Ian Bradford: The inherent danger of lithium-ion batteries

I have previously written  about cobalt for batteries in EV’s, and indeed many devices, being mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by small children as young as seven.  Amnesty estimated there were about 40,000 children working in the mines. Many have been killed and many others will suffer serious lung damage.  The New Zealand government launched a “Plan of Action” on the 16^th march 2021 by the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety, The Hon Michael Wood. The plan reaffirms New Zealand’s commitment to prevent and eliminate all forms of modern slavery and child labour. Instead, just a few months back, they did yet another push for electric vehicles giving even more incentives to purchase them. What a bunch of hypocrites. 

Ian Bradford: THINKING OF BUYING AN ELECTRIC VEHICLE? Read this first.

In 2017, Human Rights organisation Amnesty produced a report into Cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It found that there were children as young as seven, working in dangerous conditions. 

Cobalt is a vital component of Lithium- ion batteries used in electric vehicles, and of course such things as cell phones.  DRC produces around 70% of the world’s cobalt. Miners working in the mines face long term health problems including lung disease, and risk fatal accidents. Between Sept 2014 and Dec 2015 it is claimed at least 80 miners had died underground in southern DRC. 

Dennis Wesselbaum: Policies promoting Electric Vehicles - Too fast, too furious

Politicians are recently pushing for a large-scale adoption of battery electric vehicles (BEV; currently <1% of vehicles in NZ) to reduce the emissions generated by the transport sector.

The emissions reduction plan supports this with $1.2bn of spending, of which $569m are used for the “Clean Car Upgrade” programme. In addition, the government plans to ban importing high-emitting vehicles in the closer future. These policies imply that the government appears to have picked the “best” technology (BEVs) and now wants to implement it.