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Demand for electric vehicles is skyrocketing, as is demand for the batteries that power them, and that could drive a mining boom in Idaho's Salmon-Challis National Forest. Located in the central-eastern part of the state, the forest contains Idaho's so-called Cobalt Belt, which is rich in one of the key metals needed to manufacture electric vehicle batteries.
EV batteries typically consist of lithium, cobalt, and nickel—all of which are in short supply. Right now, 70% of the global supply of cobalt is currently produced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the majority of that is sold to China. But the U.S. Department of Energy is looking to increase domestic production of the metal, which it considers to be the highest material supply chain risk for electric vehicles.
Much of that will likely come from Idaho's Cobalt Belt—where construction of a new cobalt mine is already underway—but mining for cobalt has left a toxic legacy in the Salmon-Challis National Forest in the past. A former cobalt mine there that closed down in the 1980s is now a Superfund site. Heavy metals from the mine seeped into surrounding creeks, killing off all life and turning them blue. The companies responsible have so far spent over $100 million to clean the site up.
Of course, regulations have come a long way. The company building the new mine, Jervois Global, has pledged to fully reclaim the mine. And it took the company eight years to get a permit in the first place. But many concerns remain, like whether the federal government will enact strong enough standards to protect aquatic insects and whether Jervois Global will actually be able to return the forest to its natural state.
“Man is imperfect,” said Daniel Stone, a policy analyst for the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes, whose ancestral homelands encompass a huge portion of Idaho and the surrounding states. “Small flaws could lead to big problems down the road.”
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To actually transition off of fossil fuels will take an evolved environmental ethic informed by indigenous wisdom and the latest scientific knowledge, along with an understanding of the deserts of the American Southwest as home to vast old-growth forests still keeping us alive, not as wastelands awaiting plunder.”
