From Embryo to Veteran
In South Korea environmental activists have brought a case against the state for not meeting laws to save the climate. The plaintiff is an embryo.
This item made me pause for thought.
First, about the way in which so much associated with energy transition has now become a new religion. And, how tolerance of other points of view is not high on the list for true believers.
In the case of the elements in which metal people make their trade, it is interesting to note how many are being re-branded as ‘critical materials’ or ‘green elements’.
A ‘Critical Minerals and Metals’ summit in Indonesia advertised recently included such elements as copper, nickel, tin, bauxite, cobalt, aluminium, manganese, and graphite in its brochure - or what you and I would just call metals and minerals. It seems these are all now ‘elements for energy transition’ when in reality (as an example) the quantity of nickel actually destined for batteries is only about 15 % of total world nickel consumption.
As I say, it's difficult to escape Green Utopia. After all, who would not vote for it if it was on the ballot paper?
Thomas More’s satire which created the name of the Nowhere country for the English language is surely rather about man’s pre-disposition to believe in the existence of better worlds than the drawings for a new political system. More’s purpose in the 16th Century was surely about his society’s mundane feet of clay.
Nevertheless, contemplating embryos also started me thinking about the young person - or embryonic metal trader – who joins a firm full of wonder but is doomed soon to be reduced to a moving part in a machine whose main purpose is no more than the production of money.
It would be a shame if our young trader was not encouraged to perceive that metals have greater affinities merely than with the dollar.
How lucky have I been (I often think) to have spent forty years coming up close to elements and applications that university scientists and metallurgists do not commonly have access to, or coming across applications before they reach the broadsheets, or having a grasp of supply-demand balances of elements and geopolitics to avoid the disease of hype.
What a waste of a career indeed, merely to trade an element without coming up close to the processes in which they are applied! Iridium coated on titanium anodes for the chlor-alkali process, germanium for heat sensor night sights (developed for the military but the same tech used to observe nocturnal wildlife) or zirconium used in amorphous alloys (called liquid metal) which when super cooled can be cast as finished. And many more…
What a missed opportunity to trade cobalt but not ever to visit Katanga or to trade copper and not visit the High Atacama. What a further shame not to read the wide range of popular science books that illuminate the world we inhabit – the latest of which – Material World by Ed Conway I would recommend to anyone.
Finally, when you get to veteran status after that long career, may I suggest you do not let anyone call you that - as it appears to confer reverence merely via superannuation.
Please judge this veteran on output only. Let me wish all those starting their metals career a wonderful journey; and those still working at the rock face to rescue their spirits with a fascination for the science behind the metals we trade.
Anthony Lipmann
A version of this article was published on www.lord-copper.com
3rd August 2024
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