from smartphone batteries to electric cars. So could a market shortage and spiralling prices put the breaks on the global tech industry?

Cobalt has been used for thousands of years to give a deep blue-ish hue to pottery, paint and jewellery. But more recently, it has become a crucial metal used in the batteries powering millions of tech gadgets, including the electric cars made by Tesla and others.

About half of all cobalt demand comes from the expansion of electric vehicle production and development worldwide.

The problem is, we can't get enough of it. No wonder its price has doubled in the last year alone.

"We are definitely entering a period of deficit and that will start this year," says Lara Smith, managing director of Core Consultants, a commodities researcher.

"In 2016, the supply of cobalt was about 104,000 tonnes and demand was about 103,500. The hybrid and electric vehicles are in a nascent growth phase, so as we continue along this track we expect there to be a greater and greater deficit."

Only 2% of cobalt is mined directly - 98% of it is produced as a by-product of nickel and copper mining. Unlike other battery metals like lithium, cobalt is quite rare and its quality can vary geographically. About two thirds of the supply comes from Africa's Congo region.

It's little wonder then that First Cobalt Corporation in Toronto recently invested in seven large areas of land in the Central African "copperbelt" with the intention of finding more copper and cobalt reserves in the ground.

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday June 14 2017, @02:08PM (1 child)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 14 2017, @02:08PM (#525424) Journal

    Maybe you could get a million miles out of a cobalt steel car engine. Of course it would be really heavy...

    Marginally heavier, cobalt is just one place to the right from iron in the periodic table.

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday June 14 2017, @02:55PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 14 2017, @02:55PM (#525451)

    My first car had 80s Trenton Michigan cast iron 4-cyl that weighed about 400 pounds and output around 80 HP and my second car had 90s Saturn aluminum engine and that weighed 190 pounds and output a bit over 120 HP. My current car outputs about 90 HP and weighs 69 Kg which is about 150 pounds. I wonder if I'll ever drive a car again with an engine that weighs more than me... Interestingly the MPG achieved by these similar cars has dropped continuously as the mass of safety gear increases. My Horizon had no AC and no air bags and occasionally got 37+ on the highway when the carburetor choke wasn't stuck on, and when I filled my car this morning I got 240 miles in 8 gallons which is 30 MPG. Of course the Horizon was burning pure gasoline and today its all E10...

    Interesting to consider, presumably a cobalt steel engine could be run a lot harder and faster so for a given power output the system might be lighter even if the parts are denser...