On the shore of the Congo River in Kinshasa sits the Fleuve Congo Hotel, a five-star hotel with a weekly pool party in a country where most people subsist on less than $2 a day. The hotel hosts an ongoing stream of prominent guests, including the former NBA All-Star Dikembe Mutombo, the Senegalese-American musician Akon, and the founder of the Blackwater private-security firm, Erik Prince, as well as investors from Western Europe, Russia, and China. The Fleuve’s high-profile residents typically come to the Democratic Republic of Congo (D.R.C.) after the country’s main source of wealth—its minerals. But they’re not usually there for diamonds or other precious stones; most are there to compete for the country’s stores of cobalt. The D.R.C. has more of it than any other country in the world, which is now driving geopolitical competition there, not just among businesses but between the U.S. and Chinese governments. Why cobalt?
Lisa Sachs is the director of the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment at Columbia University and the vice-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Mining & Metals. According to Sachs, cobalt—along with lithium, copper, nickel, and other critical minerals, as they’re called—are essential for building vitally important new technologies, particularly for the kind of products necessary to reduce fossil-fuel consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions. Critical minerals are the main building blocks of electric-vehicle batteries and potentially key for producing, distributing, and storing clean, renewable energy. And yet, Sachs says, mining these minerals comes with substantial environmental and social costs. The mines for them tend to be powered by fossil fuels, and they tend to deplete and contaminate local water supplies, worsening global warming both directly and indirectly. In the D.R.C. specifically, cobalt and other minerals are often mined by child laborers and under dangerous conditions. Globally, China now controls much of the mining of critical minerals, particularly lithium and cobalt, which has led to a complex geopolitical dynamic around a type of natural resource likely to become only more important.
Michael Bluhm: Why are critical minerals so important?
Lisa Sachs: A lot of people don’t realize that meeting society’s material needs in the coming decades will require a tremendous volume of mined materials. The world’s population continues to grow, and it’s urbanizing, meaning more construction, more power grids, more fiber optic cables, and so on.
The massive energy transition from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources will take a huge amount of mined materials for generation, transmission, distribution, and storage—for solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries. Each component of the energy transition needs minerals. Critical minerals are essential components of those technologies, especially—but not only—for the energy transition.
There isn’t one agreed set of critical minerals. Each country has a list of them; the lists overlap, but they’re not the same. They include cobalt, nickel, copper, lithium, manganese. It’s not a static, closed list, though. The materials we need are sure to change. We’re constantly innovating for efficiency, or when the supply chain is expensive or risky, so technologies are evolving and the universe of critical minerals and the demand for critical minerals is always in flux.
Bluhm: You say demand for these minerals will increase. What’s driving the business of critical minerals now?
Sachs: There are four important dynamics. First, we need to massively ramp up the production of renewable-energy technologies—not just solar panels and turbines but also distribution grids, batteries, storage, and so on.
Second, where are we going to get these minerals? There’s already been a scramble to get them and geopolitical tension around access to them. Access is an important dynamic because it concerns who mines the minerals and what supply chains look like.
Third, there are really important environmental and social dynamics. Mining has substantial environmental and social costs, despite decades of trying to make mining more sustainable. How are we going to meet our material needs in a way that doesn’t continue to devastate the planet and cause social disruption?
Fourth—and it’s related to climate—is the growing attention to circularity: reusing products more than making new products. We know we need these minerals for the energy transition, but what are other ways to meet these needs than through mined products? How can we make our whole economy more sustainable?
Those are the four overwhelming dynamics: meeting growing need; dealing with the geopolitics of supply chains; minimizing environmental and social effects; and exploring more sustainable uses for these materials, so that we don’t need to mine as much to meet our increasing material needs.
Mining and processing are also very energy-intensive. Most energy for mining comes from fossil-fuel sources. More mining and more processing mean more emissions.
Bluhm: You mention the negative environmental effects of mining. These minerals are vital for cleaner and renewable energy, but then mining them worsens global warming by depleting water resources. How should we understand the problems with mining these minerals?
Sachs: Mining has always come at environmental and social costs. It’s inherently extractive, whether it’s underground or open-pit. It requires digging up the Earth, disrupting biodiversity, sometimes at substantial and irreversible scales. Mining and processing require enormous amounts of water, and both divert water from other purposes that can be core to livelihoods. Both discharge waste, too, into waterways used for other purposes, including human consumption and agriculture, with potentially devastating consequences—to people and to marine life.
Mining and processing are also very energy-intensive. Most energy for mining comes from fossil-fuel sources. More mining and more processing mean more emissions.
And mining has historically been implicated in terrible violations of human rights and social disruptions. If a mine is under or near a community, it can mean the displacement of that community, with major consequences for livelihoods and culture. Heritage sites have infamously been cleared to make way for mines.
Mining-related accidents are not uncommon. Dam breaches and collapsed mines have caused devastating losses of life. Mining can also have health consequences from dust and waste—and relate to local corruption at massive levels.
