Mines Linked to Child Labor Are Thriving in Rush for Car Batteries (bloomberg.com)

Metal vital to many electric vehicles has tripled in 18 months. From a report: The appetite for electric cars is driving a boom in small-scale cobalt production in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where some mines have been found to be dangerous and employ child labor. Production from so-called artisanal mines probably rose by at least half last year, according to the estimates of officials at three of the biggest international suppliers of the metal, who asked not to be named because they're not authorized to speak on the matter. State-owned miner Gecamines estimates artisanal output accounted for as much as a quarter of the country's total production in 2017. That's a concern for carmakers from Volkswagen to Tesla, who are seeking to secure long-term supplies of the battery ingredient but don't want to be enmeshed in a scandal about unethical mining practices.

Tech giants including Apple and Microsoft endured bad publicity after a 2016 Amnesty International report said children were being sent down some Congolese mines to dig for cobalt destined for their gadgets. Pit and tunnel collapses killed dozens of workers in 2015, the advocacy group said. Cobalt has tripled in value in the last 18 months as the rise of electric vehicles intensifies competition for scarce resources. Two-thirds of the world's supply comes from Congo, the second-poorest nation. The boom in the metal, currently trading above $80,000 a metric ton, has triggered more mining in the cobalt-rich Katanga region, where sprawling hand-dug mines dot the landscape, and searching for ore is as commonplace as farming.

Comments

Next Big Social Cause

[Jakester2K]

Conflict-Free Batteries for Everyone!

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[sycodon]

Hey, at least children won't be dying of Global Warming, right?

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay no attention to all this mining, its OK. This is for environmentally wonderful EVs.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[e3m4n]

I wonder what percentage of the cobalt in that mine is Cobalt-60. That's some particularly nasty shit with a 7.8MeV photon decay and a half-life of 5.27 years. They probably will die of cancer much faster than global climate consequences.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Rei]

The three suppliers who spoke to Bloomberg estimated Congo’s artisanal output at 10,000 to 20,000 tons last year.

Congo’s Ministry of Mines estimates 86,923 tons of cobalt was produced last year. There are no exact data on how much of that cobalt is produced at artisanal mines, but the figure is about 13,000 tons higher than the output reported by the country’s industrial operators and published by the chamber of mines this month.

Two-thirds of the world’s supply comes from Congo

Math: ((10000 + 20000) / 2) / (86923 / (2/3)) = 11,5% of the world supply from artisinal mines.

Most artisinal mines are just villages digging their own land to try to get some extra income to lift themselves out of the country's crippling poverty (as the wealth from the big mines has failed to trickle down to ordinary people). But some percentage of artisinal mines will be abusive; call that fraction P. So P * 0,115 = will be the fraction of the global supply that is troublesome and needs to be dealt with. Dealing with it, however, is difficult when there's so much profit to be had by unscrupulous suppliers slipping artisinal cobalt into their supply streams.

Of course, it's not present production that matters. It's future production. Where's that coming from? In the short term, there will be even more from the DRC - albeit in new large mines. Katanga just reopened. 2018 production is anticipated at 11k tonnes per year, and 34k tonnes per year in 2019. Also, Metalkol will start production late this year, ramping up to 14k tonnes per year by 2019.

In the longer term, however production looks to be moving away from the DRC. While cobalt deposits are crazy-abundant in the DRC (cobalt prices could fall to near zero and they'd still produce it as a byproduct of their copper production), today's prices support production all over the world. Eg., in Australia the Skoni project will start in the 2020s, while among the many plays in Canada, First Cobalt is the most interest (near the aptly named town of Cobalt). But it's not just new mines; a lot will be from adding secondary recovery streams to existing mines, like the $500M Vale nickel mine at Voisey’s Bay. Cobalt can be found pretty much everywhere that nickel and copper can be found , but most mines haven't bothered recovering it because of how cheaply it's been coming out of the DRC. But while that will meet short-term demand, the long term is to focus more on mining "cobalt for cobalt's sake", rather than simply as a byproduct. And that'll be the case until the supply curve catches up with the demand curve and prices slack off.

Even mines right "next door" to the Tesla Gigafactory, like Lovelock mine in Nevada, may be opening in a couple years. It's a boom time for the cobalt market.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Waffle Iron]

I wonder what percentage of the cobalt in that mine is Cobalt-60.

Exactly 0%, since cobalt-60 doesn't occur in nature.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[jellomizer]

Real environmentalist understand that everything comes at a trade off. Decisions of course of actions needs to be address the biggest overall harming problem, compared to the smaller over all ones.

Does mining have an environmental impact: Yes
However the real questions are.... Is the Impact from mining less then the benefit from having EVs? Are there steps that can be taken to reduce the impact from mining? What are the costs and benefits from these steps?

