WEBVTT - The Story: Mineral Wars w/ Nicolas Niarchos 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:16.439 Welcome to tech Stuff. This is the story. Each week 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.120 on Wednesdays, we bring you an in depth interview with 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:21.200 someone who has a front row seat to the most 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:25.760 fascinating things happening in and around tech, and today we're 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:32.000 joined by Nicholas Nyakos. Nakos is a journalist who writes 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:34.760 the publications like The New Yorker, The Nation, and The 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:38.279 New York Times, covering everything from the war in Ukraine 0:00:38.800 --> 0:00:43.479 to most recently, the clean energy transition. But as new 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:47.680 Orkos tells us, there are many outstanding questions about just 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:50.959 how clean the battery powered world really is. 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:53.880 You know, in the same way that automobiles in the 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:58.840 nineteen twenties, with these wonderful, shiny, beautiful things, people weren't 0:00:58.880 --> 0:01:02.120 really asking where does the crude oil come from? Where 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:04.040 are the resources that we need to go into these 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:05.080 cars come from. 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:08.240 Neokos is working on a book called The Elements of 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:12.520 Power about the natural resources required to power our electric future, 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:17.399 specifically the hidden costs of extracting minerals like cobalt, which 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.720 remains a critical element in the technology we use to 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:21.600 run our lives. 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.280 Mining is incredibly destructive. You tear up the ground and 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:28.400 you pollute the rivers, and you try and smoke into 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:30.679 the sky and so on, and then these people that 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:32.720 are left with nothing but holes in the ground. 0:01:32.800 --> 0:01:37.240 Essentially, time and again, Neocos discovered that the country's riches 0:01:37.360 --> 0:01:41.080 in these resources rarely reap the benefits of their abundance, 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:45.720 and the battle for geopolitical advantage is a constant theme 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:46.480 in his reporting. 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:51.040 Oftentimes the people who are profiting are not the local communities. 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:54.919 And I thought it was necessary for the wild to 0:01:55.000 --> 0:01:59.280 think a little bit more more deeply about that, and 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:02.480 a little bit more more about how, for example, certain 0:02:02.520 --> 0:02:06.120 actors like the Chinese and these big Chinese companies which 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:09.960 we really know very little about, have such a choke 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:11.480 hold on this supply chain. 0:02:11.960 --> 0:02:14.760 And so a few years ago Nioko set off to 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.560 do just that, show the world the impact of our 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:22.440 growing reliance on battery metals, which led him to the 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:26.880 southern capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lubumbashi. 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:32.280 So Lummbashi Katanga province a sort of ground zero for 0:02:32.400 --> 0:02:36.480 this new energy sector. About seventy percent of the world's 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:40.359 cobalt or comes from the southern Democratic Republic of Congo, 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:43.240 and cobolt is important because it's used in the cathode 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:46.320 of lithium ion batteries. Lithium ion batteries are the batteries 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:50.160 that power our devices. Our cell phones are TESLA cars, 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:55.600 and cobalt is essentially one of the ingredients that is 0:02:55.720 --> 0:02:58.840 necessary to create this kind of energy density that is 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:03.480 required for especially small devices. Yeah, so many things like 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:08.600 cell phones would be much bulkier and probably have many 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:12.800 fewer capabilities because just to get that kind of energy density, 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:16.160 there's no technology that really allows that at the moment 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:19.480 that's not lithium own batteries. There are some technologies that 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.360 are being developed now that you know, in ten years 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:24.679 time will hopefully be wonderful clean batteries, but at the 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:28.000 moment we don't know anything else that will do the 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:29.880 job of a lithium own battery as well as a 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:30.800 lithium ian battery. 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:34.280 So talk about the Chinese presence as you saw it 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:34.880 in Congo. 