> No nickel or cobalt is another advantage, iron in plentiful.
Nickel is a problem but you might be surprised to know that cobalt is fairly plentiful. The issue is it doesn't have a whole lot of industry usage outside of batteries. That's why it's a human rights problem. Instead of mining it locally we use small time mining operations with cheap (often child) labor.
In other words, the amounts needed to meet global demand are below the demand needed to setup industrial cobalt mining operations.
This is why iron phosphate are both great key materials. Both are highly plentiful AND highly useful outside of battery production (thus, already have industrial mining/recycling systems setup)
There was recently discussion about opening old cobalt mines in idaho (my home state). [1]
Nickel is a problem but you might be surprised to know that cobalt is fairly plentiful. The issue is it doesn't have a whole lot of industry usage outside of batteries. That's why it's a human rights problem. Instead of mining it locally we use small time mining operations with cheap (often child) labor.
In other words, the amounts needed to meet global demand are below the demand needed to setup industrial cobalt mining operations.
This is why iron phosphate are both great key materials. Both are highly plentiful AND highly useful outside of battery production (thus, already have industrial mining/recycling systems setup)
There was recently discussion about opening old cobalt mines in idaho (my home state). [1]
[1] https://www.mining-technology.com/projects/idaho-cobalt-proj...
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