It’s exceptionally complicated to mine in a way that not only respects rights and preserves the environment but also leaves communities and countries better off. The surge in the need for new types of materials is likely to exacerbate all these challenges.
Bluhm: To what extent is mining these minerals worsening climate change?
Sachs: Decarbonizing the global economy is critical. The question is how to do that. What materials do we need to decarbonize? And how do we get those materials in the most sustainable way?
We’re going to need new, renewable energy sources, new power grids, and we are going to need to transform our energy systems—and that is going to take new materials. Can we meet more of those material needs with materials we’ve already mined? We’re looking into that. And we should indeed double our efforts to look into what material needs can be met with existing materials through recycling, reuse, and so on.
But we’re going to need new materials. We’re going to need lithium and other minerals to meet some of this growing need. So how do we do that more efficiently? Mining is energy-intensive, causes emissions, and exacerbates water scarcity. Those are the challenges we need to address—and there are ways to address them.
It’s not as simple as saying, Mining is extractive. Mining causes emissions. Mining needs water. Therefore, it’s not an option. It’s a necessary component to meet urgent decarbonization goals.
Most energy for mining is from fossil-fuel sources, but that’s not inherent to mining. That’s just how it’s been. How do we switch the energy source for mining from diesel and coal to renewable sources that will decarbonize mining?
With respect to water, we need improved water efficiency, water reuse and recycling, and shared-use water systems. By shared use, I mean: Mines that need a lot of water in regions that also need a lot of water—like in the desert regions of Chile—are cooperating with the utilities and other users in the area to share desalinization plants, treatment plants, and water, and to reuse technologies.
It’s not as simple as saying, Mining is extractive. Mining causes emissions. Mining needs water. Therefore, it’s not an option. It’s a necessary component to meet urgent decarbonization goals.
Bluhm: Lithium is the most important critical mineral for battery production. Even though U.S. allies Australia and Chile are the world’s two largest sources of lithium—and the U.S. has substantial untapped reserves—there’s some fraught competition with China over it. What are the dynamics around lithium mining now?
Sachs: Lithium has dominated headlines—probably for good reasons—because it is a core material in batteries and for electric vehicles. That makes it feel close to home for a lot of people. In the United States, it’s also in our backyard, literally.
But the consequences of lithium mining and the geopolitical considerations are relevant across at least a dozen critical minerals. What we say about lithium is generally true and relevant for other critical minerals. It’s not just lithium that matters; many other critical minerals matter. On the other hand, the differences among the minerals are notable—how they’re mined, where they’re mined, whether they’re substitutable, and so on.
These are strategic minerals for most countries. They’re critical to U.S. energy goals. They’re critical to U.S. national security. But all countries want to ensure a reliable supply of these materials for their domestic strategic purposes.
The mining and production of critical minerals have been increasingly concentrated, and China dominates a lot of that. The geopolitical concern is, a concentration of access to the supply of any of these minerals presents a risk. It exacerbates geopolitical tensions—but it’s also simply a geopolitical issue that has to be resolved.
Every country has government-led initiatives to develop resilient and secure supply chains for critical minerals. Those efforts include the innovation of alternatives, strategic expansions into new mine sites, trying to develop new processing capabilities domestically, investing in recycling and reuse. Governments in the U.S., EU, Japan, and elsewhere are trying all these things in the interest of energy security and independence from China.
The mining and production of critical minerals have been increasingly concentrated, and China dominates a lot of that.
But there are challenges. In the U.S., there’s a lot of resistance to new lithium mining because of the environmental and social consequences. Host communities don’t want lithium mining.
But securing the materials needed for a global energy transition is a global challenge. It’s not 193 domestic challenges. It’s inefficient and unfortunate that we’re securing our energy and material needs in this competitive way, rather than having some mechanism that facilitates global coordination, minimizes impacts, and maximizes reuse and alternatives. There’s a real case for global coordination and cooperation, but that’s not happening yet.
Bluhm: How concerning should it be that China controls access to the most critical of the critical minerals?
Sachs: It is a concern to have constraints on any part of the supply chain. If, as in the case of cobalt, the deposits are highly concentrated in one place, that presents risks to all countries. Constraints can happen if production capabilities are concentrated.
In China’s case, it’s concentrated mostly in access to ore and processing capabilities. It’s not that China has most of the ore; it’s that they were early movers to secure access to it and in developing the production capabilities to process it. The U.S. is in catch-up mode, and it’s hard to catch up when access to existing deposits has already been secured.
But I wouldn’t conflate that with anti-China rhetoric or positioning, because I don’t think an anti-China stance is helpful. It’s not going to lead to the right types of solutions. The U.S. should recognize that this is a global concern and encourage a global dialogue on how to meet goals related to decarbonization, efficiency, sustainability—and on the minerals needed for all those things.
We don’t want concentration in supply chains of critical materials. But let’s not channel that into anti-China rhetoric. We should channel that into a recognition that we have global goals and global challenges that require global dialogue and cooperation, in order to meet our shared global needs.
