Island Voices: Electric cars won't save the world, but will destroy lives - lithium ion batteries for sale
Anyone who says electric cars will save the world is dreaming.
In the next 20 years, the adoption of electric vehicles will hardly cut a penny from the world's greenhouses --gas emissions.
At the same time, the batteries that power these cars depend on a terrible human disaster. Most electric-
Car buyers who are proud to do the right thing don't know the birth defects, premature deaths, child labor and virtual slavery needed to move their new wheels.
All this is done to keep carbon out of the air and to keep hundreds of ducks out of the oil sands tailings pond.
Compared with carbon, the battery has much more to do with cobalt.
Cobalt is an essential element in lithium.
Ion battery is a battery that is lighter than lead. acid batteries.
These "green" batteries do exist in tech devices, not just cars.
But 10 grams of cobalt for a smartphone battery or an ounce of cobalt in a laptop is overwhelmed by 15 pounds of the cobalt in a typical EV battery.
On the surface, it seems good news for Congo, which has about 60 of the world's known cobalt reserves.
But so far, Congo has only traded despair for exploitation.
The manual extraction of cobalt by Papy Nsenga, as did the other 100,000 people in the Congo.
No salary, even in good days he will only make $3 for what he finds.
Death and injury are common.
But when a mine collapsed, crushed the leg of an excavator and hurt the head of another person, Nsenga had to raise hundreds of dollars from his colleagues for medical treatment
Companies that buy cobalt rarely help.
"They don't care," a government mine chief told The Washington Post on 2016.
"For them, they don't care if you bring them minerals and you get sick or hurt.
"The inspector said he had taken 36 bodies out of the mine.
The day before the interview, he rescued four miners who were shrouded in smoke from an underground fire.
Yes, there are worse gases and contaminants than carbon dioxide.
Ask the cobalt miners. Cobalt-
Mine pollution caused losses not only to miners, but also to other people and wildlife in the area.
Doctors at the University of Lubumbashi found that residents living near mines and smelters in southern Congo had 43 times the amount of cobalt in their urine, 5 times the amount of lead, and four times the normal level of cadmium or uranium.
The meat of the nearby fish also contains a large amount of metal.
Soil sampling near mine
Strong Lubumbashi says the region is "one of the 10 most polluted areas in the world ".
"Babies born by miners are more likely to have obvious defects, including the most rare ones such as Mermaid Syndrome.
The Post encountered a 15-year-
An old mother said she and her doctor were frightened to see her newborn son.
"We shouldn't live like this," Nsenga said . ".
"We are suffering," said Nathan muyanba, 29 . ".
"What is our pain?
Funny jokes in the world say their pain is to save the Earth by reducing the carbon footprint of the car. On Feb.
Bloomberg told us: "Why charging your electric car at night can save the world.
On March 15, wired followed up: "More evidence shows that electric vehicles can save the Earth . "
But these statements are empty hype.
Even if the International Energy Agency is right, 0. 28 billion electric vehicles have replaced gasoline.
The impact of 2040 will be only greenhouse gases. gas emissions.
Death and destruction account for only a penny.
Does anyone occupy Congo?
Lee Harding is a research assistant at the cutting-edge Center for Public Policy.