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Cobalt controversy is essentially oil company propaganda. While it’s not perfect, the collective harm of cobalt is a firecracker vs the supernova that is oil.

Cobalt controversy is essentially oil company propaganda. While it’s not perfect, the collective harm of cobalt is a firecracker vs the supernova that is oil. A cobalt mine can’t fail and poison the entire Gulf of Mexico. Anyone who addresses the “controversy” of cobalt without proportionally addressing oil is a fraud.

johnnymorgan 3y ago
So issue cannot be addressed unless the other is equally addressed. Seems like you are just projecting and are coming off as a disingenuous with the what-about-ism. They aren't evenly that closely related other than being resources, so why even link the two? Seems like your response may have been fraudulent
elihu 3y ago
It's not propaganda. Cobalt and nickel are scarce resources, the mining of which is harmful, and they're not even necessary. Cobalt and nickel are basically used by auto manufacturers to make luxury supercars with slightly more range than they would have otherwise. They're also a convenient excuse not to make more EVs. "Sorry, cobalt is just too expensive, and we can't get enough of it to make as many EVs as we need. I guess we'll just keep making ICE vehicles." If you want to make a million cars, cobalt/nickel based batteries are maybe acceptable. If you want to make a billion cars (which is the scale on which EVs are going to need to be made), they're not a realistic option. The best battery technology for that right now is LFP. Some companies (CATL for instance) are working on sodium ion, to reduce the lithium dependency. (As other comments have noted: the cobalt in these new batteries is used in a catalyst, so presumably they'd need a lot less of it than in a conventional lithium ion battery, which would be a good thing.)
- shadowtree 3y ago
  Nickel is not a scarce resource. It was used in coins for a long time. All mining is harmful, that's kind of a given. Drilling too. The modern world does not come out of thin air.
  - elihu 3y ago
    Nickel is scarce, and fairly expensive. I believe it tends to be in the same general ballpark as cobalt in terms of price. Nickel is mostly used to make stainless steel. If I understand correctly, nickel is often a side-product of copper mining. LFP batteries don't use nickel or cobalt. That's a good thing. Iron mining has downsides too, but it's far more abundant. We have no realistic way to mine enough cobalt and nickel to make a billion cars (or an equivalent amount of grid storage, or whatever it is we want to use batteries for) using current nickel/cobalt based lithium ion battery technology. We might not have enough lithium for that either, so maybe that will be the bottleneck on LFP production. But dealing with one resource constraint is easier than dealing with three, and if nothing else works we can extract lithium from sea water. We use nickel and cobalt in EV batteries so that rich and upper middle class people can have 20% more range, at the expense of worse longevity, increased fire risk, and requiring more expensive minerals. If we're going to phase out internal combustion cars entirely, that means they need to be affordable to everyone who would have bought a fossil fuel car. That means using cheap components that can be produced at massive scales. For awhile non-Chinese manufacturers were kind of stuck due to an issue of patents, but the main ones on LFP expired a little while ago, and we're starting to see LFP factories being built that aren't in China.
    - tooltalk 3y ago
      >> Nickel is scarce, and fairly expensive. << Not scarce. It's the 5th most common element on this planet and there are enough reserve/deposits out there - it's just that they need to be mined which is a multiyear undertaking (and polluting like all mining). And nickel is no more expensive than lithium. The price of lithium at the current market rate is higher than that of nickel, which makes LFP more expensive per Wh/kg. >> LFP batteries don't use nickel or cobalt. That's a good thing. Iron mining has downsides too, but it's far more abundant. << LFP has a lot of shortcomings, and to name a few, in the context of this discussion: 1. LFP is a lithium-ion battery. Due to its low energy density, it requires a lot more lithium to achieve the same Wh as NCM8/9/A. That which in turn makes LFP more expensive when the prices of lithium is higher than that of nickel. 