EV Makers Confront the ‘Nickel Pickle’


为了制造电动汽车的电池，公司需要开采和提炼大量的镍。但将镍从地下开采出来并将其提炼成为电池所用物质的过程对环境特别不友好。在电动汽车行业，这种窘境被称为“镍难题”。


Harita Group在印度尼西亚北马鲁古奥比岛经营的镍加工综合体的冶炼厂。

在电动汽车行业，这种窘境被称为“镍难题(nickel pickle)”。 6park.com
In the electric-vehicle business, the quandary is known as the nickel pickle. 6park.com
  
为了制造电动汽车的电池，公司需要开采和提炼大量的镍。但将镍从地下开采出来并将其提炼成为电池所用物质的过程对环境特别不友好。想获得镍，就需要砍伐大片的雨林。镍的精炼是一个碳密集的过程，涉及极热和高压，会产生难以处理的废浆。 6park.com
To make batteries for EVs, companies need to mine and refine large amounts of nickel. The process of getting the mineral out of the ground and turning it into battery-ready substances, though, is particularly environmentally unfriendly. Reaching the nickel means cutting down swaths of rainforest. Refining it is a carbon-intensive process that involves extreme heat and high pressure, producing waste slurry that’s hard to dispose of. 6park.com
   
镍的问题反映出电动汽车行业内一个更大的矛盾： 尽管从长远来看，电动汽车对环境的破坏比传统汽车要小，但电动汽车的制造过程会对环境造成巨大伤害。 6park.com
The nickel issue reflects a larger contradiction within the EV industry: Though electric vehicles are designed to be less damaging to the environment in the long term than conventional cars, the process of building them carries substantial environmental harm. 6park.com
   
这种环保挑战正出现在印尼矿产丰富的岛屿上，这里供应的镍在全球遥居榜首。这些矿藏并不在地下深处，而是在接近地表的地方，埋在一片片层层叠叠的森林下。得到镍矿很容易，也很便宜，但要先清除地面上的森林。 6park.com
The challenge is playing out across Indonesia’s mineral-rich islands, by far the world’s largest source of nickel. These deposits aren’t deep underground but lie close to the surface, under stretches of overlapping forests. Getting to the nickel is easy and inexpensive, but only after the forests are cleared. 6park.com
   
位于印尼的一处名为Hengjaya的矿场在五年前获得了许可，可以将开采业务扩展到相当于纽约市中央公园近三倍大小的森林地区。持有Hengjaya矿的澳大利亚业主Nickel Industries表示，2021年清理雨林的行动造成了相当于56,000吨二氧化碳的温室气体排放。《华尔街日报》(The Wall Street Journal)根据美国国家环境保护局(Environmental Protection Agency)的数据进行了计算，这大约相当于12,000辆传统燃油汽车开一年所产生的排放量。 6park.com
One Indonesian mine, known as Hengjaya, obtained permits five years ago to expand its operations into a forested area nearly three times the size of New York City’s Central Park. The mine’s Australian owner, Nickel Industries, said that rainforest clearing in 2021 caused greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 56,000 tons of carbon-dioxide. That’s roughly equal to driving 12,000 conventional cars for a year, according to calculations by The Wall Street Journal based on U.S. Environmental Protection Agency data. 6park.com
   
Nickel Industries表示，该公司清理的林地此前已因非法采伐而退化，这也是印尼政府允许在那里采矿的原因。该公司说，正想方设法恢复土地，包括种树200多万棵。该公司强调，因相关的举措获得了印尼政府颁发的环境管理奖。 6park.com
Nickel Industries says that forestland it cleared had previously been degraded by illegal logging, which is why the Indonesian government allowed mining there. The company says it works hard to rehabilitate land, including planting over two million trees, and notes that its efforts have received environmental stewardship awards from Indonesia’s government. 6park.com
   
该公司的可持续发展经理Muchtazar说：“不幸的是，所有露天采矿过程都需要清理土地，包括我们的业务。”像许多印尼人一样，Muchtazar只有名字没有姓氏。他说，镍在环保电池中的使用抵消了这种不利影响。 6park.com
“Unfortunately, land clearing is required for all open-cast mining processes, including our operations,” said the firm’s sustainability manager, Muchtazar, who, like many Indonesians goes by one name. The negative impact is offset, he said, by nickel’s use in environmentally friendly batteries.


