Engineering360: "Why Are Certain Metals Rare or Precious? – Astronomy for Metallurgists"

"... The noble or precious metals are the “rarest” elements in the earth’s crust, which accounts for their price. ..."

Tellurium's (Te) low abundance yet low price (in 2017 a kg of Te could be bought for 30$-40$) despite industrial demand suggests it takes more than rarity to account for high price.

The nature of elements impacts how much we can access in the earth's crust - very dense elements sunk to the earth's metal core and light or volatile element evaporated into space.

"....Early planets had molten surfaces, so gaseous elements or elements forming volatile compound have become depleted in the earth’s core through evaporation unless they formed into less volatile minerals like silicates or oxides. For example, tellurium and selenium have been depleted from the crust because these metal elements form of volatile hydrides..."

Another factor is an element's propensity to be concentrated versus distributed.

That misses the point....

You include the description of why an element might be rare in the universe or why it might be rare in the Earth's crust even though abundant in the universe.

....only thing is, that's not the problem. The problem is the article states rarity is the reason for high price. Tellurium is quite rare yet has a low price.

Supply and demand impacts metal cost in addition to abundance.

Tellurium is still more costly compared to more abundant metals such as aluminum, magnesium or iron. The price also has to do with how the element is distributed and how ease with extracting and reducing the metal ore to metal.

I think a third factor impacting metal cost is the demand from applications, which I did not mention in the article. Tellurium is used as a free machining additive in alloys, in cadmium telluride solar cell, and in lead telluride thermoelectric materials - but these applications have not created sufficient demand to increase the price compared to metals will lower abundance.

The price of tellurium dropped between 2013 and 2018 from $113/kg to $36/kg - which has to be due to increasing supply and/or reduced demand. Most tellurium is coming from China today, which might be another factor impacting the metal's cost. China subsidizes the production of metals. China's 2017 tellurium production of 280 tons was 7 times higher than the second highest producer, Sweden - 38 tons. China still holds on to some tenets of communism and their state-controlled capitalism is artificially depressing metal prices. A fourth factor influencing tellurium prices might be China' s overproduction of metals.

Tellurium is one of the least common elements on Earth. Most rocks contain an average of about 3 parts per billion tellurium, making it rarer than the rare earth elements and eight times less abundant than gold. 85% of global production of tellurium comes as a byproduct of copper mining through a process called electrolytic refining. Grains of native tellurium appear in rocks as a brittle, silvery-white material, but tellurium more commonly occurs in telluride minerals that include varying quantities of gold, silver, or platinum.

https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/selenium/mcs-2018-tellu.pdf

https://minerals.usgs.gov/science/tellurium-igneous-related-epi-deposits-co-nm/

https://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2014/3077/pdf/fs2014-3077.pdf

Your third and forth factors are covered in your second factor....supply and demand.

Supply and demand definitely has a significant impact on price. Supply and demand is almost too broad a brush to be helpful in describing the specific of what drives metal prices. Almost anything affecting price can be brought under this umbrella. Even 'rarity', the first of your factors is a component of 'supply'.

So while 'rarity' alone is insufficient to describe what drives price, it is a part of the supply term of supply and demand.

Another important part of the supply is how difficult it is to isolate, consolidate and manipulate sample of a given state or purity..

Consider elements like cesium, holmium, boron, beryllium hafnium and lutetium. Relatively pure samples of these each can fetch far more than tellurium yet are 100s or 1000s (or more) times less rare in the crust than tellurium. There are minimum costs required to obtain these samples because of reactivity, difficulty in separating from chemically similar elements and/or special considerations due to health hazards.

The whole point of my comment is just to note that rarity is insufficient to drive high price.

You are a rare one!:-)

This cost almost nothing to say, but should have some value for you!

But there is no price!

As a bonus I fully agree with your assessment!

You make a good point.Thank you for your thoughts!

Perhaps I will write a follow up article reviewing more of the supply and demand factors such as - "What Factors Drive the Cost of Metals and Materials?" Metals like titanium and magnesium are useful engineering materials - especially in aircraft for lightweighting. These metals have relative abundance could have lower costs - if their production costs (supply factor) could be reduced.

Let me know if you have any recommendation or reference or resources for the future article.

"... Metals like titanium and magnesium are useful engineering materials - especially in aircraft for lightweight..."

Magnesium, titanium as well as aluminum prices all have a sizable componenent of cost from electricity used. Some other metals important to manufacturing things like high efficiency electric motors and generators also have a large component of price due to electricity required.

This makes for a dynamic environment for a society attempting to move towards greater efficiency and less pollution. If incentives to develop thinhs like wind and solar power result in higher electricity costs, any potential benefits will likely at least be diminished and possibly negated as the higher electricity costs increase the price of adopting other new energy saving technology. i.e. if the price of electricity is raised by X cents per kilowatt-hour to accomodate intermittancy issues from increasing wind power by Y%, the benefits may be diminished because it would be more costly to incorporate efficiency increasing tech involving materials with costs tied to electricity.

On the other hand if metal producers could be motivated to develop processes more flexible to the timing of electricity delivery, i.e. utilizing power when wind and solar exceed other demand and finding a way of minimizing or abstaining when wind and solar production is low, the benefits could be multifaceted. The need for grid storage could be diminished, which would lead to lower electricity costs. Reduced electricity costs could make implementing new high efficiency technology (involving materials with electricity sensitive costs) less expensive and therefor more wide spread.

It would be difficult for any single company to profit from the synergy described above (at least I am unaware of any company with the principal business being nonferous metal smelter/foundry and solar/wind farm and significant benefits outside the reach of a smelter power producer would likely occur).

Thoughts?

