Cobalt Criticality and Availability in the Wake of Increased Electric Vehicle Demand: A Short-Term Scenario Analysis

Abstract

Understanding cobalt criticality and availability is necessary as lithium-ion battery demand, particularly for electric vehicles, is projected to increase exponentially throughout the next decade. With these increases in demand, supply concentration and mining limitations could have a significant impact on cobalt-dependent firms, sectors, and emerging technologies. Increased recycling, cobalt refining capability, and possible substitution away from cobalt in high demand sectors form the basis of modeling scenarios; these scenarios are created to identify the implications of changes in the cobalt supply-demand balance to 2030. Based on these, cobalt faces a tight but not impossible short-term market, where recycling and additional cobalt sources should be pursued and will become increasingly important out to and past 2030.