We want simple solutions to complex problems. However all the simple solutions probably have been done, the low hanging fruit had been picked. We now need to work on the tough problems.

This means more then a Politicians stump speech targeted at an 8th grade education. Or just raising your hands and giving up because there isn't a win-win situation.

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what percentage of the cobalt in that mine is Cobalt-60. That's some particularly nasty shit with a 7.8MeV photon decay and a half-life of 5.27 years. They probably will die of cancer much faster than global climate consequences.

Wow, you started the paragraph admitting you don't know shit, and yet by the end you've concluded the horrible death of the children.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[ShanghaiBill]

Congo is sliding back into civil war. The last war there killed more than 4 million people, and was the world's deadliest conflict since WW2. Nearly all the casualties were civilians.

In the last few weeks, fighting has flared up along the eastern border with Uganda and Rwanda. Thousands have died. The world has ignored it.

Yet suddenly the media starts pretending to give a crap about the Congolese because they can put "Apple" and "Tesla" in the headline.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[stealth_finger]

I wonder what percentage of the cobalt in that mine is Cobalt-60.

Exactly 0%, since cobalt-60 doesn't occur in nature.

What about Cobalt-Thorium-G?

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Rei]

Right. Cobalt, mainly produced today as a byproduct of copper and nickel mining, which gets virtually 100% recycled at end of life, is terrible, but everything that goes into gasoline cars and everything that they burn straight into the air we breathe comes from puppies and rainbows. No, there has never been exploitation over oil production, nosirree! Cobalt (16kg per long-range Tesla Model 3) is mined at quantities up to 1% in the ore, but hey let's forget that the precious metals in your spark plugs and catalytic converters is mined at ~1 part per million quantities. Let's ignore the fact that modern ICE drivetrains are a mix of high-alloy steel (nickel and chromium in particular) and alumium alloys, a lot more than 16kg of them in a typical car, and that these don't just magically pop out of thin air either (not like the steel itself does either). No, no, only batteries are evil! We must not forget this!

Sometimes people will say, "But hey, the EV is heavier! That means it's more resource intensive." Have you checked EV weights lately? Model 3 SR is the same size as, and as fast as, a BMW 330i. Model 3 SR: 1609kg. BMW 330: 1588kg. There's a little more difference between the LR and the 340, but not that much.

But even if we want to pretend that recycling doesn't exist, this is all dancing around the fact that the vast majority of the pollution of a vehicle accrues during its usage, not its production. The comparison isn't even close. And the higher the degree of mass production of EV components, the more efficient their production gets.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[angel'o'sphere]

http://www.letmegooglethat.com...

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[guruevi]

The stuff has been down there for millions if not billions of life. Even if the star stuff was originally Cobalt-60, it's been more than 5 years.

Unless you're a creationist of course, then Chernobyl wouldn't even measure against the background radiation from all the elements that haven't decayed yet.

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Math: ((10000 + 20000) / 2) / (86923 / (2/3)) = 11,5% of the world supply from artisinal mines.

English: ((10000 + 20000) / 2) / (86923 / (2/3)) = 11.5% of the world supply from artisan mines.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[DarkOx]

meanwhile on the east cost of the US the electric everything idots are carving up some of the last large areas of unbroken forest so they can put wind turbines on the top of ever Appalachian hill and run transmission lines back to wherever.

Never mind the habitat destruction! Its less carbon!

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Trade offs are OK as long as its not nuclear. In which case we throw reason out the window and open the door in welcome of FUD.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[sycodon]

Nice trade off....for you.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

...put wind turbines on the top of ever Appalachian hill...

It's easy to do now that the tops have all been shaved off by the coal miners.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[stabiesoft]

Unfortunately, America is like a 2 year old. We focus on shiny stuff. The word of our 2 year old in chief comes to mind, sad.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[beanfeast]

Would those be the hills that have had their summits levelled by mountaintop removal coal mining?

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

We cannot allow a mine-shaft gap!

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[jellomizer]

I am fine with Nuclear in theory, however it is too politicized so we can't have the proper regulations in place. Because otherwise you are a Greedy businessman, or a Liberal Hippy.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Cobalt-Thorium-G?

I've got visions of Vera Lynn singing 'We'll Meet Again' as a Congolese mine sets off doomsday.

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably the ones left that were not strip mined.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[JaredOfEuropa]

That's the case for a lot of these so called "rare earth metals" as well. They aren't particularly rare, but mining them can sometimes be a nasty business and isn't easy to do profitably, especially in nations that actually enforce environmental regulations. But if demand drives up prices, more mines are bound to be reopened.