2. cost of LFP recycling is also much higher than that of NCM/A counterparts for two reasons: higher processing cost of the cathodes and lack of valuable metals recovered[1]. [1] Financial viability of electric vehicle lithium-ion battery recycling, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004221007550 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258900422... >> We have no realistic way to mine enough cobalt and nickel to make a billion cars ..., << Why so much FUD? Are you a mainlander Chinese, or perhaps a Tesla fanboi? >> We use nickel and cobalt in EV batteries so that rich and upper middle class people can have 20% more range << First, the industry trend is to minimize the use of cobalt -- the cutting edge high-nickel NCM8/9 batteries, which is already widely adopted in popular EVs such as the Ioniq5/F-150/EV6/etc, contain less than 10% and 5% of cobalt, respectively and they also have much higher energy density due to higher nickel content. There are also ultra-nickel lithium-ion batteries without any cobalt, NMX, already developed and would be available in a couple of years. And no worries, when the South Korean battery trios bring up 300+GWh NCM8/9+/A battery production online around 2025-2026 in the US, LFP would lose much of price competitiveness, so your class dividing rhetoric isn't going to win much vote. GM already reported that their battery cost would drop to $87/Wh in 18 months (back in Feb 2023). The Chevy Bolts are already under $20K and made with NCMs batteries. But nice try though. Now, we use NCM/A batteries b/c, in moving vehicles, the energy/weight ratio matters quite a bit. LFP's low energy density, weight and lower tolerance for high C made it unsuitable for EVs, but in other applications, such as stationary energy storage system (aka, ESS), until China spiked it up for EVs application not to long ago - which in turn came with a number of compromises. LFPs are still limited to mostly entry-level, low-range EVs under ~250 miles range (60KWh), but, beyond that, there are significant technical baggages and risks (and unknowns), for instance: * LFP EVs must be charged to 100% full to recalibrate the BMS frequently to avoid misreading SOC/range, and, as we recently discovered, that in turn accelerates battery degradation. The short-term data we have from Tessie (via CleanWatt) -- also seems to be corroborated by Recurrent's battery life study -- reveal that LFPs in fact degrade twice as fast as non-LFP to 10% range loss, or 90% SOH in Tesla EVs[2]. * BYD likewise has dozens of fires every year with their trademarked blade LFP in PHEVs operating at 5+C. [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suw20wPrbL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suw20wPrbL0
xenadu02 3y ago
Cobalt-based lithium chemistries have a bad thermal resistance coefficient: as they heat up their resistance goes up which causes even more heating. That makes them prone to thermal runaway. As they runaway they also trigger the same effect in their neighbors, both in the elements within a cell and between cells. As the Cobalt-Oxygen bond breaks down the Oxygen helps feed any fire present which is fun. The physical size of the Cobalt complex in the cathode is quite different from the "lithiated" vs "unlithiated" states so in the extremes Lithium batteries with cobalt "puff up": they get physically larger. This can physically crush its neighbor which can also lead to a chain reaction. LiFePO4 doesn't have either of these problems. Its physical size is very similar in the lithiated/unlithiated states so these batteries don't puff up or expand. They don't have thermal coefficient problems. And when severely abused the Iron-Oxygen bond is much stronger so they don't feed any potential fire with fresh oxidizer. The only real downside to ditching Cobalt is the lower density of LiFePO4... but for many applications that doesn't matter or is worth the tradeoff. tl;dr: you can over-volt, over-charge, over-discharge, puncture, smash, and/or heat a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery. It will both tolerate way more abuse without being ruined and in no case will it start a runaway reaction that sets the entire battery bank on fire. Lithium batteries with any Cobalt chemistry are way less likely to survive such abuse and way way way more likely to start a runaway fire chain reaction, resulting in a lithium fire.
hinkley 3y ago
I don’t think we should trade Nigeria for the Congo though. I mean the Congo has been a mess my entire life, but it’s still a poor trade.
- VintageCool 3y ago
  A cobalt mine recently opened in Idaho, but apparently is idle because cobalt from Nigeria is priced too low for the Idaho mine to be competitive. https://www.eenews.net/articles/biden-is-scrambling-for-minerals-this-u-s-cobalt-mine-just-closed/ https://www.eenews.net/articles/biden-is-scrambling-for-mine...
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  That’s ok. Australia has about 25% of the worlds cobalt reserves.
eesmith 3y ago
Concerns about using child labor to mine cobalt, and concerns over the poor safety of so-called "artisanal mining" practices are 'essentially oil company propaganda'? Yes, oil extraction, processing, and consumption is also horrible. So what? The comment was on Li-Fe-P vs. CoNiFe battery technologies.

