Eco Smugs sitting in their top-of-the-range electric vehicles are probably unaware, or perhaps don’t want to know, about the unfolding ecological tragedy in the virgin tropical rainforests of Indonesia. Higher EV ranges have been achieved by adding nickel to lithium-ion batteries, an addition that has also boosted the performance of some public transport buses in cities like London. As with many green ‘advances’, the ecological cost is horrendous. Over half the world’s supply of nickel is located in Indonesia and much of that is to be found just a few feet below unspoilt rainforests. Cue massive deforestation and extensive rollout of smelters and even EV battery factories.
Most of Indonesia’s nickel reserves are on the islands of Sulawesi and Halmahera. Nickel deposits are typically found in rock between 20 and 50 feet below the surface and are easily extracted by open-cast mining. Many of the mining concessions are in forest lands, often secondary growths but with significant burials under the older, undisturbed mature rainforests. Undisturbed until now. In 2020, Indonesia banned the export of nickel ore, which led to the introduction of local metal processing facilities. Significant destruction has occurred in the rainforests, converting habitats into open-pit mines and industrial parks. If carbon dioxide is your thing, it might be an idea to consider all the stored CO2 released to make so-called eco, planet-saving car batteries. Not to mention the loss and possible extinction of endemic species and the local wastewater contamination running into the sea and harming nearby coral reefs.
Satellite data along with local reports suggest that primary forest loss is heading for 100,000 hectares. Another half a million hectares are feared at immediate risk due to booming demand and the 2020 nickel ore export ban. Local forest canopies are often dominated by dipterocarp trees and they are prized for their resin and hardwood. Selective logging targeting the most valuable specimens is followed by full clearance for the pits and the smelters. Ultramafic soils, formed in places where tectonic forces bring up rocks from the Earth’s mantle, host unique flora which have adapted to the local habitat.
Human existence requires the exploitation of the Earth’s natural resources. Land to grow food, ground to dig for essential metals and space to build shelter. But there is something terribly wrong about digging up some of the last remaining virgin rainforests solely to help power a vehicle that it is claimed will stop the climate changing. Moreover, many of the people promoting these new machines argue that they are more eco-friendly than a petrol vehicle – a car powered by a natural hydrocarbon easily extracted by putting a temporary pipe into the ground.
Of course the hypocrisy around EVs does not stop there. There are not enough children in the Congo to mine all the cobalt required, while the country of China that is now taking over EV manufacture is hardly a shining beacon of virtue when it comes to human rights and employment practices.
But all of this is a price the Eco Smugs seem prepared to pay. High-subsidy, low-inertia onshore wind turbines kill millions of bats and birds every year, with large gliding raptors such as eagles at particular risk. The countryside is swept of insects with every turn of the blades, helping to produce local ecological disaster areas. Once productive food-growing land is turned into dead zones by subsidy-seeking solar panels. In the UK, the offshore turbines are a menace to national security, with the Defence Department recently forced to spend £1.5 billion on a hoped-for cure for unreliable radar readings caused by the Doppler effect. Off the east coast of America, the whales can relax a little as massive industrial offshore wind parks are curtailed. Deafened by sonic noise and harassed by heavy industrial shipping, record numbers have beached on the shore over the last decade. Nobody looks, nobody cares and the mainstream media largely ignores the ecological scandal.
Nickel is a relatively expensive metal and its use in cheaper EVs is limited. But nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) batteries offer higher energy density and help increase range. NMCs are currently the norm for premium EVs and they effectively prioritise performance over other available alternatives. Jaguar Land Rover’s supply chain investments have targeted nickel as essential for batteries that will power its new ‘Reimagine’ all-electric offerings for 2026. Undoubtedly aware of possible PR sourcing difficulties, the company says it employs inspectors to ensure responsible practices in securing supplies of materials such as nickel and cobalt.
There may be a genuine effort on the part of publicity-conscious companies like JLR to avoid being primarily responsible for digging up the rainforest. But an overall increase in demand that is fed by higher-performance batteries will inevitably lead to the ghastly sight of virgin rainforest being felled to assuage the ‘range-anxiety’ felt by rich Net Zero-inspired motorists.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor. Follow him on X.
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“But there is something terribly wrong about digging up some of the last remaining virgin rainforests solely to help power a vehicle that it is claimed will stop the climate changing.”
Complete nonsense. Nickel is simply a commodity which is mined and sold on markets, for any use the buyer has for it. And according to the Nickel Institute, 68% is used in making stainless steel. About 16% is used in batteries (of all kinds). About 6% are used in other alloys, with no particular connection to EVs or any other climate oriented pyrpose.
