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One of the big changes facing the global transportation industry is electrification. Big corporations and car manufacturers are ditching combustion engines, with Toyota saying it will have an electrified or hybrid version of all vehicles by 2025. But there is a dark side to this revolution.
Cobalt is one of the key ingredients added in electric batteries, and more than half of it is currently mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Amnesty says children as young as seven work in dangerous conditions in Congo cobalt mines.
"At the present time, you'd have to say that there isn't a lot of regulation around the mining of cobalt," says Gavin Wendt, the founding director and senior resource analyst at Australia-based Minelife.
Wendt thinks recent international scandals in the car industry have put pressure on car manufacturers to ethically source the materials needed for their cars.
"We're seeing more and more ... pressure from society to ensure that these commodities are ethically sourced ... A very big issue is going to be where this cobalt will come from, and hence companies are looking to source cobalt outside of the DRC as much as possible," Wendt says.
With 54 percent of cobalt currently coming from the Congo, that goal is still a long way off.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday December 26 2017, @04:11PM (1 child)
Unless Elon himself makes sure the little miners get their cash, and are not forced to hand them over once he is gone, I doubt the extra $1k would really do anything. It wouldn't reach the right people. It's not like he buys the Cobalt from the miners so if he wants to give the seller and extra buck it's going to stay with the seller and if the child-miners complain they'll be replaced by some child-miner that doesn't.
It's like sending foreign aid to starving people in Africa. A disturbing amount of said aid goes local administration, bribes and to propping up the local dictator and his mansions and eventually something might trickle down to the starving children and people. I doubt anything except if Elon creates Elon Military Solutions and just take over the entire country by force things would change for them. But then Elon would be a benevolent dictator, at least in theory, so that might not be his style.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday December 26 2017, @08:32PM
See below, it's not about handouts, it's about giving business to businesses that don't send children to die for the chance at a days' wages. And, with any luck, continuing to improve the workers' conditions by continuing to select the mines that offer the best conditions to their workers - making the human part of the equation part of the contract negotiation instead of just the price per ton of delivered material.
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