Disappearing Elements? - Part IV

Yet another element has turned up on the “Where’s it going to come from in the future?” list. (See my earlier posts). Recently, Fetzthechemist discussed the use of Nd-Fe-B magnets slated to be used in upcoming wind-to-energy conversion devices. His point was that the world’s current capacity for producing neodymium was insufficient to meet these future needs. This doesn’t mean the project is necessarily doomed. As a general rule, the inevitable price spikes which occur whenever demand exceeds supply often leads to the discovery of new, albeit more expensive, sources and methods of extraction. But at what point does the difference between running out of an element and being unable to use it due to cost become moot? Developers of new technologies will need to start paying more attention to the future availability of their starting materials. Maybe those alchemists obsessed with the transmutation of metals were just preparing for the future.

I’ve also noticed that many of these disappearing elements seem to be associated with new energy technologies. My first post on this subject came after reading a stock analysis criticizing a company’s (First Solar) plan to significantly increase their solar cell production – a plan which would have required using 16% of the world’s current capacity of tellurium. Hopefully this is not a trend which will continue.
-------------------------------------------

On the brighter side, my son no longer needs training wheels for his bike. My enthusiasm, however, is somewhat dampened by the soreness which I’m now experiencing after having spent yesterday running along side his bike, trying to help him maintain balance, while accelerating down our street. (Our sub has no sidewalks) He was probably ready to learn this last summer, but we never got around to it. So it took him less than a day to learn, to my great relief.

Disappearing Elements? - Part III

In what is shaping up to be a recurring theme, there is yet another report warning of the possible future scarcity of an element. This time it's lithium.

The biggest sources of lithium are salt pans and salt lake deposits, mostly in Chile and Argentina. There is also a large, relatively untapped reserve of lithium salt is in the Bolivia salt pans. The Bolivian reserves are thought to contain 5.4 million tonnes of lithium (nearly 50 per cent of the global lithium salt reserves). Since the annual worldwide production of lithium is about 70,000 tonnes (lithium carbonate), this would seem to indicate we have plenty of lithium for the near future, assuming that demand does not significantly increase. Unfortunately, demand may be about to increase drastically. Lithium ion batteries are becoming all the rage, especially as automakers attempt to mass produce hybrid and electric vehicles.

According to William Tahil, the report's author: "to make 60 million plug-in hybrid vehicles a year containing a small lithium-ion battery would require 420,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate – or six times the current global production annually. But in reality, you'd want a decent-sized battery, so it's more likely you'd have to increase global production 10-fold. And this excludes the demand for lithium in portable electronics." At that rate, lithium is going to run out a lot more quickly.

However, this is not a universally accepted opinion. Keith Evans, a geologist with some expertise in lithium mining, disputes Tahil's conclusions. Evans believes that the available lithium reserves are much larger. His critique of Tahil's report is given here, and additional details can be found at his blog, which is named Lithium Abundance.

I don't use lithium very much in the lab, although I have occasionally used LiAlH4 and LiBH4. Still, I would be rather bummed out if we ever ran out of lithium, or any element for that matter. Let's hope Evans is correct.
-------------------------------------------------------

In more lighthearted news, John Swain of Northeastern university has a video demonstrating that the iron which is used to enrich cereals like Total is actually in the metallic form. The link to the story is here and a link to a commercial free version of the video is here. I assume this isn't some sort of joke.

Disappearing Elements? - Part III

In what is shaping up to be a recurring theme, there is yet another report warning of the possible future scarcity of an element. This time it's lithium.

The biggest sources of lithium are salt pans and salt lake deposits, mostly in Chile and Argentina. There is also a large, relatively untapped reserve of lithium salt is in the Bolivia salt pans. The Bolivian reserves are thought to contain 5.4 million tonnes of lithium (nearly 50 per cent of the global lithium salt reserves). Since the annual worldwide production of lithium is about 70,000 tonnes (lithium carbonate), this would seem to indicate we have plenty of lithium for the near future, assuming that demand does not significantly increase. Unfortunately, demand may be about to increase drastically. Lithium ion batteries are becoming all the rage, especially as automakers attempt to mass produce hybrid and electric vehicles.

According to William Tahil, the report's author: "to make 60 million plug-in hybrid vehicles a year containing a small lithium-ion battery would require 420,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate – or six times the current global production annually. But in reality, you'd want a decent-sized battery, so it's more likely you'd have to increase global production 10-fold. And this excludes the demand for lithium in portable electronics." At that rate, lithium is going to run out a lot more quickly.