The big destructor of rain forests in Indonesia, is not nickel, which is small scale, but coal. Indonesia is the world’s biggest exporter of thermal coal, and produced 770 million tons in 2023. Total world production of nickel was 3 million tons. In terms of damage to forests, there is no comparison.
In either case, mining practices should minimize environmental impacts and sound remediation practices should be followed. Unfortunately, this often is not the case, especially in poorer economic regions.
They don’t give a toss.
Evidence?
I presume you mean only the poorer countries. In Australia, mining companies are required to properly remediate the land after mining, and in general do a good job of this.
“Nickel is simply a commodity which is mined and sold on markets”
So is coal, Nick. But the rainforest – as we have seen at Belem – only counts when you want it to.
Out of sight, out of mind.
So the immense destruction of coal mining doesn’t matter? But the much smaller destruction from nickel “ will inevitably lead to the ghastly sight of virgin rainforest being felled to assuage …” even though it is in fact mainly used for stainless steel.
So, it’s OK that ONLY 16% is for batteries?
The UKs coal is deep under the ground, Nick.
But then you know that.
In the UK we’ve had open cast coal mining Ffos-y-fran was the final opencast mine closed in 2023. As I understand the situation there is not enough money set aside for restoration of the site.
Deep mining resulted in bings around mining country. These were no only an eyesore but also a threat to life and property, Aberfan is probably the most remembered. But most coal bings and oil shale bings have now either been removed or turned into nature reserves, using the wealth the mining created,
Big scars on the Cornish landscape came from the China clay mines. But they have all been more than successfully remediated.
We have standards developing countries do not.
Indonesian coal mines are open cast, in the forest.
These would make great carbon sinks. After that Coal has tailed out, plant fast growing trees, like Poplar which reaches maturity in less than a decade, then harvest and replant. Take the harvested trees and stack them in the tailed out mine pit. Cover with water to preserve them through anoxic conditions to prevent immediate decay. Repeat the plant, harvest, replant cycle until the pit is full then displace the water with the overburden removed at the opening of the Coal Mine. Not only will you sink the carbon but you will create the next potential fuel store for another generation (A few millennia in the future). Do it for the 100th generational kids.
And when they are done, the forest grows back.
That was the question he asked you Nick. Nice of you to once again dodge and weave.
But all this coal was supposed to stop because renewables were so cheap … wait free isn’t it Nick 🙂
It’s down 3% for last 3 months so that is a downward trend and I guess it should be zero by mid next year with all that free energy kicking around 🙂
It will most certainly be Net Zero by 2045!
😂 😉 😘
Can you say “hypocrisy” Nick?
I knew you could.
Nick raises a good point. If on balance Indonesia thought it was reasonable to remove some tropical forest to fuel economic development, it would make more sense to concentrate on the highest ratio of commodity price (as proxy for economic development) to forest destruction. I’m assuming here coal is also done strip or open pit and nickel fetches higher value per hectare of forest loss (with reasonable/direct environmental costs priced in). However, if their policy choice was economic development at any forest cost, which is their prerogative as an independent nation, an “all of the above” is also hard to argue with. But fundamentally, if we are concerned with loss of tropical forest, we should be equally or potentially more concerned (if benefit to cost is lower) with coal operations.
Of course.
If only Nick Stokes had made a reasoned presentation such as yours.
His opening sentence: “Complete nonsense.”
Nick needs a copy of the book How to Win Friends and Influence People.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034
He already knows how to Spin Friends and cast Effluence on People
It is also the right of other countries to criticize their actions or even to refuse to trade with them.
That said, as long as the land is remediated when the digging is done, I have no problem with mining.
Would seem to me that, if the greatest benefit is affordable/reliable energy production, Coal is the more beneficial mineral as Nickel doesn’t generate energy.
And why did this happen, again?
Also, WHO is their biggest buyer for their Coal? (Likely the BRICS nations middle (3rd & 4th) children)
Are you claiming that the EV mandates are not increasing world wide demand for nickel? Or are you just trying to divert attention again?
And much of that coal is probably exported to China, where the energy it produces energizes their electric grid for, in no small part, the manufacturing of all the worse-than-useless crap produced purely to chase idiotic “green” ideology, like wind turbines, solar panels, storage batteries, and EVs (not to mention the charging of EVs).
Nick,
Is that gross destructor at a given time or net destructor after rehabilitatio?
Precisely what is destructed, what is its value and how does that value compare to non-destructor work?
The essence of mining, its reason to exist, is that use of land for mining, uncommon as it is, is mostly by far the most valuable land use available to society as we know it now. Geoff S
I’m sure there are policies about rehabilitating nickel mines too.
Nick,
Then surely you should quote these policies rather than spreading vague uncertainty with meaningless interjections.
It is WUWT, not I, spreading scare stories about the damage of nickel mining.