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:38.839 So there are two types of mining in Congo. There's 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:42.960 artismal mining and industrial mining, and artismal mining is one 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.200 in which there are most abuses. I'm not saying that 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.760 abuses from industrial mining don't exist, but the artismal mining 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:52.160 is where there are a lot of children working, where 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:54.760 there are people working without safety equipment, where there are 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.960 pregnant women washing minerals, and where people are really working 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:03.520 in the worst condition. The Chinese have a big presence 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:07.680 in both sectors basically, and some companies even straddle the 0:04:07.760 --> 0:04:11.680 artisanal and industrial sectors. There's Huaiyu, which was started by 0:04:11.720 --> 0:04:16.200 a guy called Chen Huehua, and he's basically built this 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.360 company by actually going out to Congo and buying some 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.799 minerals that have been mined in some of the worst conditions, 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.599 basically and built this huge company which is now a 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.560 supplier to Apple and a supplier to many of the 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:31.799 tech companies around the world. 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:35.120 And I mean, are there China towns in Congo's the 0:04:35.200 --> 0:04:40.120 what's the relationship between Chinese people working in Congo and Congolese. 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:46.760 So the Congolese scholar Jamatnngoi Chimbambe says that there are 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.280 no formal China towns in Congo. And he's right when 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.560 you say that. It's mainly these kind of campuses of 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:56.880 people who are working and they seem to be following 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:01.359 the playbook of former colonial powers. It's quite interesting. Just 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:03.719 if you look at like the house construction model for 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:07.400 Chinese workers in Congo. You know, beforehand they were living 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:10.360 in dormitories, they were living kind of in these pretty 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:13.960 squalid conditions. And if you look at Belgian colonialists, I 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:15.720 guess they were living in tents and they were also 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:18.200 living in pretty bad conditions. And then they start to 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:20.880 build their houses. The Chinese have also started to build 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:23.640 their houses, and now they're building what they call garden 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.520 style houses, these kind of bungalows, which in many ways 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.600 recall the kind of like the architecture of Belgian colonialism, 0:05:31.080 --> 0:05:34.120 which also had these like garden bungalows that you see 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.640 all over the place in Congo, which is very surreal 0:05:36.680 --> 0:05:39.160 because you're going through, you know, the bush and suddenly 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.040 you see you come across something that wouldn't look out 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:43.720 of place just outside Brussels. 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:47.880 So is China in your view of colonial power in DLC. 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:52.000 I think colonial power means a very different thing to 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:55.960 what it did one hundred years ago, but I do 0:05:56.000 --> 0:05:57.480 think that there are similarities. 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:01.040 But how much of the cobalt supply coming from DC 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:04.160 is controlled by China or Chinese businesses? 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:08.279 So they are by last count, eighteen large industrial mines 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:11.080 in DRC, and all of them but two are controlled 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.600 by Chinese link companies. So it's a huge amount of 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:17.440 a huge amount of congress cobald We'll never really know 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:19.640 one hundred percent full figures because there's a lot of 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.160 legal cobalt that comes out of the country, but a 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:24.400 lot of that that is controlled by the Chinese as. 0:06:24.320 --> 0:06:29.680 Well, and it's not just a supply of cobalds. You 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:34.680 chart the evolution of BYD basically from an outsourced battery 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:39.599 manufacture for the Japanese consumer electronics industry to the driving 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:42.840 innovator in battery technology and EVS today in a very 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:43.480 short period. 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.280 Yes, BYD and CAATL these are the two kind of 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:53.279 big companies that dominate the Chinese battery making sphere. BYD 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.599 is producing thirty percent of Apples iPads and they have 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:00.920 ten thousand researchers working on battery technology for Apple and 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:05.200 one hundred thousand other employees. Now there aren't ten thousand 0:07:05.480 --> 0:07:08.960 battery researchers in Western Europe. I mean, it's it's completely 0:07:09.120 --> 0:07:12.760 crazy the amount of resources that they're putting into this industry. 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:15.040 And this is something that's been led from very much 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:19.720 the top of the Chinese Communist Party and BYD is 0:07:19.760 --> 0:07:22.120 particularly interesting to me because I think that they have 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:27.960 been very very good about creating cars and focusing on 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:31.120 being an auto manufacturer, and it's not something that we 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:35.200 see here in the US. Well there are very few, 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:37.160 but you're starting to see it in Europe. I mean, 0:07:37.200 --> 0:07:41.280 there's amazing video of Musk laughing at at Bads in 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.240 twenty eleven and just being like, come on, have you 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:46.520 seen their car? Like, come on, it's never going to 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:50.920 be competitor to Tesla. This company has now taken over 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.640 from Tesla in terms of EV sales globally, and Musk 0:07:54.720 --> 0:07:56.600 acknowledged this, and Muscle has acknowledged this. 0:07:56.680 --> 0:07:59.360 Yes, but this is now not just harder work and 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:01.480 more work, but more intellectual capital. 