The people who care about cobalt being used for EVs don’t seem to mind when you point out it’s also used to refine petroleum. It was never about the cobalt.
4% of global cobalt use is used by refineries. 62% of global cobalt use is for EVs, and growing.
[1] https://www.perplexity.ai/search/How-much-cobalt-5scBTFEHRym...
[2] https://www.perplexity.ai/search/How-much-cobalt-5scBTFEHRym...
Note that the links you provided are not primary sources. They rely on this one tweet as the primary source. https://twitter.com/siddharthkara/status/1612587425087524864
Because of it's relative uselessness and worthlessness, cobalt mines were shutdown. It's only semi-recently that there's been talks of turning the lights back on. Like in this mine [1]
Some people did genuinely care before, but we are really talking about the current anti-EV movement and their list of “Bingo” talking points.
When you point out alternative battery chemistries that don’t use cobalt as a viable alternative to both NMC EVs and ICE vehicles, they move on to some other anti-EV talking point they’ve been taught. My point still stands. It was never about the cobalt.