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever seen the deaths per terawatt statistics that nuclear has? They are orders of magnitude away from everyone else. For this reason, nuclear really needs banned for good.

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[e3m4n]

i guess you do not fully undestand half-life. Half-life is how long it takes for half of it to decay, not all of it. It takes 5 half-lives to to 'effectively' decay away. However, other nuclides decay up and down the chart all the time... neutron decay, proton->neutron decay, neutron->proton decay, etc. Then there are proton-> neutron etc. So there are plenty of things that can keep things around. Uranium-235 has a half-life of 700 million years, but the earth is 4.5 billion years old, yet uranium-235 is still able to be refined. Other things decay into other isotopes all the time. Cobalt-60 will exist anwhere a nuetron emitter of any source comes in contact with iron-59. I am sure they conduct radiological surveys of these mines. Lets be real, any place employing children are not likely to take safety precautions of any gamma emitter that in turn triggers a neutron decay of a nearby material.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[ShanghaiBill]

... put wind turbines on the top of ever Appalachian hill ...

Really? EVERY hill? Or is it actually 0.001% of the hills, and you are just rounding up to 100%?

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[e3m4n]

you assume that there were no outside influences. How much iron exists near the cobalt? Iron-59 absorbing a neutron becomes iron-60 which then beta-minus decays (proton turns into a neutron) into cobalt-60. This happens all the time in nuclear plants. While its unlikely they are using nuclear power in the mine, the possibility of other radiological surveying existing is still possible. Most of those surveys use radioactive source material to expose materials to testing. Even a gamma-emitter could in turn cause another isotope to emit a neutron. Unstable isotopes can turn protons into neutrons (or vice versus), they can capture electrons, they can give up a neutron, throw out an alpha particle (helium atom with no electrons), or can give off an electron/positron. That mine stopped being 'naturally occuring' once industry moved into the area :-)

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got that all figured out. For reference, can you cite where you cut and pasted it all from?

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, humans are like humans. We focus on the things that are immediate to us and don't really pay a lot of attention to the minutia of every other human being on the planet living thousands of miles away from us in places we'll never go to involving people we will never meet.

On the other hand the American childish need to relate ANY AND EVERY little thing back to their ridiculous political grandstand never fails to amaze me.

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[scatbomb]

Nuclear deaths per trillion kWh: 0.1

rooftop solar deaths per trillion kWh: 440

coal deaths per trillion kWh: 100,000

You're right! It's orders of magnitude away from everything else.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

You already know the half-life is 5.27 years. No conceivable amount will be left after even 500 years, and the rock they're mining is probably billions of years old.

Furthermore, the gamma radiation is 1.17 and 1.33 MeV, not 7.8 MeV.

dom

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[ShanghaiBill]

TFA presents ZERO evidence that the use of child labor has increased. Here is a complete list of the facts in TFA:

1. The price of cobalt has gone up.

That's it.

All the rest is handwaving and conjecture. Sure, if the price has gone up, the incentive to mine has also gone up, which means more labor may be needed, which means more kids may be working in mines. But that is conjecture, not evidence, and not reporting any actual facts.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA presents ZERO evidence that the use of child labor has increased. .

Yeah, just like Trump collusion.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[NicknameUnavailable]

Hey, at least children won't be dying of Global Warming, right?

Considering NOAA just got caught fudging the numbers again, I seriously doubt that was ever a real concern. That said, all-electric vehicles are definitely nicer because the smell of combustion engines is unpleasant and we're more or less fucked in the event of any oil supply disruption (for example, most of the oil we use in the US is refined in the southeastern US between a handful of refineries, if those were destroyed for whatever reason the whole system would collapse and even hording gas wouldn't do any good because it goes bad after about 6 months exposed to air.) Electric vehicles are a move toward distributed electricity, production, and stability and distributing that stuff is always good for us in the long run. The rest of the world is inherently our inferior anyway, so who cares how they extract the Cobalt?

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

I am fine with Nuclear in theory, however it is too politicized so we can't have the proper regulations in place. Because otherwise you are a Greedy businessman, or a Liberal Hippy.

The regulations are fine and have proven effective. Just another excuse to ignore the tremendous benefits as a result of years of FUD shoved in your face.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

If we can recycle all we need, why mine at all? Oh, wait a minute, maybe we'll have to still mine tremendous quantities before we ever get close to a use-recycle balance. And that's OK, because we mine other stuff.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Waffle Iron]

Man, you really are the poster boy for the phrase "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing".

