Growing demand for Nickel causes fear of further environmental damages

A new report from IDTechEx says the demand for nickel from batteries for electric vehicles is projected to increase 10-fold by 2030 compared to 2019, and concerns about the metal's environmentally conscious delivery are also growing. According to the market analyst, one of the main problems related to nickel mining is that ores typically contain only a very small percentage of usable Ni, resulting in a large amount of waste material. Disposal of this waste is a major problem for miners, car manufacturers and environmentalists. "It was recently announced that two nickel miners in Indonesia are planning to deep-sea disposal of raw material waste in the Coral Triangle when they start operations," the report said. "Less than 20 nickel mines worldwide use deep-sea disposal, but these new facilities would generate millions of tons of waste material each year. This method is typically used because it is cheaper than the alternatives of dam storage or converting the raw materials into useful products . The largest supply of nickel comes from Indonesia. In 2019, the country banned the export of raw nickel ore to boost the domestic processing industry. The island nation also has the most planned developments to increase nickel production and will dominate the supply chain. On the other side of the spectrum, the Philippine government suspended nearly half of its nickel mines back in 2017, citing environmental concerns. Many automakers are almost as concerned, according to the IDTechex report. They fear that negative action in this area could undermine the EV's green message. "Most, including those like PSA, VW and Tesla, are committed to reducing the environmental impact of their batteries. This becomes a challenge as the choice of suppliers that can meet the needs of these major automotive companies is limited," said the company it in the report. "In the future, nickel producers will have to prove that their practices are environmentally friendly if they are to sell in the European and American markets, where the automotive industry makes this a priority." Demand for nickel in these two regions is growing due to consumer demand for electric vehicles and because automakers are turning to higher nickel chemicals such as lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt-oxide 622 or higher in their drive to further improve energy density and reduce reliance on cobalt 811 over against previous 111 and 52. After cobalt, nickel is the most expensive material in batteries for electric vehicles and one of the most widely used outside of the battery industry.