Tim Worstall

So they’re flogging off the carcass of that plane that went into the Hudson.
It is difficult to speculate how much the A320 could pull at auction. It has a legendary status but the lack of engines means that not only can it not fly again, but it also removes a possible source of [...]

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So, any mechanical or propulsion engineers out there?
What are the Shuttle’s main engines made out of? The SSMEs?
My assumption given the temperatures they run at would be some form of high nickel alloy. But anyone actually know?

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Another report from the scientists.
Car companies are raising false hopes of emission-free motoring in order to continue profiting from large, fuel-hungry vehicles, according to a study.
Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells are not expected to be available widely until after 2050 because of the high cost of the platinum in their catalysts. [...]

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When the dust settles, 170-ton dumper trucks close in to scoop up the rocks. They are taken to refineries where rare-earth metals – known in the mining industry as ‘unobtainiums’ because they are so scarce – will be extracted using boiling acid and other toxic chemicals.
Trust the Mail to get such a thing wrong. The [...]

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Avatar is a computer-effects-heavy 3-D space fantasy, set 125 years in the future, about a disabled US Marine, Jake Sully, who is sent to Pandora, a moon of the distant Centauri star system, to find supplies of “unobtainium”, an energy-rich mineral.
So, that’s us having to find [...]

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NHS whistleblower ’sacked for revealing dumped x-ray scans’
The next time you decide to dump X-ray scans, could you dump them my way please?
A nice little furnace disguised as a bonfire and I can smelt the silver out of those…..if you’ve a few hundred gallons of the developing fluid even better.

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This is interesting:
Aaron Regent, president of the Canadian gold giant, said that global output has been falling by roughly 1m ounces a year since the start of the decade. Total mine supply has dropped by 10pc as ore quality erodes, implying that the roaring bull market [...]

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All women will eventually turn into their mothers, so the old saying goes.
And now scientists have come up with the proof.
Researchers who examined the faces of mothers and daughters have found they age and wrinkle in exactly the same way.
As I’ve said before, they’ll get onto that nice Mr. Darwin soon enough.
Former Tory MP Edwina [...]

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This shows how little I know about the tin market then:
China, the world’s biggest consumer of tin, has already fired up its consumption sharply this year. The nation’s imports more than doubled to 18,222 tons in the eight months to August, according to customs data. And [...]

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Asks the Telegraph.
No.
Next question?
The reason why not is actually all of the reasons advanced as to why it is.
Industrial demand, catalytic converters, mismatch, depressed car industry, PEM fuels cells etc etc etc.
That means that he’s arguing that the platinum price is driven by commercial demand, for the desire to make things of it. Might make [...]

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This Observer piece is a curious mish mash.
But an Observer investigation has now uncovered disturbing evidence to suggest a link between the contamination and the region’s coal-fired power stations. It is already known that the fine fly ash produced when coal is burned contains concentrated levels of uranium and a new report published by Russia’s [...]

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Ambrose E-P tells us that China is going to restrict its exports of rare earth metals.
A draft report by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has called for a total ban on foreign shipments of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium. Other metals such as neodymium, europium, cerium, [...]

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So a possible customer comes along and asks for some squiddlepop oxide.
Fine, fine, what purity?
Umm, well, …..so we discuss and settle on a high purity.
So what will the price be?
So we discuss, and over the course of about 18 months this potential customer has been running around the world trying to find someone cheaper than [...]

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Sigh.

Last night Liberal Democrat Olympic spokesman Don Foster MP called on the Olympic Delivery Authority to reveal scientific proof that the site would be safe for future generations.
The soil was contaminated by several former industries, including plants which made luminous dials for military use. Thorium, a radioactive isotope with a half-life of more than 14 [...]

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Organised crime has moved into the recycling industry – a development that has become clear over the past few months after a series of raids to enforce the EU’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive .
In a raid at the start of June, police and officials from the Environment Agency targeted two east London [...]

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Erm, really?

Industrial demand for silver, including from the photography industry, is reckoned to be about 65 per cent of total global supplies estimated at 895 tonnes. For gold industrial and dental demand the figure is about 11 per cent of supplies estimated at around 3,880 tonnes, [...]

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Now does anyone really believe that the store of gold in vaults is worth over 2% of all tangible assets everywhere?  Seriously? 

More:

I know the gold bugs will hate this idea – because it harks back to the argument against gold – which is that it has no intrinsic value.

Kill the heretic, kill the heretic!
Me? I’m [...]

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A jeweller has been ordered by his local council to hand over gold dust swept up from his workshop floor so that it can be taken to a tip.
John Doble, 50, who runs businesses in Torquay and Brixham, collects tiny gold particles from the floor and benches of his workshop and sells them to [...]

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Looks like as rouble devaluation might be coming.

Russia’s central bank has raised interest rates a full percentage point to 12pc to prevent a collapse of the rouble following a day of mayhem on the Moscow markets, prompting concerns that the financial crisis may be spiralling out of control.

When the rouble was soaring as a petro-currency [...]

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This is one of the bugbears, the banes of the scrap metal industry.

The French nuclear safety agency said the buttons contained traces of radioactive Cobalt 60. Four Indian firms produced the components, an Indian official said, but it was still unclear where the contaminated scrap originated – although metal had been traced to a foundry [...]

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