This article was written by Anthony Lipmann. All views and opinions expressed are strictly his own.
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 got me thinking in a number of directions.
First, about the way in which everything associated with anything to do with energy transition has now become the new religion. And, as with most doctrines, tolerance of other points of view is not high on the list.
In the case of the elements in which metal people trade, it is interesting to note how many are re-branding as ‘critical materials’ or ‘green elements’.
I was interested to note that a ‘Critical Minerals and Metals’ summit in Indonesia included such elements as copper, nickel, tin, bauxite, cobalt, aluminium, manganese, and graphite - or simply what you and I used to call – metals and minerals. All of them are now titled ‘elements for energy transition’ when in reality (as an example) the quantity of nickel actually destined for batteries is only about 15 % of total nickel consumption.
It seems difficult to escape the green Utopia; and after all who would not vote for it if it was on the ballot paper?
But if you go back to Thomas More’s satire, it is surely about man’s predilection to believe in the existence of better worlds rather than make the technical drawings for a new political system. More’s purpose in the 16th Century was surely rather to highlight his society’s mundane feet of clay than to create a new world.
Nevertheless, thinking of embryos in the metal trade also got me thinking about the emblematic young person - or embryonic metal trader – who joins a firm full of wonder and enthusiasm but is doomed to be reduced to a mere cog whose purpose is to assist his employers to make money.
Nothing entirely wrong with that, except for what could be missed if said embryo is infected by the idea that metals have nothing other than an affinity with the dollar.
How lucky have I been (I often think) to have spent forty years coming up close to elements and applications that some University scientists and metallurgists do not commonly have access to.
I have said this before, but what a waste of a career in metals merely to trade an element without coming up close to the processes they are used in! Iridium coated on titanium anodes for the chlor-alkali process, germanium for in heat sensor night sights (developed for the military but now as often used to observe nocturnal wildlife) or zirconium used in amorphous alloys (called liquid metal) which when super cooled can be cast as finished. And so many more…
What a waste to trade cobalt but not ever visit Katanga or to trade copper and not visit the High Atacama. What a further waste not to attempt to read the popular science books that further illuminate the world we inhabit – the latest of which – Material World by Ed Conway I would commend 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 and let me wish all those starting in their career in metals a wonderful journey; and those still working at the rock face to rescue their spirits with the endless fascination of the science behind the metals we trade.
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