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[thinkwaitfast]

They'll be safe. They're already deep in the mines.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[e3m4n]

cobalt-60 doesnt occur because the planet was born with an abundance of it. by that logic it would never occur anywhere... yet it does. Using your logic we should not be able to find uranium 235 anywhere since its half life is 700million years old. that means it would be completely gone in 3.5 billion years. Except that other isotopes are still decaying into uranium-235 all the time. Why would you assume that the planet started with X amount of anything and it only decays out of existence from there? The single biggest threat of being in a reactor room, not while running, is cobalt-60. They sure as hell didnt build the power plant with cobalt in the stainless steel :-) Fe59 becomes Fe60 which then beta-minus decays into Co60.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[sycodon]

Still works out well for you, eh?

What happened to all your bullshit about "externalized" costs?

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

TFA presents ZERO evidence that the use of child labor has increased. .

And as long as it stays at present levels, its quite OK.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

7.8MeV photon decay

This is incorrect.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[GrumpySteen]

Using your logic we should not be able to find uranium 235 anywhere since its half life is 700million years old. that means it would be completely gone in 3.5 billion years.

5 half lives of decay leaves just a bit over 3% left. That isn't "completely gone."

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[angel'o'sphere]

He he ;D

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Why anyone is missing the point that mining is not an activity for children?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4764208/Child-miners-aged-four-living-hell-Earth.html

This kind of activity have lots of other dangers linked on it, even copper mining is a dangerous activity.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[Type44Q]

Are you a moron or merely insane? Acute metal poisoning, perhaps? Serious questions.

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[Type44Q]

The last war there killed more than 4 million people, and was the world's deadliest conflict since WW2.

Thought Rwanda was 6mil.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Trogre]

You, sir, have just won this thread.

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[Cajun Hell]

Ok, let's just get this over with. Are you accusing him of being a politician, or a journalist?

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It's also fewer animals killed from pollution, so there's that.

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[ShanghaiBill]

Thought Rwanda was 6mil.

About 10,000 people died in the Rwandan Civil War, so you are off by a factor of about a thousand.

About 800,000 died in the genocide that preceded the war, but even that is a tiny fraction of the death toll in the Congolese Civil War ... in which Rwanda was a major participant.

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I love how you're cherry-picking the numbers. :-p Also, you sarcasm detector is apparently second to none.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Let's hope not.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

troll the troll eh

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we build the battery factories in Haiti? They've got like $50 billion from the Clintons

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Kaenneth]

probably like 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% at least.

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[Anonymous Coward]

When Herr Trump tweets that we should care about it, then we will. Cool your jets.

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[scatbomb]

I assumed it was sarcasm. Did you read my post? The whoooole thing?

Cherry picking? Just going to accuse without backing it up? Here's my source. What's yours? https://www.forbes.com/sites/j...

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Your source says that nuclear kills 90 people per trillion kWh.

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[Type44Q]

The "genocide" was very much a war, albeit tribal war... so off by 7.5. ;)

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[Type44Q]

Nevermind; 6mil is the figure quoted for Jewish victims of the Holocaust...

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[scatbomb]

Chernobyl was a stupid easily avoidable mistake and the American nuclear program does not own it. I'm using the number for American nuclear.

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[scatbomb]

...Also, it does not change the conclusion at all even adding Chernobyl back in. Observe:

Nuclear deaths per trillion kWh (incl Chernobyl): 90
rooftop solar deaths per trillion kWh: 440
coal deaths per trillion kWh: 100,000

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[K. S. Kyosuke]

And are you going to use the number for American coal, too? Or are you going to keep comparing incomparable values?

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Of course it does. Suddenly it's not "orders of magnitude away from everything else", but roughly on par with wind and more than US hydro, and quite likely also roughly on par with utility solar (where rooftops are not involved).

Re:Next Big Social Cause

[RockDoctor]

That too contains zero Cobalt-60. Unless someone has recently introduced a large neutron flux to it.

I suspected it was something out of fiction, but had to trawl a bit to see it's a line from 'Dr Strangelove'. I suspect there was some vaguely scientific thinking going on in the screen writers mind about putting a neutron sourcing material into the mix. I think beryllium would probably have been better than thorium, as used in modern electrical neutron generators. But hey - I'll give the screenwriter some kudos for trying.

Re: Next Big Social Cause

[RockDoctor]

I am sure they conduct radiological surveys of these mines.

Which part of "artesanal mining" did you not understand? The most technologically advanced part of the mining process is likely to be either the diesel engine in the truck hauling rock and dumping it into the crusher, or the sieves used by the workers to separate dense minerals from less dense minerals.

OK, I'm a geologist so this question might mean more to me than it does to you, but what useful information would you get from a "radiological survey" for a mine like that? Your ore selection is going to be by eye - someone who has worked previously in a cobalt mine says "I think that [point at vein in tunnel wall or layer in sand bank] is what they'll pay for" ; grunt labour follows the vein/ layer ; more grunt moves the rock ; more grunt separates the rock into heavy/ light or light-dark fractions. The next encounter with technology will be in the assay office before the cash is paid for this lorry load.

