Perhaps no country has more to gain from the ‘clean’ energy transition than the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which sits atop some of the world’s biggest copper, cobalt, coltan and lithium reserves.
The planet’s cobalt reserves total 7.6mn tonnes of which the DRC has 3.5mn tonnes, followed by Australia with 1.4mn tonnes and Indonesia with 600,000 tonnes, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). In 2022, the DRC produced an estimated 130,000 tonnes of the metal, or 70% of the world’s production (Indonesia, in second place, produced only 10,000 tonnes).
Cobalt is an essential component in lithium-ion rechargeable batteries used in electric vehicles (EVs). It is also present in many of the portable devices that are part of daily life – including smart phones, tablets and laptops. In most cases, it is a by-product of nickel and copper mining. Cathodes in lithium-ion batteries are made up of between roughly 10% and 30% cobalt, with each EV needing between 6 kg and 12 kg of the element.
Furthermore, the DRC is endowed with vast copper and coltan reserves and large – mostly untapped – lithium deposits. In 2021, the DRC produced around 1.88m tonnes of copper, becoming the leading copper-producing country in Africa (Zambia was the second biggest producer at 880,000 tonnes). The DRC has 60% of the world’s coltan reserves. Coltan is used primarily for the production of tantalum capacitors – used in mobile phones and almost every kind of electronic device.
For the rest of this article: https://intellinews.com/could-the-drc-become-the-saudi-arabia-of-the-electric-vehicle-age-304435