Lithium mostly hits the headlines in debate about increasing battery production, but it's probably not presently the mineral that worries the industry most. That distinction likely goes to cobalt, for a few reasons.
It is - with today's technology - a vital part of lithium-ion batteries, which are those used in smartphones, laptops and other devices, including, importantly, the current generation of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. The problem with cobalt is that the designers of the planet chose to put lots of it in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and make it a by-product of (mainly) copper and nickel. That was very unhelpful of them, and creates issues that should concern all of us. Mining is a dirty, hard, physical business, wherever it happens. But in most places, it's reasonably well regulated, these days. For sure, being a child coal miner in the United Kingdom in the 18th or 19th century was a hellish existence, but (rather like the UK's coal mines) that's in the...