Harita加工设施的一名工人。

特斯拉在4月的一份报告中说，电动汽车在制造阶段产生的碳排放高于传统汽车，一定程度上是因为矿物的开采和提炼过程。然而，该公司表示，投入使用后只需不到两年的时间，一辆电动汽车的总排放量就会低于可比较的内燃机汽车。 6park.com
Tesla said in an April report that EVs cause more emissions during the manufacturing phase than conventional vehicles, due in part to the process of extracting and refining minerals. The company said it takes less than two years of driving for an EV’s total emissions to fall below that of a comparable internal combustion engine vehicle, however. 6park.com
   
该报告称，在制造一种普通电芯所产生的碳排放中，镍相关的排放占三分之一以上，超过了任何其他矿物或不使用镍的生产工艺。 6park.com
Nickel is responsible for more than a third of the carbon emissions generated from making a common type of battery cell—more than any other mineral or production process—the report said.

一个新的来源

在2018年之前，电动汽车中使用的大部分镍一般是在加拿大和俄罗斯等非赤道国家发现的种类。在这些国家发现的硫化镍通常比其他品种品位更高，加工难度更低。这些矿场通常位于地下深处，开发过程既耗资又耗时。 6park.com
Before 2018, most of the nickel used in EVs was the type generally found in non-equatorial countries, including Canada and Russia. The sulfide nickel found there is generally of a higher grade and easier to process than other varieties. The mines, often located deep underground, are expensive and time-consuming to develop. 6park.com
   
汽车业高管当时就担心是否有足够的镍来满足电动汽车行业快速增长的需求。在人权组织和记者报道刚果民主共和国钴业务中普遍存在的童工现象以及矿工面临的危险工作条件之后，这些高管已经放弃了另一种电池成分钴。各汽车制造商调整了他们的电池配方，通过增加镍的含量来减少钴的用量。 6park.com
Auto executives worried about having enough nickel to meet rapidly growing demand for EVs. They had moved away from cobalt, another battery component, after human-rights groups and journalists reported on widespread child labor in cobalt operations and dangerous conditions faced by miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Automakers tweaked their batteries to reduce cobalt by adding more nickel. 6park.com
   
特斯拉首席执行官马斯克(Elon Musk)在2020年的财报电话会议上向矿业公司发出呼吁：请开采更多的镍。由于需求不断增加，镍价飙升。 6park.com
Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said in a 2020 earnings call: “Any mining companies out there, please mine more nickel, OK?” Nickel prices soared on growing demand. 6park.com
   
 
到那时，中国公司已经开始努力解锁一个尽管困难重重，但规模庞大的来源。 6park.com
By then, Chinese companies had begun working to unlock an expansive, albeit tricky, source. 6park.com
   
数百万年前，构造板块在现在的印尼东部汇聚，促使海洋中富含矿物质的海床抬升而露出海面，造就了今天的镍储量。该地区被雨林覆盖，遍布特别适应富镍土壤的植物群。这里的许多生物都是当地独有的物种，如冢雉和倭水牛。冢雉是一种胸脯呈粉红色的鸟，会把自己的蛋埋在地下，利用地热来进行孵化；而倭水牛是世界上体型最小的野生牛种。 6park.com
Millions of years ago, tectonic plates converged in what is now eastern Indonesia, lifting the ocean’s mineral-rich seafloor to the surface and creating today’s nickel bounty. The region is covered in rainforest, filled with flora especially adapted to the nickel-rich soil. Many of the creatures here don’t live anywhere else, like the maleo, a pink-breasted bird that buries its eggs underground, where they are heated by geothermal energy, and the anoa, the world’s smallest wild cattle species. 


