What if China corners the cobalt market?
Nickel could make a good substitute—provided car batteries don’t catch fire
COBALT derives its name from Kobold, a mischievous German goblin who, according to legend, lurks underground. For centuries it vexed medieval miners by looking like a valuable ore that subsequently turned into worthless—and sometimes noxious—rubble. Once again it is threatening to cause trouble, this time in the growing market for batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), each of which uses about 10kg of cobalt. The source of mischief is no longer in Germany, though, but in China.
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Goblin metals”
Finance & economics
March 24th 2018- What if China corners the cobalt market?
- Wall Street looks overvalued
- Why tariffs on steel and aluminium are easier said than done
- Europeans fret that Chinese investment is a security risk
- The EU wants to make finance more environmentally friendly
- The digitisation of trade’s paper trail may be at hand
- Can’t hardly wait
From the March 24th 2018 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the edition
Why today’s graduates are screwed
The bottom has fallen out of the job market
Can China reclaim its IPO crown?
Hong Kong is hot. The mainland very much is not
What an Israel-Iran war means for oil prices
We investigate possible scenarios
How to invest your enormous inheritance
Do not make the mistakes of the first Gilded Age
The economic lessons from Ukraine’s spectacular drone success
National security is a weak argument for battery subsidies
European stocks are buoyant. Firms still refuse to list there
Another star prepares to move from London to New York