Conflict Minerals

Conflict minerals are elements and minerals that are mined under abusive conditions.

Fresh Questions about Electric Vehicles
by Gary Olhoeft, PhD and Katie Singer

Coal
Healy, Noel, Jennie C. Stephens, Stephanie A. Malin, “Embodied energy injustices: Unveiling and politicizing the transboundary harms of fossil fuel extractivism and fossil fuel supply chains,” Energy Research & Social Sciences, 24 September 2018.

Cobalt
for lithium-ion batteries that power smartphones, laptops and e-vehicles

The Cobalt pipeline: Tracing the path from deadly hand-dug mines in Congo to consumers’ phones and laptops 

“This is What We Die For: Human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo power the global trade in cobalt,” Amnesty Int’l., January, 2016.

Coltan
Consuming the Congo: War and Conflict Minerals in the World’s Deadliest Place, Lawrence Hill Books, 2011.

Graphite
for lithium-ion batteries that power smartphones, laptops and e-vehicles

In Your Phone, In Their Air: A trace of graphite is in consumer tech. In these Chinese villages, it’s everywhere