The leaders of the nations of the world declined to go forth and conquer climate change during the COP25 talks in Madrid earlier this month. That leaves the business of saving the planet up to a hodgepodge of activists, inventors, NGOs, and gigantic corporations. In the latest development, IBM has just slipped word of new energy storage research that could help accelerate the renewable energy transition with a next-gen solution for electric vehicles and stationary batteries, too.
New Energy Storage Technology, Without The (Cough, Cough, Cobalt) Baggage
IBM provided CleanTechnica with an advance copy of the new energy storage announcement so we don’t have a link yet, but the company’s IBM Research branch will probably have it online by the time you eyeball this.
The idea is to clean up the energy storage supply chain by clearing out the clutter of certain heavy metals and other materials commonly used in today’s lithium-ion batteries. That would help reduce the environmental impacts of producing rechargeable electronic goods as well as electric vehicles and stationary energy storage systems.
Aside from environmental concerns, human rights issues are also in play.
Here’s IBM Research on that topic:
“Many battery materials, including heavy metals such as nickel and cobalt, pose tremendous environmental and humanitarian risks. Cobalt in particular, which is largely available in central Africa, has come under fire for careless and exploitative extraction practices.”
They’re not kidding around. Just yesterday, news broke that the organization International Rights Advocates has filed suit against Apple, Alphabet, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla over child labor and other abuses in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
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