You demonstrate either ignorance – most probable, being awfully generous – or an inability to assess these matters in an even-handed and rational manner, or this is just a plainly deliberate attempt to confuse . . .
In 2025, it is estimated that Indonesian nickel mining operations will mine in the order of 300 million tonnes (Mt) of ore. We’re talking about ORE here, Nick, NOT finished metal. So not yet 770 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa) as for coal, but the idiotically futile attempt to achieve Net Zero – think Miliband – will inevitably push demand and, as that happens, in situ grades of ore will diminish . . . which will demand greater and greater tonnages to be mined.
And then there’s this, Nick:
The amount of nickel which needs to be produced between now and 2050 in order for Net Zero to be achieved by then is 2.8 BILLION tonnes, this to provide for electrification of transport, grid-scale storage, and renewable infrastructure buildout.
However, at current metal production of ~3.5Mtpa, to produce 2.8 BILLION tonnes of metal will take . . . 800 years.
And then, even if it was possible to increase production overnight by tomorrow morning from 3.5Mtpa to over 110Mtpa – it most definitely isn’t!! – current global Reserves of nickel of 122Mt would be depleted in, well . . . not much more than a year.
You need to clear your head, Nick, and start thinking rationally, because . . . wishful thinking is most definitely a complete and utter waste of time. As is screeching like a child I’m right I’m right I’m right.
Hmmm….
Wishful thinking…
Tipping point…
Correlation?
I don’t believe Nick is thick – he’s just deliberately excluding rational thought, evidence, and assessment – because he KNOWS he’s right. But then . . . he desperately needs to become aware of the shortfalls in his assessment ability. Let’s face it, to come from an incredible height of self-presumed intellectual superiority, capability, and knowledge, when, week after week, that is shown NOT to be the case, what do you do with the guy . . . other than resort to ridicule.
The term “disingenuous” has been used many times 😉
Many years ago, Nick identified and reported a serious error in an article. He received much deserve praise.
IMHO, Nick has been searching since then, another opportunity.
In one sense, Nick is the ultimate skeptic. He challenges constantly.
2 problems.
Of all the posters on WUWT that can be correctly identified as flame warriors, Nick is NOT one.
What exactly is thermal coal and how does it differ from anthracite, bituminous, subbituminous, and lignite?
Look at it from an economic sense.
Metallurgical coal is the highest quality.. used in making metals, particularly steel.. High carbon content.
Thermal coal is next, it is coal that has a high enough carbon content, not too much moisture and other stuff, to be worth digging up and transporting to coal-fired power stations.
Then you have the lower grades, more water in them, that are only worth using in-situ in coal fired power stations.
Anthracite is converted to coke which is used for smelting mostly iron ore. Large amounts of coke is used in the manufacture of cinder blocks and bricks.
That is as good an explanation as any.
I had never encountered the term before.
At present levels of battery production, but further increase of wind/solar generation will likely need a much higher rate of battery production which in turn will increase the fraction of nickel used for batteries.
/ … primary forest loss is heading for 100,000 hectares. Another half a million hectares are feared at immediate risk due to booming demand …
FYI, 100,000 hectares is 386 square miles, or 19.6 miles square
Here is an aerial view of one of the mining areas: https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sulawesi/@-2.5484645,121.316633,19144m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x2d8537dba9012a31:0xbc9a51d168f47742!8m2!3d-1.8479!4d120.5279!16zL20vMDczcGs?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MTAxNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
Before I read the comments I looked up the devastated areas in Sulawesi. I have a connection there as my father lived there for a time and I’ve visited twice. I happened to look at that exact area mined by Vale and checked out their website. They are mining 118,000 hectares which is 1180 sq. km. That’s equal to the area of New York City, Seattle, and Washington DC! And that’s only one company and just on Sulawesi.
BTW, Americans are closer to the metal nickel than in other countries. A US nickel contains 25% nickel and 75% copper, meaning a five-gram coin has 1.25 grams of nickel. So you probably have some of this valuable metal in your pockets. :-]
“is heading for 100,000 hectares”
I can’t find a more recent number, but in 2017, coal mines in Indonesia occupied 4 million hectares. There has been rapid expansion since.
That nickel mine in Sulawesi is the largest in the country. Your link, annotated, shows this:
Here is a map, to the same scale, of just one coal mine in Kalimantan:
Gotta Love that coal…so plentiful, so full of energy.
Deforestation of Indonesia’s native rainforests for palm tree oil accounts for 30 million acres.
11% of the palm oil produced is now for production of bio-diesel, claimed to be a “clean energy source” to replace natural diesel fuel.
Greenies have cornered the market in irrationality when it comes to reasons for cutting down rainforests.
Next up –
North Queensland wind farms . . .
