nuclear-news

DR Congo’s cobalt boom carries an unwanted cargo: uranium

On the southern border of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the lumbering
trucks carrying cobalt into Zambia may soon have to pass through towering
radiation detectors — a sign of mounting concerns about uranium
contamination in the ores that are powering the electric revolution.

The DR Congo is the world’s largest producer of cobalt, an essential metal for
batteries. But the frequent presence of radioactive materials at some of
its biggest cobalt mines has led to health risks for workers, rejected
shipments and concerns about safeguarding nuclear material, according to an
investigation by the FT and Lighthouse Reports, a journalism non-profit.

With limited state oversight in mining regions, non-proliferation
specialists and Congolese officials worry that uranium-laced cobalt ore and
other radioactive material could fall into the wrong hands or enter a
covert supply chain hidden from international regulators. Uranium occurs
naturally across the country’s vast “copper belt” region, which
includes the mine that produced the uranium used in the atomic bombs in the
second world war.

New research shows the amount of uranium mingled with the
country’s cobalt exports is much greater than previously believed:
between 2000 and 2024 it was enough to produce 600 nuclear weapons, or fuel
a large 1GW nuclear reactor for a decade, if extracted and enriched.

 FT 30th July 2026, https://www.ft.com/content/77815def-6f50-4adf-8ba3-3643de7bf8ab

August 4, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AFRICA, radiation