Tim Worstall

I’ve been trying to puzzle through what might have happened in that dreadful fire and explosion in Texas. Of course, we all know that ammonium nitrate is highly explosive: people make bombs out of it. But it doesn’t appear that the plant actually made or even stored that. It was a wholesaler for anhydrous ammonia. [...]

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Diddy Cameron has a new enthusiasm. Sponsored by the Government, a company called UK Seabed Resources has won the first commercial exploration rights over a 58,000 square-kilometre area of the Pacific, he announced. The licence was granted by the International Seabed Authority, the body governing mining outside territorial waters. Late this summer, the company will [...]

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I was really rather surprised to see this story making the front page of Bloomberg: South Korea, the world’s biggest maker of consumer-electronics memory chips, is leading the first geological study of Colombia’s rare metals as it seeks to secure supplies for Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) and LG Corp. (003550) State-run Korean Institute of Geoscience [...]

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Today it’s all about blood minerals. There are dozens of issues, such as starvation wages, bullying, abuse and 60-hour weeks in the sweatshops manufacturing them, the debt bondage into which some of the workers are pressed, the energy used, the hazardous waste produced. But I will concentrate on just one: are the components soaked in [...]

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I’d be interested to hear what he says about resource availability. I know he mentions it but does he only go with oil and fracking? Or does he talk about metals and minerals as well?

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So, a leetle report from the front lines of the business world. As you all know I’m working on ‘untin slags in the ‘ore mountains. A likely path through the thickets has been planned. But we’re facing an odd little problem. Through the various alliances we’ve made we can work up to a certain scale [...]

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Sounds like a bonzer idea to me: The company, Marine Minerals, said the project would only go ahead if the tin could be “extracted” – it rejects the idea that it will be “dredging” – in an environmentally and socially responsible way. Its proposal is to suck the sand up from the seabed — between [...]

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A system of overbearing regulation is preventing researchers from running clinical trials which could lead to new treatments for diseases like cancer, leading experts claim. The entire economy is wallowing in such regulation. A real life example for you. Inside an already licensed chemicals factory we discussed the idea of recreating a production line that [...]

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Nine newly cast bells have gone on display at Notre Dame, the Paris cathedral, weeks before they are hoisted into the two great towers in time for Easter. The new bells, weighing 23 tons in total and named after saints and prominent Catholics, have been cast to mark the 850th anniversary of the Cathedral’s founding [...]

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In addition, Rio Tinto had to unveil a further $10 to $11bn hit to the valuation of its aluminium assets, bought at the market peak. It has now written down $28bn of the $38bn paid for aluminium company Alcan in 2007, analysts estimated. That’s gotta hurt. And as the economists keep trying to tell people: [...]

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Is Zinnwaldite usable as a mica in the normal industrial sense?

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So, the adventure of ‘untin’ slags in the ‘ore mountains is on again. 2012 was spent surveying, organising, finding. 2013 is to be spent, as of Monday, actually processing one specific pile that was found. Money has been raised, a lease is being written, companies will be founded, workers employed etc. And the first stage [...]

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Here he is in The Times. Sound familiar? Every small businessman I talk to these days has a horror story to tell about the delays and costs that have been visited upon him by planners, inspectors, officials and consultees. Using the excuse of “cuts”, the bureaucracy is taking even longer to make decisions than five [...]

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This was rather fun really. Wideboys with their sights set on anyone lucky enough to have savings have found yet another wacky investment to flog. We’ve already warned about ­landbanking, carbon credit trading and wine investment. Now it’s the turn of “rare earth metals”. It’s true that a string of obscure elements are crucial in [...]

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This is the problem with having the governmentally Great and Good discuss something: The world will be blighted by supply disruptions, volatile prices, environmental damage and rising political tensions if governments fail to act as competition for resources intensifies, an influential think-tank has warned. Analysts at Chatham House say that short-sighted policies compound tensions created [...]

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Over this: ‘The scarcity of helium is a really serious issue,’ he is set to say. ‘I can imagine that in 50 years’ time our children will be saying, “I can’t believe they used such a precious material to fill balloons.”‘ The scientist will continue: ‘If we keep using it for non-essential things like party [...]

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Just remembered this. OK, so Alan Bond’s lot are getting their engine to work. Excellent. Now someone needs to think about what to build the plane out of. No problems going up. But that wing and fuselage surface is going to take a beating coming down. You know, tiles on the Shuttle and all? To [...]

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This is fun. In the latest episode in an increasingly heated dispute with President Hollande’s Socialist Government, Arnaud Montebourg accused ArcelorMittal, the steel magnate’s group, of resorting to lies, blackmail and threats. “We no longer want Mittal in France because they haven’t respected France,” Mr Montebourg said. The flamboyant standard-bearer of the radical Left accused [...]

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Given that they’ve solved the problem of violence in Congo over conflict minerals that is.

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We are all to blame for the agony of Congo Indeed, we are all guilty. Hmm. Or am I thinking of Dr. Kiosk? A report leaked earlier this year said Rwanda and Uganda were aiding and abetting the M23, motivated as in the past by a desire to control and exploit eastern Congo’s vast mineral [...]

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