I'd be a very nervous geologist carrying round a $10000 hand-held XRF multi-element assay sensor in the Congo. But whether it'd be more dangerous having several armed bodyguards around (who would know that I had something valuable, including their wages) would be a very moot point.

Moscow Donald - Treason, Obstruction of Justice

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry - this obvious traitor and scam artist can count on the uneducated racist vote to assist Russia's anti-American agenda.

Re:Moscow Donald - Treason, Obstruction of Justice

[sycodon]

I used to think that Slashdot's rating system was kind of wonky, but I grew to accept it. I still think it has issues.

But one think they could do is allow us to filter out ACs as 90% of what they post is unmitigated fucking shit.

Re:Moscow Donald - Treason, Obstruction of Justice

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure the parent comment was very offensive to a supporter of Moscow Donald's collusion with Russia's attack on America.

Re:Moscow Donald - Treason, Obstruction of Justice

[Waffle Iron]

I set the filter at -1 because some of the other 10% of AC postings are actually informative. Take the post you replied to, for example. While it is offtopic, nobody can seriously claim that it's untrue.

Re:Moscow Donald - Treason, Obstruction of Justice

[Dread_ed]

I see your brainwashing is complete. Go forth and ignore all factual information forevermore.

I believe the children are our future...

[Anonymous Coward]

...except the African ones.
-Elon Musk

Re:I believe the children are our future...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder what BLM has to say about this.

Re:I believe the children are our future...

[Rei]

Just so you know - naturally everyone is using this as a chance to pile on Musk, but the Panasonic cells used in the Model S and X get their cobalt from the Philippines, and Tesla is setting up Gigafactory supply contracts with American and Canadian mines. Musk has a personal obsession with physically shortening supply chains.

Re:I believe the children are our future...

[Anonymous Coward]

$0.30 has been deposited to your account.
-Elon Musk

Re:I believe the children are our future...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious, how many Musk posters do you have on your walls?

I ask because boy do you make it a point to go out of your way defending him at every opportunity. It's amazing, I almost never see you post unless it's about him or one of his ventures.

Re:I believe the children are our future...

[Anonymous Coward]

So; is what he says true or not true. That's what matters.

Re:I believe the children are our future...

[Bratch]

I believe that you must stake a claim prior to commencing mining operations on land under control of the Bureau of Land Management. A three foot pile of rocks ought to do it - https://www.blm.gov/programs/e...

But I thought

[Anonymous Coward]

we had 3D printers mining asteroids privately?

they can move to foxcon Congo with the non kids

[Joe_Dragon]

they can move to foxcon Congo with the non kids working the mine.

What age do they classify as a "child"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes a difference to the question. Seems like click bait trying to make you imagine tweens digging in the mines.

15 years - I have an issue. older? isn't getting a job a normal event for Young adults?

Environmental and conditional issues (which would apply to workers of any age), I can't say I have an issue.

Re:What age do they classify as a "child"?

[Calydor]

But why do you have an issue?

A century ago it was par for the course that kids on farms helped out wherever and whenever possible. They didn't sit in their rooms listening to music and reading comic books, they were out in the fields or barns doing heavy lifting.

Our part of the world has changed since then. It has grown economically by leaps and bounds. Other countries, other parts of the world however, do not have those same luxuries. They are still trying to play catch-up, and if we keep denying them the very paths we took ourselves to our prosperity, then we are doing things wrong.

THAT SAID, mining is not a profession for a child. Safeties for all involved should, of course, be demanded as much as possible. But if the options for getting dinner for a child is stitching t-shirts in a textile mill or selling their body to sex tourists, and those two are the ONLY two options the child has, which would you prefer? Which is the lesser evil?

Re:What age do they classify as a "child"?

[Rei]

You can get a sense of what the mines look like by doing an image search for "artisinal mining" (although of course that'll tend to self-select for the more dramatic). There's a wide range, from single families up to mass endeavours run illegally by overseas funders that recruit / ship in labour. Most common is somewhere in the middle. People spread the knowledge of what cobalt ore looks like, someone finds some on their or their village's land, the people are dirt poor and know that some of the less scrupulous small mines will buy it off-the-books and add it to their product stream, and the race is on to get it out of the ground by whatever the means they can. The people digging them are overwhelmingly not miners - but they know that if they can get it out of the ground, it means food, clothes, medicine, a chance for a better life. But their improvised mines are usually highly dangerous.

Re:What age do they classify as a "child"?

[Anonymous Coward]

That was my point, which is why the definition of what is a child is important.