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:05.400 Absolutely, yes, I think that's the big differentiation now. And 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:09.520 it's also not copying anymore. The Chinese are driving forward 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:13.160 battery technology and there's this idea that in the West, 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:17.680 and I actually think it's a slightly complacent way of 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.680 looking at things that in the West the education system 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:24.560 is so much better, and you know, in Japan we've 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:26.960 got better scientists, and the Japanese think this as well, 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:30.760 by the way, but the Chinese have so many more 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:33.280 people working on this stuff, and maybe ninety percent of 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.920 them are not like incredible research scientists, but then you 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:39.040 have a ten percent of them who really really are 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:40.400 pushing the envelope. 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:42.640 I believe you spent some time trying to figure out 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.360 if there were locals who were benefiting from cobalt mining 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.200 in the country, and in looking into it, you ran 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:51.400 in some trouble while hunting down at lead. 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:54.240 The interview that I had lined up was I had 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.440 been speaking to some civil society people who said that 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.720 there were connections between the cobalt minds and this sort 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:06.840 of former rebel who has once again kind of gone 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.160 on the run in opposition to the current government in Congo. 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.720 He's a guy called Jadeon, and so I thought that 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.400 it was very interesting if at least some of the 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.320 cobalt that was going into our devices was controlled by 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:24.080 this guy, who was, by all accounts a pretty brutal warlord. 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:26.920 I wasn't even meeting by Jadion. I was meeting with 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:30.880 his representatives. So I'm sitting in the restaurant of the 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:34.600 Hotel Bagadougou, and we're sitting there and then suddenly it's 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:38.120 sort of odd. There are these people wearing Chinese football 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:42.800 team shirts who come in and they're offering to sell 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:48.559 these sort of plastic radios, and then all hell breaks loose. 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:50.920 This guy sort of grabs me by the shoulder and says, 0:09:50.960 --> 0:09:53.240 come with me. I'm saying I need to speak to 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:56.960 my translator. He's got my passports. He drags me out 0:09:56.960 --> 0:10:00.560 into the sunlight, essentially, and there are seven trucks of 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:04.720 soldiers pushing away a crowd of people who are screaming 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:10.160 and yelling, and somehow it's become some sort of mini 0:10:10.200 --> 0:10:14.560 protests that's happening outside, and that doesn't seem very normal 0:10:14.559 --> 0:10:17.320 in America. But whenever there's a big police action, there's 0:10:17.320 --> 0:10:19.439 a big crowd that gathers in that part of the world. 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:21.840 The next thing I know, I'm being put on a 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:26.920 plane and they've confiscated all of my devices. They've taken 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:29.840 my laptop, my phone and all that stuff. But they'd 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:33.400 also tried to take my pens. Luckily, I had one 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:35.240 buried in a bunch of crap that I had at 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.360 the bottom of my pocket. So I take this pen. 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:42.559 I go to the bathroom and write two notes. I'd 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:45.840 seen a guy who might might have been I don't 0:10:45.920 --> 0:10:48.760 really want to identify him, because you know, he did 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:50.000 a great service to me, and I don't want to 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.120 put him in danger. But there was a guy who, 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:57.200 for whatever reason, looked like somebody who might be able 0:10:57.320 --> 0:11:02.520 to raise the issue through the appropriate channels. I actually 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:05.719 shake this guy's hand and I pass it to him 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:09.000 in that way. Two days later, I get somebody knocking 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:11.920 on my cell and I've been held in solitary confinement 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:16.960 and they said the Americans know, which is obviously a 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:19.840 sort of great relief. Then the next day after that 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:22.360 is a Sunday, and I'm just sort of kept in 0:11:22.400 --> 0:11:24.840 my room all day and I start sort of going 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.320 a bit mad. And then the day after that, I 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:31.680 wake up quite early and I am finally bundled onto 0:11:31.720 --> 0:11:33.560 a plane to Paris. 