Batteries that concern the US | News Round-up #50
Batteries that concern the US | News Round-up #50
The US releases guidance on sourcing EV batteries. Battery metal prices take a dive. Scores of deaths at mine sites. Researchers urge greater transparency.
Climate technologies require enormous amounts of metal. I’m Ian Morse, and this is Green Rocks, a newsletter that doesn’t want dirty mining to ruin clean energy.
In the US, electric vehicle buyers who want a $7,500 tax credit this year can only do so if their battery was not made in China, Russia, Iran or North Korea. Next year, no materials from these four countries can be in any of these tax-credited batteries. The four countries are the “foreign entities of concern”, defined by the federal government in December.
The US is a huge potential market for EV batteries, and officials also want it to be a huge producer of those batteries. Or, at the very least, they don’t want US citizens to end up sending their money to China. Many of the same legislators championing the policy have dragged their feet on climate policy for years, and some avoided it completely. As the push for climate action is now difficult to ignore, the country with the most cars per capita has latched onto batteries to reduce emissions. It’s clear that it’s also about boosting the US economy at the same time – even if it would take decades for the US and its allies to build up the capacity to compete.
How do we know whether batteries will contain materials from foreigners that concern the US? Likely only through extensive tracing: materials travel from mines to smelters and processing centers, to cathode factories and cell manufacturers, to battery pack assembly lines and car plants. Recyclers may take materials across borders and re-insert materials into any one of these steps. Companies won’t be able to trace their materials by next year, say industry advocates like the Alliance for Automotive Innovation.
The Treasury and Energy Departments say companies will have some flexibility. Some trace minerals that comprise less than 2% of a battery will be excluded for two years. (These could be binders or salts.) In other ways, the departments make the needle harder to thread. The proposed rules consider whether licensing or contractual agreements put companies at the control of these countries.
Countries that have bet heavily on selling mined materials to top consuming countries, like the US, worry that the new rules could suddenly undercut decades of development that has relied on Chinese investment and expertise. Most prominently, Indonesia, the location of the entirety of battery nickel growth, has proposed to the US that the two countries create a trade agreement to ensure its minerals will still find customers in the US.
So, despite this guidance published by US officials, there are still many details to work out. In Europe, regulators have considered systems to trace materials for the past few years, while they shaped the recently approved draft Critical Raw Materials Act. A cohort of NGOs and companies unveiled in January the “proof-of-concept” for a “battery passport.” The system would create a “digital twin” for each battery that collects and conveys the origin of materials embedded within, as well as design details.
News
More than 70 people died after a shaft collapse in an artisanal gold mine in Mali.
A Mexican activist who opposed iron ore mining in his state of Jalisco was found shot to death.
At least 12 people were killed in a landslide at a gold mine in Venezuela.
A smelter in Indonesia’s nickel hub of Morowali exploded in December, killing 18 workers and injuring scores more.
Two contractors employed by a Canadian miner in Zambia died in workplace operations.
Rwanda revoked 13 mine licenses, citing breached mining laws in the wake of a deadly mine collapse.
Peru’s mining ministry suspended licensing in a tributary of the Amazon river.
El Salvador has arrested five anti-mining activists on charges related to a killing that happened a few decades ago. The activists had player a central role in pushing through the first national prohibition on mining, passed in 2017. In a letter sent to the Attorney General, academics and lawyers ask the country to dismiss the case and raise suspicion that the case intends to undermine prohibition.
A few hundred protesters blocked roads to the Atacama Salt Flat in northern Chile, claiming that a recent agreement between lithium producer SQM and state-run copper producer Codelco did not involve Indigenous communities.
Norway’s government has opened up its waters to commercial deep-sea mining, the first country to do so. Its reasoning includes independence from Russia and China and the desire to “lead a green transition in the form of fuel cells and solar panels, of electric cars and mobile phones.” Mineral resources there seem even more difficult to vacuum up.
South Africa’s High Court shut down a class action lawsuit against Anglo American alleging responsibility for lead poisoning at a historic mine in Zambia. Plaintiffs plan to appeal.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that Guatemala violated the rights of Indigenous Q’eqchi when it licensed a nickel mine on the tribal land. The judges ordered the country to adopt new laws the recognize Indigenous property. The ministry overseeing mines has said it will review all recent mining licenses.