There is a inner limit which most people set arbitrarily, be it 15,14, 13 12 or whatever at which we say its too young. But the article makes no mention of where this line is.

Infantilizing young adults is bad for society, in the same way that applying first world rules makes no sense in the third world.

Re:What age do they classify as a "child"?

[pr0fessor]

There are still plenty of family owned farms in the US mid-west and the kids on those farms do farm chores. I see nothing wrong with kids doing a little hard work and learning responsibility I consider it an extension of their education. It should however be work done in a safe environment and shouldn't interfere with the rest of their education.

I grew up in a farming community and many of my friends worked on the family farm and I worked on a few farms when I was a teen. I also worked in my father's metal shop when I was very young.

Re:What age do they classify as a "child"?

[Anonymous Coward]

> isn't getting a job normal
Great news then, those 16'ers absolutely have jobs.

Not all of them were lucky enough to be sent into shitty unsafe mines, but your warped worldview will be very happy to hear that they're largely "employed" and selling their bodies somehow. Very self made, very bootstraps. Christ.

Re:What age do they classify as a "child"?

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Don't tell Apple Inc. or they'll be selling the next iPhone complete with artisinal batteries.

bit fat nothing

[fluffernutter]

I wonder how much of BIG FAT NOTHING will Muskie do about this?

Far better to have these children starve!

[gweihir]

Don't get me wrong, children working in mines is horrible. However, they are working there because the alternatives are worse. Closing down these mines or sacking the children will not make their situation better, it will make it massively worse.

Of course, that is too complex a situation for the media and for many people. Hence they demand that child labor be stopped and are thereby contributing to the evil.

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[Kokuyo]

Same thing with clothing production. If child labor, child prostitution and death are the only three options, then the child labor is suddenly looking pretty darn good.

Of course shame on all of us that there are still places on the planet where those are the only options...

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah there was a story I read a while back about do-gooders eliminating child labor (a factory). So the human traffickers moved in..

Hey but at least the kids aren't working in a factory, right?

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah if these mines turn a profit they can maybe employ the parents at a living wage who can in turn give kids a real life.

Is this suddenly 1840 again? Are you in fact twirling your mustache right now

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[fluffernutter]

I think people are demanding that American companies not profit from child labor. No it isn't our job to make the situation better for these people but we don't have to benefit from it either. If you really want to help these people, then you need do something very different than paying their masters.

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[geekmux]

Don't get me wrong, children working in mines is horrible. However, they are working there because the alternatives are worse. Closing down these mines or sacking the children will not make their situation better, it will make it massively worse.

Of course, that is too complex a situation for the media and for many people. Hence they demand that child labor be stopped and are thereby contributing to the evil.

"Pit and tunnel collapses killed dozens of workers in 2015..."

Employing children is not the main issue. Employing children in dangerous fucking jobs is the issue that gets everyone fired up.

Is every alternative truly worse?

Are there no jobs that could be created within this booming cobalt mining industry to create safer working conditions and prevent starvation?

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. it's called exploitation. Children are cheaper than adults. Child labor in any form is wrong. Period.

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am currently in rural Katanga and there's massive amounts of inefficiency in regards to farming practices, mainly from the preference of growing tapioca rather than more efficient crops. Malaria is quite common in the area, and education is generally limited to a single school covering a large number of villages. As the farming is so inefficient, and mainly for personal consumption rather than export, the villages have very little in terms of economic activity. The local male population will travel tens of kilometres by foot to work at mines. If there is a large internationally run mine nearby, the area's economy will pretty much revolve around it and yes some of the workers for these mines do look suspiciously young, but not many. However, a single mine in an area can't employ everyone, even indirectly. So artisinal mining is an alternative. It sucks, but for you to actually fix it, you need an economy that isn't based upon it.

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[hackertourist]

Closing down these mines or sacking the children

You're missing the non-evil option: the mine could fire the children, hire their parents and pay them enough to feed their family. You know, like people do in civilized society.
This would make the cobalt more expensive, but so what? There's a few grams of cobalt in a phone battery, you're not even going to notice a doubling in the price of cobalt.

Re: Far better to have these children starve!

[houghi]

Or, hear me out, have their parents work there so the kids do not have to. Yes, that would mean an increase in price.
But many would rather have chrap whatever for whatever the cost.

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[Anonymous Coward]

>Of course shame on all of us that there are still places on the planet where those are the only options...
I would only feel ashamed if my solution was to do absolutely nothing, which is what most people's solutions are.

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why stop there? Considering that death trumps all, why not use child prostitution or child slavery? At least the kids are alive and learning valuable career skills. /sarcasm

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[Anonymous Coward]

Should $yourcountry conquer the rest of the world in the name of saving the children?

