Resources
One page per mineral: what it costs, who mines it, who holds the reserves, and where it sits in a value chain. The prices are world benchmarks and the quantities are national, so each page says which of the two it can show and which it cannot.
Copper
Copper is the metal electrification runs on. It carries current better than anything affordable, so it appears wherever electricity is...
LiLithium
Lithium is the element in the battery that stores the charge, and there is no drop-in substitute at comparable energy density. That...
CoCobalt
Cobalt stabilises the cathode in most lithium-ion batteries, letting them run hotter and last longer. It is also the mineral the...
NiNickel
Nickel's old market is stainless steel, which still takes most of it, and its new one is battery cathodes, which pay more for a purer...
KPotash
Potash is one of the three nutrients a crop cannot do without, alongside nitrogen and phosphate. Unlike copper or lithium it is not an...
PPhosphate
Phosphorus is one of the three nutrients a crop cannot substitute for, and unlike nitrogen it cannot be fixed from the air. Every tonne...
FeIron ore
Iron ore is the largest dry bulk commodity moved by sea and the first input to steel, which is to say the first input to construction,...
AlAluminium
Aluminium is what you use when weight matters more than cost: aircraft, vehicle bodies, packaging, transmission cable. It is also the...
ZnZinc
Most zinc is used to stop steel rusting. Galvanising is unglamorous and almost invisible in the finished product, which is why zinc...
SnTin
Almost every soldered joint in every circuit board is tin. It is consumed in small quantities per device and in vast numbers of devices,...