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The race for EV and Indonesia’s bid for sustainable development
It is important to have a governance system in place to make sure that nickel mining and processing activities in Indonesia obey a minimum environmental and ethics standard.
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The Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) in Central Sulawesi is shown in this undated photo. (Courtesy of IMIP)
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ugust 25th marked a milestone for electric vehicle (EV) development as the state of California in the United States voted to ban new gasoline car sales by 2035. It is still 13 years from now, however, the conventional car sales will logically dry up a few years earlier since no household will purchase a car that can never be sold, at least in that state.
This is news no one has predicted (yet) but understanding that California is at the heart of hundreds of business disruptors (startups), there is no doubt that it has once again positioned itself as the disruptor for the conventional car market. Accordingly, the race for EVs is now officially on.
For Indonesia, the fervor toward EV utilization was felt three to four years ago, hand-in-hand with the government’s decision to ban the nickel ore export as nickel and lithium are the predominant ingredients of EV batteries.
Nickel mining and processing activities have blossomed like never before and Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) in Central Sulawesi, the world’s largest nickel processing complex, is just one proof of how the EV fever, coupled with the export ban, pave a foundation for the added value economic activity.
The nickel intermediate product from Indonesia will be sold to overseas markets and made as EV batteries. Although we, as vehicle users, have never heard of or probably cared about what batteries are made of or where the raw materials come from, battery producers do care. Battery producers want suppliers of raw materials to consider and deliver the sustainability component. As a matter of fact, this explains why Tesla, the pioneer of EVs in the northern hemisphere, is very careful in selecting a partner who can supply the battery precursor.
Therefore, it is important to have a governance system in place to make sure that nickel mining and processing activities in Indonesia obey a minimum environmental and ethics standard. Otherwise, nickel intermediate products from Indonesia may not be able to maintain its competitiveness in the global market.
It is not exaggerating either if we think that CO2 emissions will be entitled to nickel production and the European and North American markets desirably prefer low emission batteries in EVs on their roads.
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