johnnymorgan 3y ago

So issue cannot be addressed unless the other is equally addressed. Seems like you are just projecting and are coming off as a disingenuous with the what-about-ism. They aren't evenly that closely related other than being resources, so why even link the two? Seems like your response may have been fraudulent

elihu 3y ago

It's not propaganda. Cobalt and nickel are scarce resources, the mining of which is harmful, and they're not even necessary. Cobalt and nickel are basically used by auto manufacturers to make luxury supercars with slightly more range than they would have otherwise. They're also a convenient excuse not to make more EVs. "Sorry, cobalt is just too expensive, and we can't get enough of it to make as many EVs as we need. I guess we'll just keep making ICE vehicles." If you want to make a million cars, cobalt/nickel based batteries are maybe acceptable. If you want to make a billion cars (which is the scale on which EVs are going to need to be made), they're not a realistic option. The best battery technology for that right now is LFP. Some companies (CATL for instance) are working on sodium ion, to reduce the lithium dependency. (As other comments have noted: the cobalt in these new batteries is used in a catalyst, so presumably they'd need a lot less of it than in a conventional lithium ion battery, which would be a good thing.)

shadowtree 3y ago
Nickel is not a scarce resource. It was used in coins for a long time. All mining is harmful, that's kind of a given. Drilling too. The modern world does not come out of thin air.
- elihu 3y ago
  Nickel is scarce, and fairly expensive. I believe it tends to be in the same general ballpark as cobalt in terms of price. Nickel is mostly used to make stainless steel. If I understand correctly, nickel is often a side-product of copper mining. LFP batteries don't use nickel or cobalt. That's a good thing. Iron mining has downsides too, but it's far more abundant. We have no realistic way to mine enough cobalt and nickel to make a billion cars (or an equivalent amount of grid storage, or whatever it is we want to use batteries for) using current nickel/cobalt based lithium ion battery technology. We might not have enough lithium for that either, so maybe that will be the bottleneck on LFP production. But dealing with one resource constraint is easier than dealing with three, and if nothing else works we can extract lithium from sea water. We use nickel and cobalt in EV batteries so that rich and upper middle class people can have 20% more range, at the expense of worse longevity, increased fire risk, and requiring more expensive minerals. If we're going to phase out internal combustion cars entirely, that means they need to be affordable to everyone who would have bought a fossil fuel car. That means using cheap components that can be produced at massive scales. For awhile non-Chinese manufacturers were kind of stuck due to an issue of patents, but the main ones on LFP expired a little while ago, and we're starting to see LFP factories being built that aren't in China.
  - tooltalk 3y ago
    >> Nickel is scarce, and fairly expensive. << Not scarce. It's the 5th most common element on this planet and there are enough reserve/deposits out there - it's just that they need to be mined which is a multiyear undertaking (and polluting like all mining). And nickel is no more expensive than lithium. The price of lithium at the current market rate is higher than that of nickel, which makes LFP more expensive per Wh/kg. >> LFP batteries don't use nickel or cobalt. That's a good thing. Iron mining has downsides too, but it's far more abundant. << LFP has a lot of shortcomings, and to name a few, in the context of this discussion: 1. LFP is a lithium-ion battery. Due to its low energy density, it requires a lot more lithium to achieve the same Wh as NCM8/9/A. That which in turn makes LFP more expensive when the prices of lithium is higher than that of nickel. 2. cost of LFP recycling is also much higher than that of NCM/A counterparts for two reasons: higher processing cost of the cathodes and lack of valuable metals recovered[1]. [1] Financial viability of electric vehicle lithium-ion battery recycling, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004221007550 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S258900422... >> We have no realistic way to mine enough cobalt and nickel to make a billion cars ..., << Why so much FUD? Are you a mainlander Chinese, or perhaps a Tesla fanboi? >> We use nickel and cobalt in EV batteries so that rich and upper middle class people can have 20% more range << First, the industry trend is to minimize the use of cobalt -- the cutting edge high-nickel NCM8/9 batteries, which is already widely adopted in popular EVs such as the Ioniq5/F-150/EV6/etc, contain less than 10% and 5% of cobalt, respectively and they also have much higher energy density due to higher nickel content. There are also ultra-nickel lithium-ion batteries without any cobalt, NMX, already developed and would be available in a couple of years. And no worries, when the South Korean battery trios bring up 300+GWh NCM8/9+/A battery production online around 2025-2026 in the US, LFP would lose much of price competitiveness, so your class dividing rhetoric isn't going to win much vote. GM already reported that their battery cost would drop to $87/Wh in 18 months (back in Feb 2023). The Chevy Bolts are already under $20K and made with NCMs batteries. But nice try though. Now, we use NCM/A batteries b/c, in moving vehicles, the energy/weight ratio matters quite a bit. LFP's low energy density, weight and lower tolerance for high C made it unsuitable for EVs, but in other applications, such as stationary energy storage system (aka, ESS), until China spiked it up for EVs application not to long ago - which in turn came with a number of compromises. LFPs are still limited to mostly entry-level, low-range EVs under ~250 miles range (60KWh), but, beyond that, there are significant technical baggages and risks (and unknowns), for instance: * LFP EVs must be charged to 100% full to recalibrate the BMS frequently to avoid misreading SOC/range, and, as we recently discovered, that in turn accelerates battery degradation. The short-term data we have from Tessie (via CleanWatt) -- also seems to be corroborated by Recurrent's battery life study -- reveal that LFPs in fact degrade twice as fast as non-LFP to 10% range loss, or 90% SOH in Tesla EVs[2]. * BYD likewise has dozens of fires every year with their trademarked blade LFP in PHEVs operating at 5+C. [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suw20wPrbL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suw20wPrbL0

