Already lofty global demand for cobalt will reach unimaginable heights if Net Zero-centric states and nations begin mandating electric cars, trucks, buses and tractors; ending coal and gas electricity generation; converting gas furnaces, water heaters and stoves to electricity; and providing battery power for windless, sunless periods.
Africa’s Democratic Republic of Congo holds an estimated 72% of the world’s entire known supply of cobalt. Some 70% of this (half the world’s entire supply) involves child labor, while much of the rest involves near-slave labor, in legal and illegal artisanal mines that have helped create a treeless “hellscape of craters and tunnels patrolled by maniacs with guns,” says Cobalt Red author and Nottingham University associate professor of modern slavery Siddarth Kara.
To call the conditions under which these men, women, boys and girls labor 10-12 hours per day “horrific” would be an understatement. My article makes a feeble attempt to describe these ecological and human rights abuses, citing as much of Professor Kara’s riveting book as this commentary can include.
NOTE by John Shanahan, Editor of website allaboutenergy.net: What this article is talking about is JUST the increase in cobalt mining to satisfy the current needs of Australia, Europe, and North America to go all electric for commuter vehicles, space heating and cooling, computer and communications, ground and air traffic control, subways, freight trains, elevators in high rises and skyscrapers in megacities powered by wind and solar farms and tremendous backup battery storage. In order to supposedly "SAVE" the planet (Asia, Africa, South America, the Arabic speak world from absolutely fictitious "MAN-MADE" CATASTROPHIC GLOBAL WARMING FROM USE OF FOSSIL FUELS another huge step is necessary. It will cause more monumental child-labor abuses and environmental disasters. This is all in the name of absolutely unnecessary NET-ZERO CARBON DIOXIDE POLICIES.
Self-proclaimed environmentalist Paul Hawken vehemently disagrees with those who support fossil fuels and carbon dioxide. Hawken has written: "There are not two camps. There is John Shanahan's narcissistic imaginings and simple straightforward common sense. Shanahan is intricately and utterly deluded and he does it with great skill and pseudo-humility." For Hawken's plans, see: paulhawken.com.
