Posted on 08/24/2023 5:51:45 AM PDT by Alas Babylon!
The U.S. is turning to a much-criticized source as it races to secure supplies of battery metals to meet the growing demand for electric vehicles.
To do so, it is homing in on cobalt from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s informal mining sector, where miners, sometimes including children, often work with no safety equipment in dangerous, hand-dug mines. Congo supplies around 70% of the world’s cobalt, a key metal in the lithium-ion batteries used in EVs, with about a third of that coming from these so-called artisanal miners.
The U.S. Agency for International Development said earlier this year that it would issue grants to companies that source critical minerals from Congo and were willing to support artisanal miners. Meanwhile, the Labor Department has been working with officials in the country to help improve working conditions and oversight.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
You and I are in 100% agreement on ending the vote fraud. I thought this thread was about the best policies for cobalt (and perhaps other mining).
“I thought this thread was about the best policies for cobalt (and perhaps other mining).”
I was merely observing that your suggestion we get government out of the way and let markets work does not work when you are up against tyrannical government.
I was drawing the parallel to elections where the same principal exists. In a fair and sane world, elections would work just fine. But when you are up against the same tyrannical government, they don’t work.
In both cases (energy policy and elections), you cannot count on freedom to carry the day.
“I was always willing to be reasonable, until I had to be unreasonable. Sometimes reasonable men must do unreasonable things.”
- M. H.
The only danger that comes from asbestos is if it is ground up into fine particles that can be carried by the air and re inhaled into the lungs.
When the EPA enforced the removal of asbestos from schools, the removal of the asbestos created more of a risk of exposure than leaving it alone would have. Asbestos was used as insulation for ‘attic’ areas and for heating/cooling pipes. It was wrapped up with cloth tape and of no danger. The asbestos in ceiling/attic areas was out of the reach of most humans and of no danger.
Didn’t matter. The ABATEMENT process continued, at a HUGE cost to the TAXPAYERS even though it was unnecessary in most cases and actually raised the risk of exposure.
Now, at the same time, every WHEEL on EVERY vehicle had 2 ASBESTOS BRAKE PADS. So, each car had 8 pads, large trucks like 18-wheelers had 36.
EVERY time the driver of a vehicle put their foot on the brakes, the asbestos pads were being ground into EXTREMELY FINE DUST PARTICLES which were easily dispersed into the air and into our lungs.
The government did NOTHING about that issue, because the cost for phasing out asbestos in brake pads and for replacing the pads in autos already in use would all have to have been absorbed by the automobile manufacturers.
No one in the government, no one in the media EVER mentioned a word about asbestos brake pads.
We need to remember these things every time the government does something to PROTECT us.
I think it’s more that they do not like us free and able to do, buy and sell without their approval.
The only dependency they want from us is on them.
Macht (Power) Uber Alles.
What a GREAT poster! or do I say Greta?
I fear the same. And for whatever reason they seem to be doing it with energy more than other things we need (although they seem to slowly be going there with food). Which is why we have tons of solar power for our all-electric home, and do most of our driving in the EV. I'm not 100% energy independent: I have to buy 18% of our power throughout the year but generate on my own the other 82% of the power we consume. That means for the most part we're not beholden to the Dims' dumb energy policies.
I don't want to improve on it any further. It'd be cost prohibitive (law of diminishing returns) to add onto my solar to achieve 100% energy independent. However, I've studied what it'd take to get there in case the Dims ever implement a mark-of-the-beast level requirement for buying energy.
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