If you want to contribute to their charity, the local warlords take it all. If you start local conflict to hopefully overthrow the local warlords, they conscript the children into their rudimentary armies at gunpoint, and often slaughter the remainder of villages where any such conscription took place. If you want to directly fight the warlords with your own armies, they will use those children as human shields (much like those Hamas fuckers - sorry, but Israel can literally tear the head off their leader and use his neck for a toilet for a solid month before I even start to feel pity for those serial child abusers...). If we ever needed an AI to solve a problem, it's that one.

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[Dread_ed]

Who are you to judge their cultural standards? You aren't Congolese so how dare you comment anyways. SO racist!

Personally I'm just glad the overwhelming threat of "cultural appropriation" accusations from China and the Congo keeps the US from employing children in mines. Do you have any idea how expensive medical coverage is for a 7 year old working in a mine? I have three children. Talk about cutting into my Starbucks budget! Ugh! /sarcasm

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you really want to help these people, then you need do something very different than paying their masters.

Like what? As with most idealists you are big on solutions but short on details...

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[CanHasDIY]

Don't get me wrong, children working in mines is horrible. However, they are working there because the alternatives cost more money.

FTFY. Let's not get in the trap of thinking that African warlords are suffering a sudden bout of altruism.

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think people are demanding that American companies not profit from child labor.

If you acknowledge the GP's point - that having children paid for labour is, while bad, better than those children starving - then you should realise that this is misguided. The profits for these companies are the reason those jobs exist in the first place. If you successfully prevent companies from profiting from child labour, they won't engage in it: they'll establish production facilities in other countries, probably automated, and the Congo will stay poor.

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[fluffernutter]

If all foreign companies pulled out of all companies employing child labor they would clean up their act pretty quick.

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[Cederic]

However, they are working there because the alternatives are worse.

What, them and their families getting butchered by the warlords that profit from this?

Reducing demand will reduce the exploitation, and yes, it is exploitation.

Re:Far better to have these children starve!

[fluffernutter]

Using these companies is not creating a desirable effect either, so you wasting your time on an absolutely moot point.

Every Fuel has its Price. So far.

[eepok]

With oil, the cost is the greenhouse gas effect, smog, and non-GHG emissions that are bad for breathing.

With battery electric vehicles, the batteries and the source of power are the issue. And the only reason you need SO MANY batteries is because the batteries are just a storage vessel. There's no on-board power generation.

With hydrogen, there's potential, but it's still complex. Hydrolyzers take up a bunch of power to split H2O and then require high-pressure containment to hold the hydrogen. Sure, you could use wind/solar to power the hydrolyzer or even use excess grid power from renewables to store that power in hydrogen, but you still need oodles of distilled water and then need to transport the hydrogen. I can foresee 100 years from now there being warm ocean platforms that distill water on the fly and use wind/solar to power hydrolysis and then pipe/ship out hydrogen... but the system certainly doesn't exist today.

Re:Every Fuel has its Price. So far.

[Tsolias]

sun is free, wind is free, thus both distilled water and hydrolysis are free. The cost of PV panels or wind turbines is just what every investment needs, capital for the infrastructure.
someone might say, and what about land or mountains or sea.
Welp, deserts, sea and mountain peaks are uninhabited and flora/fauna free (for the sea I mean the surface, for the mountains I mean the naked peaks, for desert..ooh come on)
The real question is, why doesn't anyone do it?
Well biodiesel is a thing and there is a shitload of regulations against it.
Why would you let people produce their own fuel, if you can import it almost for free and then charge it 10 times more?
...and as a reference for the burgers, in whole europoor Unleaded 95 is 1.5euros, Diesel(mixed with bio ofc) ranges from 1.20 euros to 1.50, and in southern Europe LPG or as the french call it GPL(v4) is a little less than a jewro... all those are per litre.
In burger numbers, and if my math served me right, the 95 octane Unleaded is approximately $7.04 per Galon.

Wage disparity

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think the difference between Bill Gates and the lowest M$ employee is big. Look at the mine owners and the child slaves in the mines.
gweihir-
It is not kids clocking in for a 9-5 job. It is children being grabbed from villages and put to work. Children do not organize revolts like adults do.

Time for Elon Musk to step up

[Anonymous Coward]

With the blueprint for another "boring" company.

Vibranium

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the solution is to get some professionals in there to run the country. Wakanda showed us the way.

deep see mining for cobalt nodules

[Anonymous Coward]

see part 5

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/deep_sea_mining

False dichotomy

[rsilvergun]

This isn't a complex situation. This isn't the 1800s let alone the 1600s. There is zero reason these kids are being sent to the mines. The alternatives are worse because the foreign policy of the leading nations makes it worse. You're just telling yourself (and everyone else) this clap trap to make yourself feel better about not solving the problem.

