The Ugly Truth: That Shiny New EV You Wanted Could Be Powered By Child Labor

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. Government-owned miner Gecamines estimates artisanal output accounted for as much as a quarter of the country's total production in 2017.

skytop - 2/20/2018 12:27:00 PM

+4 Boost

Sshhhh....don't expose this fact that will upset the fragile snowflake liberals.

TomM - 2/20/2018 2:02:33 PM

-1 Boost

Why would using conservative's children to mass produce all sorts of things bother liberals ?

stiffy - 2/20/2018 1:03:36 PM

+1 Boost

The grim reality is that many things involve child labour; harvesting of cacao and coffee beans, textiles, propably the latest iPhone too... Look out for "fair trade" labels on your next EV

SanJoseDriver - 2/20/2018 1:39:43 PM

-2 Boost

Yeah, except most of the images being distributed about Lithium mines are falsified (it's a copper mine): https://www.snopes.com/lithium-mine-oil-sands/

You can also extract lithium from desalination.

MDarringer - 2/21/2018 8:24:57 AM

+4 Boost

@fiftysix Don't you know that Tesla makes everything out of thin air?