Panama passed a moratorium on new mining concessions in the response to weeks of protests sparked by a contract with a Canadian copper company, which was ruled to be unconstitutional. As a result, regulators have canceled another Canadian copper-gold company’s concessions.
Protesters from more than 70 Indigenous Adivasi villages in India were beaten and arrested after a nine-month peaceful demonstration against the expansion iron ore mining without consultation. Several new mines could displace more than 40,000 people.
A federal judge in Brazil ordered Vale and BHP to pay $10 billion in damages for their joint venture’s tailings dam collapse in 2015. It’s only a partial decision and BHP is reviewing the decision. Meanwhile, a British judge ruled that Vale be included in the liability case involving 700,000 victims of the disaster, the largest group lawsuit in English legal history.
Responding to prosecutors’ investigation of the “chaotic situation established between the Mura people and indigenous leaders” in the Brazilian Amazon, a court has ordered a halt to permitting a Canadian potash project.
Mining companies and investors are in a panic about falling prices for battery materials like lithium, nickel and cobalt. Some blame the emerging diversity of battery types. This is despite BlackRock claiming moral leadership in investing in these companies.
Bolivia claimed victory after a judge ruled that it did not have to pay damages to a US-based firm when the country revoked its concessions for tin mining.
Bolivia has also announced a new tender for lithium extraction from its salt flats.
Chinese companies agreed to invest $7 billion into infrastructure projects in the Congo alongside a joint venture with the government to build a copper and cobalt project.
A court blocked an environmental group’s challenge to Northvolt’s plans to build a battery plant in Quebec, Canada.
Thailand is looking to kickstart a lithium industry, but it has so far only identified limited reserves.
A uranium mine in Saskatchewan plans to reopen as prices for the nuclear fuel rise.
Research and Reports
MiningWatch Canada released a report describing gross violations of human rights at Barrick Gold’s North Mara Gold Mine in Tanzania.
Dutch organization SOMO examined the intensifying interest in Mozambique’s graphite and its potential to fan the flames of conflict and environmental destruction.
An Oxfam report details water shortages and contamination at a Glencore copper mine in Peru and a coal mine in Colombia and calls on investors and European regulators to hold companies responsible.
USGS mineral commodity summaries are out for this year.
Researchers at a Swedish university found that sodium-ion batteries have a similar environmental impact to lithium-ion batteries, but sodium-ion places fewer pressures on mineral scarcity and may be easier to scale up.
Scientists in Norway in the UK found that seafloor creatures store more carbon than previously thought, suggesting the deep-sea mining may contribute significantly to climate change.
Climate Rights International published findings that link Chinese and French companies to deforestation and the displacement of people in Indonesia’s nickel hotspot on Halmahera island.
Researchers in Australia found that almost 30% of tailings dam endanger conservation areas – and that’s only counting the dams that have been disclosed publicly.
Scientists in China and the Netherlands developed a recycling strategy that could shrink the demand for mining rare earth elements by 40%.
In a commentary in Nature, scientists urged collaboration to create a global database of mines, as the impacts from half the world’s mines are undocumented.
Reads (and Listens)
≠endorsement
Europe’s thirst for lithium threatens livelihoods, biodiversity in Portugal (Al Jazeera)
‘We miners die a lot.’ Appalling conditions and poverty wages: the lives of cobalt miners in the DRC (The Conversation)
Indonesia’s flood of nickel sparks ‘Darwinian’ battle for survival among miners (Financial Times)
Oil companies used to run this town. Now they’re back — to mine for lithium. (Grist)
How a US mining firm sued Mexico for billions – for trying to protect its own seabed (The Guardian)
Biden’s EV agenda hits mining world’s boom-and-bust cycle (E&E News)
This town’s mining battle reveals the contentious path to a cleaner future (MIT Technology Review)
‘This river is doomed’: Peru’s gold rush threatens waterways and the people who depend on them (The Guardian)
World’s biggest mining project to start after 27 years of setbacks and scandals (Financial Times)
Demand for minerals sparks fear of mining abuses on Indigenous peoples' lands (NPR)
Newsletter on deep-sea mining: Seabed Spotlight
Podcast: Unearthing Critical Minerals podcast series (Sydney Environmental Institute)