However, this is not a universally accepted opinion. Keith Evans, a geologist with some expertise in lithium mining, disputes Tahil's conclusions. Evans believes that the available lithium reserves are much larger. His critique of Tahil's report is given here, and additional details can be found at his blog, which is named Lithium Abundance.

I don't use lithium very much in the lab, although I have occasionally used LiAlH4 and LiBH4. Still, I would be rather bummed out if we ever ran out of lithium, or any element for that matter. Let's hope Evans is correct.
-------------------------------------------------------

In more lighthearted news, John Swain of Northeastern university has a video demonstrating that the iron which is used to enrich cereals like Total is actually in the metallic form. The link to the story is here and a link to a commercial free version of the video is here. I assume this isn't some sort of joke.

Disappearing Elements? - Part II

I’d love to say it’s great to be back home, but I can’t do it with a straight face. Although our vacation only consisted of driving to the other side of the state and staying in Saugatuck (near Lake Michigan) for a few days, it was one of the most relaxing few days I’ve ever spent. Going back to work on Monday was definitely a challenge. Diligent chemist that I am, however, I made sure to practice my chemical techniques throughout the vacation. Examples would include:

1. Oxidizing a fair bit of ethanol with ADH (alcohol dehydrogenase). (Note to self -- consuming ice cream after a bottle of wine is no longer recommended).

2. Altering a large number of my DNA molecules via UV radiation.

3. Witnessing many colorful pyrotechnic explosions. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that I spend more time trying to guess which elements are being used to generate the colors than I do just ooohing and aaahing like everyone else. At least I’m not trying to make my own fireworks (anymore) like this guy.

So it’s hard enough to get back into the work routine, but now I read over at Practical Transmutations that we may be running out of certain elements. I’ve written about this before, but it seems that the situation is more dire than I originally thought. Apparently, a German chemist has estimated when our supply of certain metals is going to be exhausted. This is not good news for some inorganic chemists. For example, becoming an expert on gallium and indium may not be a good career choice if you plan on working more than 10 years. And as if we aren’t using indium up quickly enough, we now have marketers promoting the use of indium as a promoter of good health. As far as I know, there are no studies demonstrating its efficacy in this area -- only its toxicity. Of course, they used to use arsenic for health reasons too, so who knows?

Anyway, this is not a good way to begin the work week. Stop using up our elements, you swine!

Disappearing Elements? - Part II

I’d love to say it’s great to be back home, but I can’t do it with a straight face. Although our vacation only consisted of driving to the other side of the state and staying in Saugatuck (near Lake Michigan) for a few days, it was one of the most relaxing few days I’ve ever spent. Going back to work on Monday was definitely a challenge. Diligent chemist that I am, however, I made sure to practice my chemical techniques throughout the vacation. Examples would include:

1. Oxidizing a fair bit of ethanol with ADH (alcohol dehydrogenase). (Note to self -- consuming ice cream after a bottle of wine is no longer recommended).

2. Altering a large number of my DNA molecules via UV radiation.

3. Witnessing many colorful pyrotechnic explosions. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that I spend more time trying to guess which elements are being used to generate the colors than I do just ooohing and aaahing like everyone else. At least I’m not trying to make my own fireworks (anymore) like this guy.

So it’s hard enough to get back into the work routine, but now I read over at Practical Transmutations that we may be running out of certain elements. I’ve written about this before, but it seems that the situation is more dire than I originally thought. Apparently, a German chemist has estimated when our supply of certain metals is going to be exhausted. This is not good news for some inorganic chemists. For example, becoming an expert on gallium and indium may not be a good career choice if you plan on working more than 10 years. And as if we aren’t using indium up quickly enough, we now have marketers promoting the use of indium as a promoter of good health. As far as I know, there are no studies demonstrating its efficacy in this area -- only its toxicity. Of course, they used to use arsenic for health reasons too, so who knows?

Anyway, this is not a good way to begin the work week. Stop using up our elements, you swine!

Disappearing Elements?

