The GREET model is employed to analyze different conventional mining pathways generating different product formats (detailed in Methods). In conventional mining, refining Ni-Co ores to mixed hydroxide precipitate, (Ni,Co)(OH)2 (Method (2) in Fig. ), elevates energy consumption and CO2-eq emissions by 77.% and 89.4%, respectively, over the discrete salts-based pathway (Fig. and, left panels). While the discrete products NiSO4 and CoSO4 are produced from the mixed hydroxide precipitates through additional post-treatment, the very low composition of Co (3.6%) in the latter limits the NCA stoichiometry, thus increasing the total energy cost to generate 1 kg NCA-equivalent materials. On the other hand, water consumption of refining mixed hydroxides is slightly lower (-6.6%) than that in producing discrete salts.