Dr Pippa Malmgren
speaker
69 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2013
last heard Dec 2014
Dr Pippa Malmgren’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
For me, the most interesting number this year is the number 73.
It's the periodic table number for an element nobody's ever heard of called tantalum.
And yet we're incredibly dependent on this rare earth metal.
It's essential for all telecommunications, defense equipment.
Your mobile phone won't work without it.
And I think it's interesting because it serves as a reminder that in the world economy, lots of the most important things that we need are actually very limited in the supply.
And there are lots of things that in the world economy that we need to think about the limits on the supply.
And I don't mean this is like a tree hugging green person.
It's not an environmental issue.
I mean, we assume that there's always enough finance to pull something like tantalum out of the ground.
When in fact, we continue to have a problem with banks lending because they're so inhibited by their own debt problem.
Food is another issue.
We sort of assume that somehow, yes, with technology, we'll be able to feed the world.
We forget that phosphates are essential to the production of food.
And like tantalum, it's a rare thing.
It's hard to make.
And to build a factory today that can make phosphates, you won't get any return on your capital for 15 years.
So right now, nobody's prepared to fund that.
So this is another example of things like mined assets.
We just take for granted that you pull stuff out of the ground when you need it.
Showing 41–60 of 69 · page 3 of 4
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