I assume that very few organic chemists lie awake at nights worrying about running out of chemicals with which to play. Even when the oil fields in the Middle East run out, huge untapped fields in Russia along with the 400 billion barrels of oil now thought to be under the arctic should keep the organikers happy for a long time. And this doesn’t even include the vast oil sand reserves in Canada. Inorganic chemists don’t have quite the same security blanket. Sure, if your project involves highly abundant elements like Fe or Si, then you’re golden. But what about the rarer elements? In one of my first posts to this blog, I mentioned a report which discussed the depletion of the world’s supply of helium. Since helium is not a renewable resource, when it’s gone, it’s gone. As the world’s demand for inorganic chemicals continues to grow, we are eventually going to run out of them, or least they’ll become rare enough to no longer be a commodity.

Back in January I ran across an article discussing the stock price of First Solar, a maker of solar panels. Their panels are based on cadmium telluride thin film technology. In 2006, First Solar consumed about 4% of the world’s annual supply of tellurium, an element even rarer than platinum. First Solar’s stated intent is to quadruple their output of solar cells, which would require 16% of the world’s supply. Since other solar cell companies are also beginning to gear up using similar technologies you can imagine what this is going to do to the supply of tellurium. Think what’s going to happen to the price of CD-RWs, DVD-RWs, and rewriteable Blu-Ray discs, all of which depend upon Te.

And even if we don’t completely run out of an element, the cost may rise to the point at which we can no longer afford to do any chemistry with it. Back in the last millennium, automakers were all hot to convert their Pt/Rh based catalytic convertors into (mostly) Pd based catalysts. There were both advantages and disadvantages to this move, but one of the main driving forces was price. Due to a smaller market, Pd was about 4 times cheaper than Pt and, at one point, about 10 times cheaper than Rh. Even though Pd catalysts require much higher metal loadings, the overall price was still cheaper. This love affair with Pd died down some when some accountants actually calculated the total amount of Pd needed for this switchover and discovered that there might not be enough Pd available in the world to do this, especially if all the car companies started using Pd. And, of course, as soon as the interest in Pd started to rise, so did the price, negating much of the original advantage of Pd. (I realize that noble metal prices have more to do with the stranglehold the mines in South Africa have over the market as opposed to true market forces, but that would just ruin this part of the story, so I’m ignoring it.) So before you plan your next research project, make sure you pick an element which has a long future.

Disappearing Elements?

I assume that very few organic chemists lie awake at nights worrying about running out of chemicals with which to play. Even when the oil fields in the Middle East run out, huge untapped fields in Russia along with the 400 billion barrels of oil now thought to be under the arctic should keep the organikers happy for a long time. And this doesn’t even include the vast oil sand reserves in Canada. Inorganic chemists don’t have quite the same security blanket. Sure, if your project involves highly abundant elements like Fe or Si, then you’re golden. But what about the rarer elements? In one of my first posts to this blog, I mentioned a report which discussed the depletion of the world’s supply of helium. Since helium is not a renewable resource, when it’s gone, it’s gone. As the world’s demand for inorganic chemicals continues to grow, we are eventually going to run out of them, or least they’ll become rare enough to no longer be a commodity.

Back in January I ran across an article discussing the stock price of First Solar, a maker of solar panels. Their panels are based on cadmium telluride thin film technology. In 2006, First Solar consumed about 4% of the world’s annual supply of tellurium, an element even rarer than platinum. First Solar’s stated intent is to quadruple their output of solar cells, which would require 16% of the world’s supply. Since other solar cell companies are also beginning to gear up using similar technologies you can imagine what this is going to do to the supply of tellurium. Think what’s going to happen to the price of CD-RWs, DVD-RWs, and rewriteable Blu-Ray discs, all of which depend upon Te.

And even if we don’t completely run out of an element, the cost may rise to the point at which we can no longer afford to do any chemistry with it. Back in the last millennium, automakers were all hot to convert their Pt/Rh based catalytic convertors into (mostly) Pd based catalysts. There were both advantages and disadvantages to this move, but one of the main driving forces was price. Due to a smaller market, Pd was about 4 times cheaper than Pt and, at one point, about 10 times cheaper than Rh. Even though Pd catalysts require much higher metal loadings, the overall price was still cheaper. This love affair with Pd died down some when some accountants actually calculated the total amount of Pd needed for this switchover and discovered that there might not be enough Pd available in the world to do this, especially if all the car companies started using Pd. And, of course, as soon as the interest in Pd started to rise, so did the price, negating much of the original advantage of Pd. (I realize that noble metal prices have more to do with the stranglehold the mines in South Africa have over the market as opposed to true market forces, but that would just ruin this part of the story, so I’m ignoring it.) So before you plan your next research project, make sure you pick an element which has a long future.