NEWS, page-568

FROM BENCHMARK MINERAL INTELLIGENCE

Can Indonesian nickel be green?

With environmental, social, and governance issues at the heart of most automakers’ decision making, questions around the critical minerals going into their batteries are increasingly being raised. To mine and refine nickel takes a lot of energy and land, and Benchmark forecasts that the vast majority of the mineral will come from Indonesia.But the Indonesian electricity grid relies on coal and other fossil fuels, making the electric furnaces used in the process highly carbon intensive. The alternative of high pressure acid leaching may be cleaner in terms of emissions, but can be three times more toxic to ecosystems, according to Benchmark’s Nickel ESG Report.