Cobalt

Why so quiet? Because the violence keeps a supply chain running.

Congo's Cobalt and Colton go into the phones we scroll on, the electric cars we feel good about, and the servers training the AI we're told is neutral.

In 2019, families of children killed or maimed in cobalt mines sued Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla in a U.S. court.

Sudan gets even less.

And in the heart of Africa, a country sits atop a treasure trove of some of the world's most strategically important minerals on the planet.

Cobalt, copper, lithium and other resources essential to the technologies shaping the 21st century.

Now imagine that world where two of the most powerful economies are competing for access to that treasure.

That happens to be the Democratic Republic of Congo's dilemma.

It's that, I knew this was going to happen sooner or later, but here we are.

Gets Backed Miner says China is frustrating DR Congo's exploration efforts.

Cobalt Metals has asked the U.S. State Department for help as it waits on U.N. security clearance to run aerial surveys.

And part of the story reads, a mining company backed by Bill Gates has asked the US government for help with his $50 million project.

Learn more at jira.com. That's J-I-R-A dot com.

So that the Colton and Cobalt, yeah,

yeah, yeah.

The Colton and Cobalt and our smartphones and the surveillance drones and the gaming devices, they all carry pieces of our ancestors.

Like it's our fossils in those machines that are giving it its power, right? And so in the song I say, shaking those robots wake, shaking those robots wake, speaking about the idea of us potentially connecting with our ancestry through these devices.

and shifting the whole shit up, right? That's what that song is about.

And then that kind of excited us because that meant we could shoot on location and with indigenous languages and indigenous actors and all this type of stuff.

I had to explain to everybody what was going on in the Congo.

And the numbers that you presented are quite stark.

I mean, Africa has about 30% of the world's mineral reserves, including 60% of Colbert and 40% of gold reserves, and yet contributes only 2.9% of the global GDP, with per capita GDP around $2.8.

Which access barriers is resurgence targeting, and what outcome would you... want the outcome of those targets to be? I think

there are three areas.

These fumes were very toxic.

In 1735, these cobalt ores were found to be the source of a new metal previously known, and it was named after this cobalt word.

Cobalt was the first metal discovered since ancient times, after more than 2,000 years, without the discovery of a new metal.

Nowadays, cobalt is essentially obtained as a by-product of the mining process.

of more important metals like copper, but it has several uses in industry, particularly in alloys, and one that is very old, dating from before it was identified as an element.

Cobalt in compounds like cobalt silicate or cobalt aluminate gives a deep blue color to paints, glass, and ceramics, These cobalt blue pigments have been used since antiquity in paintings, jewelry, and glass.

In biology, cobalt is also an important component of vitamin B12, which is essential for all animals for cellular metabolism and DNA synthesis.

Let's continue with element 28, nickel.

To follow much of the world's mined cobalt back to its source, we travel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

and especially to the copper-rich southeast of the country.

Here, around places such as Colwazy, Cobalt, and Copper, share parts of the same geological story.

Cobalt is often recovered alongside copper, rather than from a mine devoted entirely to cobalt alone.

This relationship ties their economics together.

A decision to expand copper production can also increase the amount of cobalt available.

the materials and distant devices are connected to lives as ordinary and individual as our own.

We carry that thought onward without reducing a whole country to a mineral or a single difficulty.

hi mining international welcome back to another episode of the dig deep the mining podcast the show that brings you the latest insights thought leadership and stories from across the global mining industry in today's episode we have geraint harris who's the managing director of ultimate a an ex and he's an experienced mining executive with extensive background in mine development operations corporate strategy and leadership across the international mining industry In this episode, we're going to explore Gawain's career journey, the challenges of developing and financing mining projects, what makes an effective leader and how to build high performing teams.

We're also going to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing the mining industry, particularly in Europe and the lessons he's learned throughout his career.

He's also going to be attending the Resourcing Tomorrow conference at the Business Design Centre in London from the 1st to the 3rd of December this year.

The conference is the anchor event of the London Mining Week, bringing more than 2,300 senior decision makers together, including ministers, mining CEOs and investors, all under one roof, with a practical focus on how capital gets deployed, projects get approved How the industry delivers the metals and minerals the world needs today.

So as a media partner to the event, I'm going to put a discount code in the show notes to get a discount on early bird tickets.

So please go and get your tickets soon and you'll see those in the show notes.

um basis and with a certain amount of adventure and seeing you know some unusual and challenging and some quite varied parts of the world so i thought that sounds good to me and um finally graduated from the uk and actually did a master's in the us following that also in mining engineering at the mackey school of mines in nevada and the real attraction for that was to get kick-starting my career in the US and from that Masters you got a work visa and then you could get sponsorship.

I don't think the US has ever been very easy, as many countries haven't been, to get a work visa for.

Someone put up a meme with a kid, like a little African kid.

And he's in the mines and he's mining Colbert.

And he's going, Greta, I'm trying to get that Colbert as fast as I can for your electric cars.

I mean, I know it's just...

It's just a mean meme, but at the same time, that's the reality.

But right now, again, with gain of function, these different types of variants are actually killing people.

So in the Democratic Republic of Congo, they have child labor and forced labor.

What for? For Colbert.

When you add electrons like phosphide, you just add them to the nearest empty spot.

But when it comes to taking away electrons, for example, if we had cobalt.

Cobalt is number twenty-seven on the periodic table.

When you figure it out, it has an argon core, four S two, three D seven.

How did he get that? Let me share with you.

Three-- Manganese is three D five.

Iron, cobalt.

[clears throat] Cobalt is seven electrons in.