在Harita镍加工设施的工人；该设施的原矿堆。

但当地发现的红土镍矿并不特别适用于电动汽车。中国公司专注于一种将此类镍转化为电动车电池材料的工艺，即高压酸浸(简称HPAL)。这种技术已经存在了几十年，但事实证明总是会有小问题。 6park.com
But the laterite nickel found here wasn’t particularly suitable for EVs. Chinese companies focused on a process that turns that type of nickel into materials for EV batteries, known as high-pressure acid leach, or HPAL. The technique had been around for decades, but had proved glitchy. 6park.com
   
如果中国的科学家和工程师能够大规模地开发一些设施，就可以推动向电动汽车的转型。 6park.com
If Chinese scientists and engineers could develop facilities at scale, they could power the shift to electric vehicles. 6park.com
   
这是中国的宁波力勤资源科技股份有限公司(Ningbo Lygend Resources & Technology)在2018年向印尼矿商Harita Group提出的建议，当时两家公司讨论了建立将成为印尼首个高压酸浸设施的相关事宜。诸如此类的投资得到了印尼一项政策的鼓励；该项政策2020年出台，禁止原镍出口并要求企业在国内进行加工。 6park.com
That was the pitch China’s Lygend Resources and Technology made to Indonesian miner Harita Group in 2018, when the two companies discussed setting up what would become Indonesia’s first HPAL facility. Investments such as these were encouraged by an Indonesian policy that in 2020 banned the export of raw nickel and required companies to process domestically. 6park.com
   
到2021年，至少还有另外两家中国公司宣布了斥资10亿美元建设镍设施的计划，还有更多的公司正在起草方案。这些项目进展迅速。 6park.com
By 2021, at least two other Chinese companies had announced plans to construct billion-dollar nickel facilities, and more were drawing up proposals. The projects ramped up quickly. 6park.com
   
根据总部位于伦敦的大宗商品商业情报公司CRU的数据，去年印尼生产的镍占电动车电池所用全部镍量的一半左右，2017年的这一比例在零到5%之间。CRU称，预计到2027年，这一比例将超过80%。 6park.com
Indonesia produced around half of all nickel used in EV batteries made last year, up from somewhere between zero and 5% in 2017, according to CRU, a London-based firm specializing in commodities business intelligence. That’s expected to exceed 80% by 2027, CRU says. 6park.com
    6park.com
淘镍热引发了迫在眉睫的新环境问题。高压酸浸工艺包括将镍矿浸泡在硫酸中，并在巨大的压力下将其加热到204.4摄氏度（400华氏度）以上。以这种方式生产镍，其碳密集度几乎是加拿大和俄罗斯硫化镍开采和加工的两倍。据国际能源署(International Energy Agency)，另一种通常要用到熔炼炉的红土镍矿加工方法的碳密集度是前者的六倍。 6park.com
The nickel rush has created pressing new environmental concerns. The HPAL process involves dousing nickel ore in sulfuric acid and heating it to more than 400 degrees Fahrenheit at enormous pressures. Producing nickel this way is nearly twice as carbon-intensive as mining and processing sulfide nickel found in Canada and Russia. Another way of processing laterite ore that often uses coal-powered furnaces is six times as carbon-intensive, according to the International Energy Agency.


奥比岛上的一个镍矿开采场。

企业还面临着如何处理加工废物的问题。在热带国家，由于频繁的地震和大雨破坏了土壤的稳定性，可能导致垃圾坝坍塌，因此很难安全地封存这些废物。印尼2018年的一项法律允许企业获得将矿物加工废物倾倒至海洋中的许可。 6park.com
Companies also face questions about how to get rid of the processing waste. It is difficult to safely sequester in tropical countries because frequent earthquakes and heavy rains destabilize soil, which can cause waste dams to collapse. A 2018 Indonesian law allowed companies to obtain permits to discard mineral processing waste into the ocean. 6park.com
   
环保人士展开了反对这种做法的活动，他们说这可能会污染印度尼西亚东部的海洋。印尼海洋与投资统筹部(Maritime and Investment Affairs Ministry)官员Septian Hario Seto说，政府尚未批准任何关于高压酸浸工厂深海尾矿处理的请求，也不会批准，因为相关废物含有的物质不符合向海洋倾倒的标准。 6park.com
Environmentalists campaigned against the practice, which they said could pollute eastern Indonesia’s seas. A Maritime and Investment Affairs Ministry official, Septian Hario Seto, said authorities hadn’t approved any requests for deep-sea tailings disposal for HPAL plants and wouldn’t do so, as the contents of the waste didn’t meet criteria for being dumped into the ocean. 6park.com
   
印度尼西亚政府表示，致力于执行环境法，会起诉其指称已经在森林中非法开采的公司。据《华尔街日报》见到的一份官方资料，今年早些时候，官员们曾告诉镍业公司高管，要为这些公司作业场所附近军事和警察哨所的建设提供便利，以确保更好的监督。 6park.com
Indonesia’s government says it is committed to enforcing environmental law and prosecutes companies it alleges have illegally mined in forests. Earlier this year, officials told nickel-industry executives to facilitate building military and police posts near their operations to ensure better oversight, according to an official presentation seen by the Journal.

