A - RPN Report Daniel McGroarty & Sandra Wirtz

But at the same time, our provisionally-named Technology Age is fundamentally different, in that it draws not on a handful or less of metals and minerals, but on scores of elements long known as the “minor metals.” The smart phone in our pockets contains as many as 70 elements on the Periodic Table; the human body carrying the phone is made up of perhaps 30 elements. [...] First and foremost is the relationship of these metals and minerals to one another – our schema of Gateway Metals, which as the word implies are the practical access-point to the metals and minerals we call ! Co-Products (an upgrade, given their rising importance, from the term “by-product”). [...] While the first definition certainly applies to the above-referenced tech metals, it’s the “accidental” connotation of the second definition that continues to stick, and to a certain degree diminishes the importance of these key materials. [...] As is the case with Tellurium, most Selenium used in the United States is derived from residues produced during the refining process of Copper, so the supply of Selenium is of course directly affected by the supply of Copper. [...] Because of the wide range of alloying options, and with international designations becoming a mess with some countries merely assigning numbers in the order of their development, the uniform International Alloy Designation System (IADS), a designation system previously developed by the Aluminum Association of the United States, became the international standard for Aluminum alloy designation in th.