xenadu02 3y ago

Cobalt-based lithium chemistries have a bad thermal resistance coefficient: as they heat up their resistance goes up which causes even more heating. That makes them prone to thermal runaway. As they runaway they also trigger the same effect in their neighbors, both in the elements within a cell and between cells. As the Cobalt-Oxygen bond breaks down the Oxygen helps feed any fire present which is fun. The physical size of the Cobalt complex in the cathode is quite different from the "lithiated" vs "unlithiated" states so in the extremes Lithium batteries with cobalt "puff up": they get physically larger. This can physically crush its neighbor which can also lead to a chain reaction. LiFePO4 doesn't have either of these problems. Its physical size is very similar in the lithiated/unlithiated states so these batteries don't puff up or expand. They don't have thermal coefficient problems. And when severely abused the Iron-Oxygen bond is much stronger so they don't feed any potential fire with fresh oxidizer. The only real downside to ditching Cobalt is the lower density of LiFePO4... but for many applications that doesn't matter or is worth the tradeoff. tl;dr: you can over-volt, over-charge, over-discharge, puncture, smash, and/or heat a Lithium Iron Phosphate battery. It will both tolerate way more abuse without being ruined and in no case will it start a runaway reaction that sets the entire battery bank on fire. Lithium batteries with any Cobalt chemistry are way less likely to survive such abuse and way way way more likely to start a runaway fire chain reaction, resulting in a lithium fire.

hinkley 3y ago

I don’t think we should trade Nigeria for the Congo though. I mean the Congo has been a mess my entire life, but it’s still a poor trade.

VintageCool 3y ago
A cobalt mine recently opened in Idaho, but apparently is idle because cobalt from Nigeria is priced too low for the Idaho mine to be competitive. https://www.eenews.net/articles/biden-is-scrambling-for-minerals-this-u-s-cobalt-mine-just-closed/ https://www.eenews.net/articles/biden-is-scrambling-for-mine...
fnordpiglet 3y ago
That’s ok. Australia has about 25% of the worlds cobalt reserves.

eesmith 3y ago

Concerns about using child labor to mine cobalt, and concerns over the poor safety of so-called "artisanal mining" practices are 'essentially oil company propaganda'? Yes, oil extraction, processing, and consumption is also horrible. So what? The comment was on Li-Fe-P vs. CoNiFe battery technologies.