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In the Balance: Competing for critical elements

A man holds minerals in his hands

09/02/2013

Competing for critical elements

BBC World Service - In the Balance, Competing for critical elements

Are we too dependent on metals and minerals that are increasingly hard to get hold of?

Manuela Saragosa and her guests discuss whether we're all too dependent on minerals that are increasingly hard to get hold of. And Colm O'Regan muses on the value of things.

This week Manuela Saragosa and her guests take on the elements: not the weather, but tantalum, europium, polonium, iridium, samarium - to name but a few.  They're not just mysterious names on a periodic table, they're metals and minerals found in everyday products from laptops to mobile phones.
But is their supply really safe? And are we too dependent on them?   Plus, In the Balance's resident muse, Colm O'Regan, ponders on the value of things and the price we're prepared to pay for them.  Manuela's guests - Steven Duclos, a Chief Scientist at General Electric Global Research, mining industry consultant, David Humphreys, and Jaakko Kooroshy, Research Fellow in Energy, Environment and Resources at the research institute, Chatham House - take up the theme. 
(Image: A man holds minerals in his hands, Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

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