{"id":61428,"date":"2022-01-12T08:48:19","date_gmt":"2022-01-12T13:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61428"},"modified":"2022-01-12T08:48:19","modified_gmt":"2022-01-12T13:48:19","slug":"the-dark-side-of-tesla-gigafactories-need-gigamines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61428","title":{"rendered":"The dark side of Tesla: gigafactories need gigamines"},"content":{"rendered":"

The dark side of Tesla: gigafactories need gigamines<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n

The production of electric vehicles requires vast amounts of raw materials such as nickel: Around 32 kg of this metal are needed for the lithium batteries of a mid-range car. To secure access, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is encouraging global nickel mining and is considering investing in the mining industry in Indonesia and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny mining companies out there … wherever you are in the world, please mine more nickel,\u201d was the urgent appeal to the mining industry by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, a US manufacturer of electric cars. \u201cTesla will give you a giant contract<\/a>\u00a0for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Huge quantities of metals and other raw materials are needed to build Tesla\u2019s electric vehicles.\u00a0Tesla is in early talks with the government of Indonesia<\/a>\u00a0about a possible investment in the nickel industry,\u00a0Reuters reports. The Southeast Asian country is one of the world\u2019s largest nickel producers.<\/p>\n

In the rainforests of the islands of Sulawesi and Wawonii, nickel is already being mined by Chinese companies, as well as Vale, a Brazilian mining company \u2013 with\u00a0catastrophic consequences for the environment and the people who live there<\/a>. Ecosystems of great biodiversity are being destroyed, rivers and coastal waters rich in marine life are being polluted, and\u00a0people are being displaced and poisoned<\/a>.\u00a0Nickel mine operators have applied to the Indonesian government for permission to dump the tailings, which are corrosive and laden with heavy metals,\u00a0in the sea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Indonesia stopped exporting unprocessed nickel \u2013 not for environmental reasons, but for purely economic considerations: to encourage investments in the nickel industry and the domestic production of lithium batteries.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The dark side of Tesla: gigafactories need gigamines The production of electric vehicles requires vast amounts of raw materials such as nickel: Around 32 kg of this metal are needed for the lithium batteries of a mid-range car. To secure access, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is encouraging global nickel mining and is considering investing in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[10765,13275,16991,1482,26466,32477,674,5094],"class_list":["post-61428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-batteries","tag-electric-vehicles","tag-lithium","tag-mining","tag-nickel","tag-rainforest-rescue","tag-renewable-energy","tag-tesla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61429,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61428\/revisions\/61429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}