The Great EV Con: The deception driving our green future
The emissions are so bad it would give Adam Bandt an aneurysm.
I’m sure most EV buyers are good citizens who are genuinely trying to do their bit for their immediate environment and exercising their ‘power-of-one’ to make a difference.
This wake-up call is for them.
Spotlight reporter Liam Bartlett was smuggled into Indonesia’s Morowali Industrial Park, the world’s largest nickel processing facility, producing 50% of global nickel supply. Credit: 7NEWS
Having returned from witnessing what must rank as one of the world’s worst industrial landscapes, all in the name of the ‘green EV revolution’, I can safely say that anyone who genuinely cares for the future of the planet would be horrified by the damage that is being done by our northern neighbour, Indonesia, with the financial backing of China.
Aided by billions from Beijing’s Belt and Road initiative, the Indonesians have created two massive nickel mining complexes – perversely dubbed ‘industrial parks’ – one in Central Sulawesi and the other further to the north-east on the island of Halmahera, near West Papua.
They’re remote and difficult to travel to and western journalists are heavily discouraged from visiting, mostly because they have a lot to hide.
The Chinese security guarding the areas are not user friendly but with the help of state-of-the-art drones and strategic planning we were able to capture the pictures that tell the real story behind China’s play to dominate the electric vehicle industry.
To a certain extent, Indonesia has been used as a pawn in this strategy and given the relative wealth of both countries, it’s almost understandable that the Indonesian government has allowed Chinese nickel miners to expand without controls.
The Virtue Dragon industrial park is one of many nickel processing facilities China has built in Indonesia. Credit: 7NEWS
But the process has flooded global markets, driven prices into the ground and consequently ruined Australia’s once vibrant nickel industry.
As the life-blood for many rechargeable batteries, nickel is the key component for most EV’s and China knows that if they can guarantee cheap nickel, it means a cheap battery and a huge competitive advantage for all its EV makers.
The result though is what the mining industry is calling ‘dirty nickel’ and from what we witnessed, you couldn’t get much dirtier.
This is a product made without having to abide by any environmental laws, no health or safety standards for workers and no apparent limit to the clearing of native forest or vegetation.
The smelters and power stations all derive their energy from cheap, low-grade coal that is barged in from nearby Kalimantan.
The emissions are so bad it would give Adam Bandt an aneurysm but again, there are no limits to pumping out this dirty nickel that ends up under the bonnet of a ‘green machine’.
In fact, it’s something of a sick joke to link any notion of environmental protection in any product to this industrial monolith.
You can smell these complexes long before you get there and the acrid taste that sits in the back of your throat is testament to the heavy pollution that sits in the air, even when there is a breeze.
Indonesia’s nickel is produced with much less stringent labour, human rights, and environmental standards than Australia. Credit: 7NEWS
The locals lining up at a poorly resourced medical clinic that we visited showed respiratory illnesses were common and the polluted waterways and presence of heavy metals in fish stocks is a dangerous concern for villagers who have only ever had fish as their primary source of protein.
The injury tally on-site for labourers is horrendous, with fatalities common and not always recorded.
Indigenous populations have been displaced and the livelihoods of many have been ruined.
Meantime, in the comfort of Aussie suburbia, this is apparently the price you pay for the princely virtue of driving an EV.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense.
But hypocrisy is one thing — a total lack of leadership is quite another.
Our heavily responsible and relatively green home-grown nickel industry has lost 7,000 jobs because of this and the Minister for Resources Madeleine King refuses to be publicly questioned over what the federal government is doing about it.
And she’s not alone.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen has also lost his tongue, as has Science and Industry Minister Ed Husic, which is especially enlightening as Mr Husic is the one who celebrated the signing of a special agreement with Indonesia on nickel mining, less than two years ago.
90,000 workers pour onto the streets of Morowali during the dusk shift change. Credit: 7NEWS
The official Memorandum of Understanding was very clear; it promised both countries would commit to working together on mapping EV supply chains.
Indeed, he said the two countries had agreed to “advance mutually beneficial cooperation on battery manufacturing, critical minerals processing and other aspects of the electric vehicle ecosystem”.
Well, there appears to be zero cooperation.
We’ve lost 7,000 jobs and billions in revenue while Indonesia and China share a dirty little secret about their dirty nickel dominance.
And all the while, Energy Minister Bowen is using tens of millions in taxpayer subsidies to help the Chinese EV makers to sell their products with their shiny, cheap batteries.
No wonder the ministers want to keep it quiet, especially during an election campaign.