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.360 So to this day, what's your best explanation, why do 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:38.440 you think this happened? So? 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:45.239 I think this happened because basically, powerful people who control 0:11:46.080 --> 0:11:52.960 the very fundaments of the supply chain trying to stop people, journalists, 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.360 people with questions actually finding out who's profiting of it. 0:11:57.480 --> 0:11:59.719 Because there's this thing that happened to me over and 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:04.320 again and reporting this book which is being stymied by 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.480 people who are in power in order to protect their 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:12.239 own interests. 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:17.120 After the break, we discussed how America is responding to 0:12:17.200 --> 0:12:28.440 China's dominance over the cobalt supply chain. Stay with us. 0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:33.360 So you've testified before Congress here in the US. What 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.400 is the US response both to the supply chain issue 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:40.199 of China controlling sixteen out of eighteen of the major 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:45.880 cobalt mines in Congo and then secondly to this extraordinary 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:47.880 rush of battery innovation that's happening in China. 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:53.559 In December twenty twenty four, President Biden went to Angola 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:57.120 to promote something called the Lubito Corridor, which is a 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:02.480 railroad that is based on old railroad actually built by 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:05.880 British entrepreneur to bring out mineral's mind by the Belgians 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:10.960 from Congo. And basically what the US government is hoping 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:15.040 to do is to rejuvenate this railroad and rejuvenate this 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:21.920 corridor as a form of minerals leaving through Angola to 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:24.240 go to the west rather than to go to the east. 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:27.800 The problem is that the Chinese built that railroad. They 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:34.480 basically they rebuilt that railroad fifteen years ago and as 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:38.920 much as it's wonderful that DC is now able to 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:43.040 export its copper towards the US. The US doesn't have 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:47.240 any processing facilities for copper and cobalt. That might change, 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:51.240 but it's incredibly environmentally taxing to have these facilities, and 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:55.160 so that's one of the questions. Do people want cobalt 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.800 processing facilities in the US. That has to be asked 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:01.760 if we're going to have this idea of the Lobito Corridor. 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:07.040 I think, to be honest that the US has responded 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:11.000 to this Chinese dominance of the supply chain with mainly 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:15.520 hand ringing. I mean, it's definitely been on the agenda 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:18.880 of certain people on Capitol Hill. There has been some 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:23.040 really sort of vigorous debate about this, and when I testified, 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:24.440 there were a lot of people knew quite a bit 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:29.040 about this, but mainly it seems to be something that 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.520 has taken on a certain inevitability and has complained about 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:38.560 and not really addressed. And the question is can Congress 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:40.760 address it? You know, the US doesn't have state run 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.320 enterprises that can do the type of things that the 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:48.920 Chinese state round enterprises can do. They can't provide funding 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:50.640 in the same way that the Bank of China can 0:14:50.760 --> 0:14:53.360 to a company like China Malibdin and that wants to 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:56.920 go and take over the biggest cobalt mine in the 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:01.760 southern DRC. So I think it's it's it's also to 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:03.840 do with the limitations of the system that we live 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:06.280 in at the moment. So I don't think it's been 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:11.280 handled particularly well. But it's also hard to imagine a 0:15:11.320 --> 0:15:13.640 way of handling this better on the political front. 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:20.480 There's an old expression, men in glass houses shouldn't for rocks. Obviously, 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:22.800 one of the big stories in tech has been a 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.800 US led export controls on chips to China, powering the 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:31.480 most powerful AI systems. Is there a risk of a 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.320 Chinese response when it comes to cobalt or even batteries themselves. 