Nickel Mines Used for Production of Hybrid Batteries

Nickel is Nickel

• Nickel is a commonly-traded metal commodity. Once it is mined and refined, there is very little difference between the nickel available from various sources. End users of nickel rarely pick a specific mine to provide them with specific nickel for a single product. As common uses for nickel include battery production, nickel from all over the world is used in the battery industry.

Nickel Mines Around the World

• There are nickel mines in all of the world's major continents. There are over six hundred active nickle mines in the world. As such, it is impossible to say what specific mines feed the hybrid battery industry, since nickel is an openly-traded commodity.

Major Mines

• There are, however, some countries that produce more nickel than others. The top three nickel producing countries in the world are Russia, Canada and Australia. The major mines in the world include Sudbury and Thompson in Canada, with Voisey's Bay to be coming on line soon. Norilâsk -Talnakh in Russia is one of the largest, if not the largest, operating nickel mine in the world.

Hybrid Battery Uses

• Several hybrid vehicles use nickel based batteries (NiMH). They include the Toyota Prius, Honda Insight, Ford Escape Hybrid, Honda Civic Hybrid and Chevy Malibu Hybrid. NiMH batteries are also commonly used in all-electric vehicles and in some mass-transportation applications.