Electrical power is definitely a big factor in the production of metals, ceramics, and other materials. Electrochemical refining and electric arc furnaces consume a great deal of power. When I was an engineer at Saint-Gobain, many of our ceramic and abrasive plants were located in Niagra Falls or Alabama where cheap hydroelectric power was available from the New York Power Authority or the Tennessee Valley Authority, respectively.

I think most plants want to run continuously when in operation. Some plants may want to keep producing 24/7 365 days a year. In other cases, they might run a "campaign" until production batch needs are met or the furnace needs to be rebuilt or relined.

Perhaps better energy storage technology would allow companies to utilize power more efficiently or select clean power sources by storing cheap power for use when demand is high. Ambri's molten metal battery technology might provide a solution to leveling energy costs.

"... I think most plants want to run continuously when in operation. Some plants may want to keep producing 24/7 365 days a year...."

Yes, of course. That is how things currently are.

Things have been and will continue to change. Wholesale electricity rates occassionally drop so low that they are negative. This is a result of the inability to control when wind and solar will produce as well as incentives for both.

Sure, large battery installations would make more power when it is needed, but the cost to build such plants can be significant and there are inefficiencies in charging storage and discharging.

If producers of materials for which electricity is a large contributor to cost could alter their process to allow more flexible use of electricity, there could be significant advantages. I know that isn't currently the case. I realize it would be easier if the users of power had zero constraints on timing of use, I am just wondering if there might be significant benefits to accepting constraints.

Perhaps metals producers could pursue more satellite or distributed "micromill" approach to materials production where smaller quantities are produced closer to their markets. This approach might be more flexible to producing shorter runs and eliminate shipping costs. Another significant barrier to companies entering the metal production industry is the large capital investment required to build an integrated steel plant. Smaller micromills would reduce the capital expenditure (CAPEX) requirements.
Minimills displaced many of the large integrated steels producers years ago and are now dominant in the U.S. The Minimill Story provides more details of how minimills became dominant in the U.S. Electric steel plants are now well established as the most efficient alternative to converter steel plants in thriving steel markets. The name “Mini Mill”, which originally denoted smaller, locally focused capacities, has long been synonymous with high performance, economy, and flexibility (Primetals Technologies).

A Texas-based company, Commercial Metals Company (CM), has been pioneering the use of micromill technologies. Danieli has built two of their MI.DA.® Micromill (MIDA® MIcromill DAnieli) systems for CMC - the second system for CMC. Danieli has built over 85% of the minimills around the world.

Mineral Technologies (MINTEQ) pioneered the development and implementation of satellite precipitated calcium carbonate (PCC) plants at their customer's paper mills. The PCC is produced on-site - (history of MINTEQ's satellite PPC plants). Gas producers provide an on-site gas generation plant for large customers as well. Perhaps a satellite steel micromill located at a large steel consuming customers such as automotive plants, steel can/container producers, construction products manufacturer (roofing, framing, etc.) could produce steel using lower cost power at night for just-in-time delivery and consumption the next day. Using green power sources such as solar or wind might be an option as well with a satellite steel minimill because the smaller scale systems would require less power. The new micromills can implement newer, more efficient technologies for improved operating expenditure (OPEX) compared to older larger mills.

"In 10 seconds to 20 minutes after the Big Bang, nucleosynthesis created hydrogen, helium and small unstable isotopes of lithium and beryllium."

It actually took about 380,000 years for the universe to cool enough for the first atoms to form.

https://home.cern/about/physics/early-universe "As the universe continued to expand and cool, things began to happen more slowly. It took 380,000 years for electrons to be trapped in orbits around nuclei, forming the first atoms."

"Rare" or "Precious" .. has very little relationship to monetary value.

"Money" is a useful tool in society.. but as a human construct can be easily be distorted. What is the monetary value of anything? Money's value is completely dependent upon how much of it someone is willing to provide for an object or service at that moment in time. This has very little to do with rarity. Has much more to do with perceived need or want.

Money is very poor metric to equated with rarity within the universe or rarity on on earth.

Even harder to equate monetary value to anything labeled under the even more subjective term "precious".

How much is my precious daughter worth in dollars? to me she is priceless..

How much is my precious daughter worth to a human trafficker?

I disagree.

'Precious' does describe something that is costly, having great value, or of high price. Specifically 'precious metals' are costly, relatively speaking. This point about the term precious is definitional, not something inherent to supply and demand.

Also, the English language is complex. You are likely to misunderstand and perhaps mislead if you attempt to understand one use of a term such a 'precious', for example in a metals context, by assuming interchangability with different uses for that word, such as the use of 'precious' related to a loved one.

Rarity is infact an important factor in value, whether measured monitarily or not. It is not just about need or want. Consider the air you breathe. Your need for its continued supply is great, yet with no rarity it does not command a high price.

To claim '... Money's value is completely dependent upon how much of it someone is willing to provide for an object or service at that moment in time. ...' is a gross oversimplification and obscures the salient points.

Money can simply be a very useful metric of comparing value. The goal need not be coin collecting. Having values in a particular currency allows us to easily compare dissimilar things without having to create a market specifically for swapping those particular things.

In the context of the discussion above, value was being compared in a money basis because it is simple. There aren't many (if any) exchanges that price pounds of hafnium in pounds of tellurium for direct exchange.

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That's pretty wordy.

I think I can bring it back together using an example like you ended your comment with...

If you had $1000 in your pocket would you exchange that for your precious daughter? So we can agree she is worth at least that. Is she worth more than that, even though you got a bargain?

Then again, if there was no rarity of your precious daughter, i.e. she is around plenty, it would be pretty silly to always be trying to pay to have her around.