与中国竞争

在美中两国关系恶化之际，中国在印尼镍加工领域的主导地位给西方电动汽车公司带来风险。去年，美国政府宣布镍是一种供应容易受干扰的关键矿物；美国境内的镍生产非常有限。 6park.com
China’s domination of Indonesian nickel processing poses risks for Western electric-vehicle companies at a time of fraying relations between Washington and Beijing. Last year, the U.S. government declared nickel a critical mineral whose supply is vulnerable to disruption, with very limited nickel production operations in the U.S. 6park.com
   
今年3月，福特汽车(Ford Motor, F)宣布，将在印度尼西亚镍资源丰富的苏拉威西岛投资一家镍加工厂。福特汽车表示，这项投资将有助该公司实现在2026年生产约200万辆电动汽车的目标。 6park.com
In March, Ford Motor announced that it was investing in a nickel-processing operation on Indonesia’s nickel-rich Sulawesi island. The company said the investment will help it hit its target of producing approximately two million electric vehicles in 2026.


Harita采矿场的工人；Harita镍加工设施一瞥。

一家中国公司是该行动的主力。多年来，巴西矿商淡水河谷(Vale, VALE)的印尼子公司曾与日本住友金属鈜山(Sumitomo Metal Mining)合作开发该项目。但这一合作关系遇到了障碍。住友去年退出，淡水河谷与中国公司浙江华友钴业股份有限公司(Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, 603799.SH, 简称：华友钴业)签署了一项协议，开发一个利用高压酸浸法提取镍的设施，淡水河谷称该设施规模将超过现有的任何设施。 6park.com
A Chinese company is at the center of that operation. For years, the the Indonesian unit of Brazilian miner Vale worked with Japan’s Sumitomo Metal Mining to develop the project. But the partnership hit snags. Sumitomo withdrew last year, and Vale signed an agreement with Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, a Chinese firm, to develop a nickel HPAL facility that Vale says will be larger than any that exist today.   6park.com
  
住友的一位发言人说，上述合作项目取消是由于时间安排上的分歧。淡水河谷的一位发言人说，该公司与华友钴业合作是因为那个项目规模更大。 6park.com
A Sumitomo spokesman said the venture was scrapped because of differences in scheduling. A Vale spokeswoman said the company partnered with Zhejiang Huayou because that project was larger. 6park.com
   
福特汽车高级管理人员Lisa Drake说：“这个框架使福特汽车能够直接控制我们所需的镍的获取，而且是以业界成本最低的方式之一，并使我们能够确保镍的开采符合我们公司的可持续发展目标。” 6park.com
“This framework gives Ford direct control to source the nickel we need—in one of the industry’s lowest-cost ways—and allows us to ensure the nickel is mined in line with our company’s sustainability targets” said Lisa Drake, a senior Ford executive. 6park.com
   
法国矿商Eramet也正处于与德国化工巨头巴斯夫公司(BASF, BF)一起开发一个镍提取设施的早期阶段。Eramet的首席发展官Geoff Streeton说，该公司并没有寻求一个中国合作伙伴，但其模式利用“中国工程公司所解锁的优势”。其拟建工厂的矿石将来自一家中国公司持有最大股份的矿山。 6park.com
French miner Eramet is also in the early stages of developing a nickel facility alongside German chemical giant BASF. It isn’t seeking a Chinese partner, but its model takes advantage of “what has been unlocked by the Chinese engineering companies,” said Geoff Streeton, Eramet’s chief development officer. The ore for its potential plant will be sourced from a mine in which a Chinese company holds the largest stake. 6park.com
   
Streeton说，为采矿而清理土地是不可避免的。他说：“我们的目的是要恢复生物多样性。” 6park.com
Clearing land in order to mine is inevitable, said Mr. Streeton. “Our intent is to rehabilitate back to a biodiverse outcome,” he said.


镍开采通常需要清除成片的树林。