Running Out of Elements

It’s not just species of plants and animals that are on their way to extinction. According to Armin Reller, a materials chemist from the University of Augsbirg, gallium is on its way to extinction in a few years. Not just gallium, hafnium is predicted to be all gone by 2017, indium couild be gone in less than a decade.  Obscure elements yes, but zinc, used widely in cars and computers looks threatened by 2037.

If it seems odd that we’re running out of elements, there are 92 on the periodic chart, it’s not unprecedented. Numbers 85 and 87 on the chart, have been empty for awhile, both radioactive with extremely short half lives. But gallium is something we use quit a lot of recently. It’s a blue white metal and like mecury liquid at room temperature. Atomic number 31, it’s low melting point demonstrates why its used in coating optical mirrors, or in making the liquid crystal displays used in flat screen tvs and monitors. And there is the predictable cause for the run gallium.

We get gallium by extracting it from zinc or aluminum ore. Indium, atomic number 49, is like gallium in properties, and so it has many of the smae uses in adidtion to being a gasoline additive.  Hafnium, atomic number 72, is another element extracted from minerals that contain zirconium. Hafnium is used in computer chips and in the control rods of nuclear reactors.

Of course we can always recycle the elements out of manufactured products, which would extend the use of them beyond the ability to just find or make more.  Which is why Zinc is so interesting to watch from a market perspective, since the economics of supply and demand kick in. In December of 2006 high grade zinc trades around a peak of $4,400 a metric tonne as analysts were predicting the short supplies. By 2008, zinc is back trading at around $1795 a metric tonne, despite concerns that the China earthquake earlier in May would lower inventories.

The common thread to all this is that these elements are used mostly in high tech devices and products. How we consume and dispose of these devices holds the key in how we deal with the end of these elements. Our track record with oil perhaps sheds some light on that.