Globalism has some competition with ethics! The chip shortages weren't a thing when the permits here got started 8 years ago. I'm very curious to see how this plays out in comparison to Agenda 2030. The pictures on the article show landscapes we, are used to seeing in other countries, with negative ecological consequences far away. This endeavor brings jobs back to the US too.
the area’s most immediate draw was cobalt, a hard, silvery-gray metal used to make heat-resistant alloys for jet engines and, more recently, most of the lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. The Salmon-Challis sits atop what is known as the Idaho Cobalt Belt, a 34-mile-long geological formation of sedimentary rock that contains some of the largest cobalt deposits in the country. As the global market for lithium-ion batteries has grown—and the price of cobalt along with it—so has commercial interest in the belt. At least six mining companies have applied for permits from the U.S. Forest Service to operate in the region. Most of these companies are in the early stages of exploration; one has started to build a mine. In Idaho, as in much of the world, the clean-energy revolution is reshaping the geography of resource extraction.
Blackbird closed in the early 1980s after more than 30 years of intermittent operations. By then, the surrounding creeks were lifeless; heavy-metal pollution had killed off most of their fish and aquatic insects. The concentration of copper in one creek was so high that the water turned bright blue. (Copper is often found in the same areas as cobalt.) In 1993, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed adding Blackbird to its National Priorities List, a designation reserved for the worst-contaminated sites in the country. Ultimately, the EPA negotiated a settlement with the companies that owned the mine. But the agency did label the mine as a Superfund site, initiating a cleanup that has so far cost the companies more than $100 million.
When I asked people in the cobalt industry about Blackbird, many pointed out that mining practices and regulatory oversight have improved in recent decades. But accidents can still happen. “Man is imperfect,” said Daniel Stone, a policy analyst for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, whose historic homeland covers the southern half of Idaho and large portions of bordering states. “Small flaws could lead to big problems down the road.” For Stone, those problems are deeply personal: Mining not only polluted the Shoshone-Bannock homeland but led to the forcible removal of Shoshone people from the area in the late 19th century. “It’s what some people would call historical trauma,” Stone said. “But I have a problem calling it historical trauma, because it never stopped.”
The majority of cobalt mined in the Congo is exported to China—84 percent in 2019. In a report on strategically important supply chains issued in June, the White House rated the nation’s cobalt supply more vulnerable than any other metal. Though the report raised supply concerns about other metals that are needed to make lithium-ion batteries, namely lithium and nickel, it described the cobalt market as “one of the most comprehensive ways China has gained a competitive advantage in the critical materials landscape for batteries.”