, Columnist
Recycling Can't Save Cobalt's Crunch
Demand is rising much faster than supply, used mobile phones or none.
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Can recycling save the world from a looming shortage of cobalt?
The idea has sound precedent. Lead -- an essential ingredient in traditional car batteries, just as cobalt will be for the coming generation of lithium-ion cells -- is probably the most extensively recycled industrial raw material on earth. With cobalt demand from cars, electric buses and utility-scale batteries set to soar over the next decade, mining cobalt from spent batteries rather than the ground could go some way toward keeping the market balanced.