@datandmaps: Zoom out far enough and your battery starts looking very different. Kolwezi sits at the center of the Central African Copperbelt, one of the world's most important regions for copper and cobalt. This timelapse shows the physical footprint growing around the city as open pits, processing areas, roads, and tailings ponds spread across the landscape. Cobalt is used in many lithium-ion batteries. Copper is even harder to avoid. It runs through electric grids, renewable energy projects, buildings, electronics, vehicles, and just about everything that uses electricity. But "clean energy mineral" does not mean impact-free mineral. A 2026 study of the Musonoïe River watershed near Kolwezi found elevated copper and cobalt contamination in sediments, with some of the highest concentrations near mine tailings and downstream areas. ( Congo J. Sci. & Tech.) Decarbonizing the world's energy system means building a lot more infrastructure. It also means asking where the materials come from, who lives beside the mines, where the waste goes, and who benefits from the resources being pulled out of the ground. A cleaner grid should not require invisible sacrifice zones. Created by: @dailyoverview Source imagery: ESA Earth Additional research: Congolese Journal of Science and Technology #creatorsearchinsights #sciencefacts #satellitedata #timelapse #scienceinformation

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2026-10-08 04:24:35

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