We must destroy the planet to save it.
Glad I will not be alive to see it.
The climate fears have cause my children to not give me grand children, so I have no real personal stake in the future.
I do have a personal philosophy that abhors lying and dishonesty.
As an Australian miner involved with the discovery and development of 7 big open pit mines and noting the superb post-mining rehabilitation of at these and several other shallow mines for beach sand heavy minerals, I continue to be appalled by demonization of mining, particularly by authors who would not know the difference between a hole for mining and a hole for a swimming pool.
Most miner-bashing articles have a common failure. It is the scale of operations, the size of the mine compared with its surrounds, is unstated, unknown or vague. For proper understanding, it should be measured.
I have flown a large number of air miles above Australia. Seldom have I seen any evidence of mining from the proverbial 30,000 feet. When you do see them, active mines are tiny postage stamp dots in a vast untouched landscape. You cannot see the rehabilitation examples from on high.
Mines with their support like tailings dams and waste rock heaps and concentrators can operate on a patch 5 miles X 5 miles. In an hour, your aircraft can cover 500 miles or so.
Sure, shallow open cuts like those pictured for this article can be bigger. But their rehab is less expensive because they are shallow. You lose little of value in the long term of say 50 years, with most fuss generated about loss of old growth forest. The money value of old growth forest is trivial compared to the value of the recovered minerals, so its mention is mostly about generating tears for the imagined emotional loss.
Please do not bash miners as being stupid. As a group, we have a higher than average number of graduates in science and engineering and computing. We usually create enough corporate wealth to attract high calibre people who work in the intellectual field of reality, not imagined catastrophe.
Geoff S
Well said, Geoff.
Colin, FIMMM.
Colin,
I am also FIMMM, Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. This honour is not handed out like lollies. Geoff S
Nickel is the major metal in nichrome wire which is used extensively as the heating element is many devices such as toasters, hot water kettles, hair dryers, portable space heaters, electric base board heaters, etc. My apartment in a high-rise building has five electrics heaters at floor level. I live in BC and electricity costs only 11 cents per kWh.
After all the nickel is mined, how fast will the rain forest reclaim the land?
The removal of this rain forest is but a symptom of the commodity demand growth of the mandated switch from ICE to BEV, now at about 3% penetration.The 30% or less capacity factor for the production of electricity to charge these same batteries, the grid to transport the electricity to the batter,y and the 30% + loss incurred from source to battery make it expensive beyond belief.
Just ask a Norwegian.
Now, re-imagine an aggressive country using ICEs opposing a country far advanced in the transition from ICE to BEV – BEV tanks, BEV airplanes, BEV rocketry? No contest. Farewell and adieu, my …!
This scenario makes sense on one level: countries dumb enough to be compliant will be disappear.
The EU is already well on its way and the US not far behind..
Ok. How does this compare to the extensive mining in the USA over the many decades?
Indonesia has as much right to their resources as we have to ours, so who are we to point fingers?
We also had terrible labor abused over the decades. While quite unhappy, and certainly unhappy about it today, our we so righteous that we can cast stones?
I like trees. I like people. I think we can do better.
The point of this article was not to focus on the mines, per se, but why the expanded need for those mines and the inhumane practices applied in mining.
The unanswered question is: If NetZero and EV mandates were not all the rage, would these mines exist?
Nickel is a valuable commodity, so eventually the mines would exist.
Net Zero, EV lunacy just massively increases the scale of the mining.
Sparta,
Why use the term “extensive mining”? It is what it is. You could have used “tiny area of last and present mining.” No need to try to be an influencer.
In the real world, what is desired and what is possible are ever-present for all societies. For this mining topic, there is a horse and cart consideration. In short, most miners want rehabilitation but there has to be enough money generated from mining before rehab to afford it. Fifty years ago there was less money for rehab because high spending was needed for exploration. There was a backlog of old mines, mostly small ones, lacking rehab money, but that is now under remedy. There is no need for blame. People did what always applies, you can only do what you have funds to do.
There is a clear and present danger of if bureaucratic over reach. Some of my own last mines were burdened by very costly bureaucratic demands like the post-mining filling of open pits instead of allowing new lakes to form.
Too much time in my career was spent in opposing unrealistic bureaucratic demands. I even had to resort to taking a Federal Minister for Environment through all 4 stages of our Court process, ending up with the very expensive appearance before the Full Bench of our High Court (who failed to judge). Geoff S
Replace extensive with a more refined definition: widespread.
The word extensive has nuance meanings I did not intend.
The nuance I intended is: “great in amount, number, or degree“
We have had large numbers of mines across the CONUS through the history of the country.
I did not intend a meaning that we had huge surface mines.
And no. I never, never will make any attempt to be an influencer.