Bluhm: That’s a very diplomatic approach. But not all countries are approaching these minerals in a cooperative way.
Sachs: I don’t think a race for critical minerals is going to be successful for the U.S. It’s not a good solution to just mine more and more. It’s partly diplomacy, because I don’t want to start a world war over access to critical minerals. But it’s also strategic and pragmatic that an anti-China stance or competition is neither practical nor even possible.
It’s inefficient and unfortunate that we’re securing our energy and material needs in this competitive way, rather than having some mechanism that facilitates global coordination, minimizes impacts, and maximizes reuse and alternatives.
Bluhm: Some media report on cobalt as the mineral equivalent to blood diamonds, because of the lawless and sometimes deadly mining of cobalt in the D.R.C. Because of these problems, the U.S. Department of Energy is proposing to work to eliminate cobalt and nickel from batteries. How should we understand the global dynamics of cobalt mining?
Sachs: The challenges related to cobalt mining are similar to those with lithium, especially the environmental and social costs. In the D.R.C., they’re exacerbated for two reasons. One is that all the challenges of mining are even harder in extremely poor areas with limited public goods and developing institutions and laws. The D.R.C. is extremely poor and doesn’t have a sufficient legal framework to govern a complex sector like mining. The second reason is that some minerals, like cobalt, can be mined on a small scale, so there’s an increased prevalence of informal labor, child labor, or forced labor in small supply chains.
Those two challenges are related. In very poor areas, the opportunity cost of sending children to school is high if they could be generating income for the family by working on dangerous mine sites. These are the challenges of extreme poverty intertwined with the dynamics of mining and global supply chains.
Rich countries have an obligation to help countries like the D.R.C. escape from poverty by enabling them to access public finance and by supporting these countries’ investments in their sustainable development, which I think will go a long way in alleviating some of the major challenges from cobalt mining.
You mention a second interesting dynamic, which is that cobalt is arguably one of the more substitutable materials. Tesla, for instance, wants to avoid child labor or other mining challenges in the D.R.C., so it’s developing new batteries that rely on low-cobalt or cobalt-free innovations. Other companies are doing the same, and it looks possible to decrease the need for cobalt and bypass blood minerals altogether.
That emphasizes the point that no critical mineral is fixed. It’s important for countries like the D.R.C. to know that there’s always the possibility of substitution. But that isn’t going to solve the D.R.C.’s problems. The D.R.C. has limited resources to leverage for its broader sustainable development. So its ability to leverage its natural resources for economic development is quite important, and solutions that completely bypass the D.R.C. as a source of minerals don't leave the D.R.C. better off. They arguably don’t leave those poor laborers better off, either.
It’s not that China has most of the ore; it’s that they were early movers to secure access to it and in developing the production capabilities to process it. The U.S. is in catch-up mode, and it’s hard to catch up when access to existing deposits has already been secured.
It’s not an easy problem, but it emphasizes the complexity of these challenges. It’s not always the case that what’s best for our materials—and for the sustainability of our materials—is what’s best for producing countries and regions.
Bluhm: Humans have mined copper for more than 5,000 years, but copper is still a key mineral in the most advanced technologies today. It’s plentiful globally and in the U.S., but copper mining also has many of the same damaging environmental effects that we’re discussing. How important is copper?
Sachs: With each material, we should consider how plentiful the reserves are, where they are, how advanced the technologies are in extracting them, the impacts of extraction, and the substitutability of the product. Those, together with geopolitics, make up the dynamics.
Copper plays a key role in electric wiring, power production, electrification, and transportation. Because electricity demand will increase substantially, this will increase—for now—the need for copper.
Copper is amply available, but the quality of the copper ores—the material brought up before processing—is decreasing. That has implications for the environmental impact, because when ore quality decreases, mining has to go to deeper or more remote locations. That requires more energy and more water. The environmental and social effects of copper mining are substantial—and likely to increase with the increased demand for copper.
But copper is geographically dispersed, so we don’t have as many of the constraints with copper as we do in other sectors. At the same time, because of its environmental and other impacts, it’s more subject to community protests and resistance.
The emphasis for copper is improving the sustainability of copper mining—decarbonizing the energy needed for mining and looking for shared-use infrastructure models. That means that mining companies need to think about how their need for energy relates to the energy needs in the regions where they operate—how they can share the costs of building and using renewable energies and water technologies. Those are the challenges related to copper.
Bluhm: Nickel is another common critical mineral. As with cobalt, the U.S. Department of Energy wants to eliminate it from batteries. What’s going with nickel mining?
Sachs: Nickel is mostly used in battery cathodes. The question is whether we can produce those battery components with other materials. There’s been some success but with slightly inferior performance, which is not okay for the market.
It’s possible, if not probable, that the growth in demand for nickel will decrease. That matters for the nickel producers, such as Indonesia, who are dependent on the production of these items or on the extraction of these ores for their livelihoods. It’s a good case-study example of where we’re on the cusp of new technologies that will change demand for what’s been considered a critical mineral.