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.760 Yes, there's a big risk of Chinese response, And actually 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:43.600 in December twenty twenty four there was a export ban 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.040 of rare earth metals from China to the US. And 0:15:47.280 --> 0:15:53.480 so this kind of tip for tat tariffs and bands 0:15:54.320 --> 0:15:58.200 looks like it will escalate. The only question is that 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:00.760 if China were to say and we're not going to 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:06.440 export lithium ion batteries or finished battery precursor materials to 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:10.400 the US or entities affiliated with the US. There's also 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:15.520 many many ways in which that can be got around 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:18.360 by US companies. How much battery money we talked about 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:21.360 sixteen of eighteen minds. What percentage of global lithium I 0:16:21.440 --> 0:16:25.960 battery manufacturing or battery processing. It's something between seventy and 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:29.520 eighty percent is a large, large percentage. In China, I 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.560 think it goes up to ninety for some minerals. Career 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:35.440 is also very big on this, and Japan has kind 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.800 of completely lost lost the ball. Indonesia does a bit 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:39.240 as well. 0:16:40.200 --> 0:16:42.960 And what about the US are the opportunities to mine 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:44.160 natural resources here? 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:48.040 One of the projects that has seen more success has 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.680 been the renovation of a mine for zinc and lead 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.800 in the Silver Valley in Idaho. The Silver Valley is 0:16:56.120 --> 0:17:00.520 a part of Idaho that has traditionally seen huge amounts 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:02.200 of mining. It was one of the wealthiest places in 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:05.639 the US back in the eighteen eighties and eighteen nineties, 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:08.920 and just as these sort of prospectors came in on 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:12.359 the back of this gold rush and remained a very 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:14.400 wealthy part of the US until the mine started getting 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:17.159 shut down. And when you go to those communities you 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:20.439 see that there is that there are voices for mining 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:23.720 and against mining, and many people feel conflicted about it. 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:28.560 Idaho also has the biggest cobalt belt in the US, 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:31.720 but for most of these critical metals, the US doesn't 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:35.840 have a huge reserve of these cobalt, especially, so we'll 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:37.640 still be relying on China for cobalt. 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:40.919 We talked a lot about Democratic Republic of Congo, but 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:43.320 talk about some of the other places where you've seen 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:44.440 mining first hand. 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:50.199 I have seen mining first hand for this book in Indonesia, 0:17:50.680 --> 0:17:53.440 and part of the reason that people are mining in 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:58.679 Indonesia is because people are mining for nickel, which is 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:03.639 to create lower cobalt cathods, but also cathodes that have 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:09.040 specific energy density qualities that are more desirable for electric 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.840 cars and a better safety profile than lithium cobal oxide, 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:17.119 which is the oldest and kind of og lithium iron 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:18.160 battery technology. 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.400 What did you see when you were in Indonesia, I mean, 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:24.640 what's the same and what's different in terms of how 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:26.359 the mining industry affects people. 0:18:26.680 --> 0:18:29.240 What was similar was that you saw a similar political 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:32.680 feeling of dispossession and you felt that people had been 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.840 pushed off their land. You had the same stories of 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:39.639 people being moved away from their farms, and you also 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.040 had the same stories about water being polluted. What was 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:49.800 different was that the conditions, while tough, were definitely not 0:18:49.960 --> 0:18:52.480 as brutal as some of the things in DRC that 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:56.879 I'd seen, and the government did seem to be more 0:18:57.160 --> 0:19:03.399 involved in policing, and whatever corruption there might have been 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:07.040 was not on a kind of you know, you didn't 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:09.000 see a sort of low level and people trying to 0:19:09.040 --> 0:19:11.760 steal shipments and so on. It was much more to 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:14.239 do with you know, large contracts being handed out by 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:18.320 certain ministers and stuff like that. And that's actually what's 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:21.320 interesting is that the history of Indonesia is a former 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:26.359 Dutch colony. You have this kind of the similar historical 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:33.280 situation where you move to a like decolonial leader right 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:38.080 after decolonization who talks about sort of nationalizing everything, and 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:42.080 then that person gets overthrown by somebody who is much 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:46.639 more venal and starts selling off the nation's resources. So 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.720 obviously no two places are exactly the same, but there's 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:54.960 there were some interesting similarities basically between Indonesia and DRC. 0:19:55.160 --> 0:19:59.520 Although the conditions were much much better for the people 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:02.199 who were that although they at the same time they 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:02.880 weren't perfect. 