I'm have you thought about
getting an electric vehicle?
If so, you are not alone.
Demand for EV's is way up,
which also means demand for a
metal used in battery powered
cars is also increasing.
Cobalt can be found in the state of Idaho,
which is drawing mining companies from
all over the world to the Gem state.
In fact, a new cobalt mine opens in the
salmon Challis National Forest on Friday,
and our Abby Davis learned more about it.
Abby
Morgan, I'm told this mine is the only mine
in the US that's primarily mining coal.
Faults EV batteries are made with cobalt,
but mining for the metal could
potentially harm the environment and
negative consequence mine leaders
say they're trying to avoid. Cobalt,
a metal and high demand
cobalt is pretty essential for many
types of electric vehicle batteries.
And as we know, electric vehicles
are very much on the rise.
It's also a metal,
Idaho Conservation League
spokesperson Josh Johnson says.
Idaho has a lot of
there's a geologic area known
as the Idaho Cobalt Belt.
It's a a strip of cobalt deposit
and basically in the rocks to
the West of Salmon that is.
One of the biggest cobalt
deposits anywhere in the US
that deposit drew the attention of
Australian based mining company Jervois.
The company says they've been
mining for about a year already,
but will officially open the Idaho
Cobalt Operations project in the Salmon
Challis National Forest on Friday.
Mine manager Matt Langrick says
Friday is a chance for the company
to celebrate how far they've
come. It's actually the only primary
domestic cobalt mine in the United States.
What that means is that while other
mines do get some cobalt as a form
of byproduct, we're actually mining
entirely because of the cobalt
right now. The mine will run
for seven years, Langrick says.
They'll produce something
called cobalt concentrate,
so it comes out in a form that looks
about like sand that cobalt comes out.
But about 2000 tons per year.
So over the course of seven years,
we'll produce a little more than 16,000 tons.
16,000 tons of cobalt means
a lot of EV batteries.
The amount of cobalt that we're producing
has the ability to supply roughly 400,000
electric vehicles a year, or about 2.8
million in our current life of mine.
But mines can also harm the
environment, Johnson says.
This mine is located near the
inactive Blackbird Mine site,
which contaminated several
watersheds and closed in 1980. Do
it got to the point where Panther Creek,
which is the main, main tributary
to the Salmon River in this area,
was basically devoid of aquatic life?
Like, you know, Fish couldn't survive there.
Aquatic organisms like little bugs
and things couldn't survive there
because their concentrations of metals
were too high in their streams.
Johnson says he's hopeful
this time will be different.
In an ideal world. With this,
the standards and safeguards that
are in place, you know they should.
Would be negatively impacting water quality.
Things like that doesn't mean it
can't happen, but you know it.
It shouldn't be happening if everything
goes according to plan. While mining
and environmentalism don't
traditionally go together, he says,
mining cobalt is a bit of an exception.
I don't think it would be appropriate
for us to stand here and say,
Oh no, no mining, you know,
we can't mine this cobalt.
While on the other hand,
advocating for electric,
more electric vehicles,
sustainable mining is something
Langrick says they're committed to.
Of rigorous permits,
rigorous monitoring programs in
place that make sure that what
we're doing is is held to the
highest environmental standard.
And it's something that we're
really passionate about
in case the mining operation
contaminates any water nearby.
The company built a water treatment plant,
Langrick says they don't plan on using it,
but it's there just in case.
OK, so this mine officially opens on Friday,
but when do they expect to start
shipping that cobalt that they mine?
Yeah, well, I wasn't given an exact timeline,
but language did tell me they're
planning on later this year and.
Something interesting is that
here in the United States,
there isn't a processing plant for Cobalt,
so that will be in Brazil. OK.
So everything will be shipped to
Brazil and then sent back to the US
and then that's a lot of work.
That's a lot of production.
And as we were talking about earlier,
I know in The Newsroom,
it's really a double edged sword with this,
these EV's because some of the ways
in which they mine these things
aren't necessarily sustainable,
but the EV's are more renewable source.
So yeah. All right.
Abby Davis, thank you.