It comes down to this quote

Re:False dichotomy

[Anonymous Coward]

Shit holes are shit holes, blaming "leading nations" doesn't help. How do you fix shit holes? NGOs make it worse. USAID makes it worse. Giving money to a charity makes it worse (usually, Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross tend to actually ease suffering). The UN makes it much worse.

Re:False dichotomy

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're really oversimplifying it. GP's right, and I think what he's getting at (which you seemed to miss) is that the solution to this isn't just to shut down these facilities immediately, it's that we need a mixed approach that improves the situation in these countries so that kids aren't forced into labor just to stay alive.

Re:False dichotomy

[Dread_ed]

Since America is not a Christian nation I wonder what country Mr. Colbert is referring to. Just where the hell he was when he originally stated this? Is the Congo a Christian nation? Was he there when he said this? If so that quote might make finally make some damn sense.

If not, we are back at square one: You and Colbert both having no understanding of the US government, Christians, and of the Bible.

Re:False dichotomy

[gweihir]

Indeed.

jurisdiction

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US, this sort of child labor is illegal. But the Democratic Republic of Congo does not lie within US jurisdiction. Nor should it. The responsibility to either ban this, or refuse to ban it falls entirely on the people and government of the DRC and no one else. To claim otherwise would be a violation of the Human Right of Self-Rule.

Children have always been desirable for mining

[rsilvergun]

You can dig smaller tunnels and they're too young to understand the risks. I'm not kidding either. There's lots of stories of kids in mining in the US from before child labor laws.

Difficult Problems

[foxalopex]

Consumers today unfortunately don't see the true cost of what all their products are. If they did, I sometimes wonder how many things we could stomach. It also seems that unfortunately when something seems "too good to be true" it turns out that somewhere someone paid the price either in environmental damage, or in sheer human lives. I'm not really sure what the ultimate solution is, as consumers the best we can do is to try to be aware of how things are made / built and pick those which least destroy our environment and lives. But that's easier said than done. CFCs for instance were deemed completely safe and they are. Who could have discovered that once it got high in our atmosphere it would destroy ozone which would lead to an increase in deadly skin cancers.

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[account_deleted]

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Maybe it's not so horrible

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean, all the Millennials around me are complaining they don't have jobs, and they act like children, so

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Tell those kids ...

[PPH]

... to dig faster. I want to go out for a cruise in my Tesla.

Re:Tell those kids ...

[Anonymous Coward]

...As they dig deep in the mines we can hear them chant "Khali Ma, Khali Ma!".
We can see them on a short break in the photo below, rescued by Indiana Jones of course :)

https://dionwynhughes.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/indiana_jones_and_the_temple_of_doom_1984_500x363_360116.jpg

_

Zoolander

[Anonymous Coward]

You realize you just gave the plot for Zoolander.

If that's what it takes to get people attention

[rsilvergun]

then what does that say about the people consuming that media in the developed world. After all, the media publishes what folks want.

Re:If that's what it takes to get people attention

[youngone]

the media publishes what folks want...

Not where I live.

We have two major news publishers, and they have absolutely no clue about what their customers want, and as a result are losing those customers hand over fist.
At the moment they are trying desperately to merge, as if that will solve their competence problems, but the regulators have told them to go jump in a lake, which is nice.

FH to the asteroids

[k6mfw]

Along with equipment from the Boring Co. to mine asteroids for cobalt. Musk and Co. can secure the high ground like Europeans did with the New World back in the days. Don't need to feel guilty exploiting children, don't need the Fifth Fleet to keep the sea lanes open (oh, maybe need the Space Command to thwart off space pirates).

Re:FH to the asteroids

[Locke2005]

But, but, but... what about the baby robots???

Cue "Slave Children's Crusade" song

[Anonymous Coward]

Fantastic music to listen to while reading this article. Someone with a whip could probably solve this whole mess.

No Shame Here

[kackle]

Of course shame on all of us that there are still places on the planet where those are the only options...

I can't control where, when, and how many babies people have.

Linked to?

[Anonymous Coward]

Presumably these mines are not actually using child labour, or they would have written that, wouldn't they?

Easier to mine Vibranium

[WillAffleckUW]

It's much easier to mine that.

Something that always bothered me

[Locke2005]

Shouldn't mine labor be the FIRST occupation to be completely replaced by automation? Robots don't steal, robots never need to come back up to the surface, robots can work in 200 degree heat, and people don't get too upset when a mine roof collapses on a bunch of robots. (They get even less upset when a mine collapses on a bunch of lawyers, but there are some things even a lawyer won't do.)