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:09.560 After the break, we look at some of the other 0:20:09.640 --> 0:20:13.920 natural resources being mined to fuel the energy revolution. Stay 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:28.520 with us, Welcome back, Nick. You've covered conflict zones and 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:33.480 wars all over the world. How do natural resources figure 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:34.480 into these conflicts? 0:20:35.080 --> 0:20:40.880 So I traveled in two thousand and seventeen to report 0:20:40.960 --> 0:20:43.639 on the frozen conflict in the Western Sahara. And this 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:47.520 was before I was focused on battery metals, and I 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:53.879 was going down to interview some political activists in the 0:20:53.880 --> 0:20:58.480 town of Laune, which is the capital of the Western Sahara, 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:03.520 which Morocco has occupied since nineteen seventy six and has 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:09.000 taken over that country's phosphate resources. So I was interested 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:15.280 in how much phosphates played into why Morocco was hanging 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:18.600 on to Western Sahara, why they wanted Western Sahara. It's 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:22.560 a much more complicated story to do with the way 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:25.160 that the king sees his authority and these kind of 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:30.680 pre colonial agreements with various different tribes in the Sahara, 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:35.920 but phosphates does play into it. Ten percent of Morocco's 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:40.399 phosphate comes from the Western Sahara. And basically the control 0:21:40.400 --> 0:21:43.640 of Western Sahara has allowed Morocco to have a sort 0:21:43.640 --> 0:21:47.120 of stranglehold on the world phosphate industry. Phosphates are mainly 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:49.840 used as fertilizers, but now they're used in some of 0:21:49.880 --> 0:21:55.320 these lithimyon phosphate batteries, which are a cobalt free battery 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:59.760 which has a much lower energy density than batteries that 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:00.879 have cobolt in them. 0:22:01.160 --> 0:22:03.480 Are not so good for small devices, not so good. 0:22:03.359 --> 0:22:07.639 For small devices, not as powerful, not necessarily good for 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:11.160 high performance electric vehicles, although that's debatable at this point 0:22:11.160 --> 0:22:13.840 because there's been a lot of advances in electric vehicle 0:22:14.440 --> 0:22:20.640 LFP batteries, and those batteries are seen as a way 0:22:20.680 --> 0:22:24.240 of moving away from cobalt, which is also quite expensive, 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:27.480 and they're much cheaper and they're much safer as well, 0:22:28.040 --> 0:22:30.400 but they come with this sort of trade off that 0:22:30.680 --> 0:22:34.840 phosphates are necessary for agriculture. And Isaac Asimov, the great 0:22:34.880 --> 0:22:39.000 science fiction writer, talked about this sort of moment where 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:43.880 population growth meets phosphate shortage and how that's the sort 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:46.720 of stabilizing point of human civilization. So if we're using 0:22:46.720 --> 0:22:50.119 phosphates to power our cars and our batteries. We're going 0:22:50.160 --> 0:22:51.399 to hit that point much sooner. 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:54.240 And not only that they mind in a conflict zone. 0:22:54.400 --> 0:22:57.159 Their mind in a conflict zone. Exactly so, the Western 0:22:57.160 --> 0:23:02.040 Sahara since twenty twenty one has been re embroiled in 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.119 a conflict between Morocco and the Polysaria Front, which is 0:23:05.200 --> 0:23:10.600 a separatist movement backed by Algeria, Morocco's neighbor. So I 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:14.720 wanted to point out that nothing, nothing comes for free. Basically, 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:18.399 we might think that these LFP batteries as they're called, 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:22.919 are these wonderful, you know, new technology, but actually, in 0:23:22.960 --> 0:23:25.919 the end of the day, those batteries also come with 0:23:25.960 --> 0:23:26.639 their trade offs. 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:31.880 I'm curious what's the state of the research into alternatives 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:33.840 to cobald and lithiumine batteries. 0:23:34.040 --> 0:23:38.639 So alternatives cobalt, there's sodium ion batteries, and sodium is 0:23:38.640 --> 0:23:41.800 a very very abundant element. The only problem is that 0:23:41.840 --> 0:23:44.720 they don't have the same energy density and probably will 0:23:44.720 --> 0:23:48.840 never have the same energy density as lithium ion batteries 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:53.959 because sodium ions are larger than lithium ions. Basically, so 0:23:54.359 --> 0:23:58.200 the interesting thing about that is that you probably could 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:01.720 have low range electric cars and maybe even medium range 0:24:01.720 --> 0:24:05.760 electric cars powered by the current technology. The Chinese have 0:24:06.560 --> 0:24:10.800 advanced on that front in leaps and bounds. There are, 0:24:11.040 --> 0:24:13.840 by the last count that I read, twenty five companies 0:24:14.359 --> 0:24:18.040 in China sort of fully producing sodium man batteries. There 0:24:18.119 --> 0:24:21.159 is I think one in France and one sort of 0:24:21.160 --> 0:24:25.240 Mark Cuban backed company in the US called Natrion. But 0:24:25.400 --> 0:24:28.000 it all feels a bit more like a science experiment 0:24:28.040 --> 0:24:30.000 in the West, whereas in China it's actually happening and 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:32.760 it's actually there, and you can buy sodium mayan batteries, 0:24:33.359 --> 0:24:37.480 you know, from Ali Baba very easily. Then there's a 0:24:37.480 --> 0:24:40.280