This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
The Future is Gray
Years ago I got involved with financing a Titanium Dioxide plant in Brazil. I’ve had an eye on this commodity ever since. What I find interesting about TiO2 (“TD”) is that everything that you look at that is white has this stuff in it. From pills to food to paper to paint, if it’s white, it’s TD.
Demand for this stuff has been on a tear; rising at ~20% a year. World consumption is 2 pounds of ‘white’ per person. That’s the average for all 7 billion of us. The western countries consume about 8 pounds per person. China is just up to 1 pound. That’s where the demand is coming from. (The US uses the most TD, about 9 pounds per person)
Prices are going through the roof; up 38% this year. The raw material, rutile, has seen its price rise by a whopping 77%. Demand is projected to increase another 50% in 2012 (Link). The price has nowhere to go but up (Blame China for everything).
There are some similarities between the TD story and RE minerals. Neither of them are rare (there’s 100Xs more titanium on the earth than copper). The problem is that making the stuff (REs or TiO2) is a nasty process (both have to be boiled in sulfuric acid).
The raw material for TD is found in beach sand. The areas where there is currently significant production include South Africa, Australia , Canada and China. (There may be a new monster find in Paraguay. (Link) The manufacturing process stinks (literally).
Is this a big deal? Here's another example of a “scarce” commodity that everyone uses. It’s another one that China is driving the supply and the pricing. I don’t think it will move the needle much on the broader inflation numbers. As the price keeps rising they will just put less TD in things.
So look forward to gray toilette paper/toothpaste. Newspapers too. Paint will get much more expensive, meaning we’ll paint less; our white houses (and White House) will get gray with age.
There might be a bright side to the coming graying. We may end up living longer. PD has long been considered a carcinogen. OSHA has warnings for those who work in plants that make the stuff. California put it on its list of carcinogenic substances earlier this year.
Bendicte Trouiller a UCLA molecular biologist studied TD on rats. Some conclusions from her efforts:
Consuming the nano-titanium dioxide was damaging or destroying the rats' DNA and chromosomes. The biological havoc continued as she repeated the studies again and again. It was a significant finding: The degrees of DNA damage and genetic instability can be "linked to all the big killers of man, namely cancer, heart disease, neurological disease and aging.
If you’re wondering if you our eating/drinking this stuff, you are. Follows is a list where TD may be found. The bad news is that TD is in beer, wine and “distilled spirituous alcoholic beverages.” (I don’t give a damn. I’ll have my share of those spirituous beverages). The good news is that a traditional Thanksgiving meal contains very little TD.
Enjoy your feast!
BK
..
Much of the info in this piece comes from this Bloomberg story. (link)
»
- advertisements -
I'm sorry Bruce, your economic stuff is fantastic but your chemistry knowledge is absolute shit.
The white titanium dioxide used in house paints is not the "nano" titanium dioxide referred to by this researcher. Normal titanium dioxide used in paints can range from 10 microns to 250 nanometers in size (an no dick-heads who will jump on this, nano tech is regraded as <100 nm) and is an excellent refraction material i.e refracts light and hence causes the "white" seen by our eyes.
Nano titanium dioxide is colourless and is ~20 nm in size and hence can pass through human skin, which the larger titanium dioxide white cannot.
Ah! The stuff is safe you say. No problem at all. Only small particles can kill you. So nothing to worry about here.
Your right. I'm not a chemist. But I don't think you are right either. Every go to a TD plant? I have. They stink, there are particles in the air all over. OSHA has said the stuff is not safe. It has been established by global cancer orgs as a possible carcinogen.
Drink a bottle of White Out and see what happens....
Yes I did go to a TD plant when I worked for ICI during the old Tioxide days.
Reading this IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) monograph on titanium dioxide at
http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/PDFs/93-titaniumdioxide.pdf
the most important statement for the white titanium dioxide was:
"In summary, the studies do not suggest an association between occupational exposure to titanium dioxide as it occurred in recent decades in western Europe and North America and risk for cancer."
Nano titanium dioxide is something to be concerned of and no doubt is a carcinogen due to its increased catalytic behaviour, but categorising all titanium dioxide as bad is like comparing a gold bar to nano colloidal gold and stating they have the same chemical properties. They don't.
Many things are given a probable human carcinogen classification to ensure proper handling of said chemicals and minimise the risk for the future if our knowledge changes.Should we stop eating cinammon as it is a probable human carcinogen?
Lets both drink a bottle of white out, but I think the tetrachloroethylene solvent will kill us long before the titanium dioxide!
Cheers.
Au Contraire, we can also blame Stevie Chew, 'cuz he wants to have all of our roofs painted white to prevent "global warming". I never really figured this out, until just now, witih:
So, not only is ol' Stevie incapable of investing monies from u 'n me into firms that can actually return them, (let alone with their cupon) but he's wishing to spread cancer-inducing products onto all roofs on all US buildings. This will be but a large investment into yet another small increment of fighting the man-made global warming prevention scheme and shakedown hoax. See e.g.:
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/obamas-climate-g...
wow--Stevie is proposing a method for population die-off. Go figure.
- Ned
Everything causes cancer or heart disease eventually. There is so much hysteria about food additives, chemicals, toxins, etc. People are afraid to live. There is also this crazy desire to live an extremely long time. From what I've seen of old age it's a steady decent into helplessness and dependency. I'm 64. When I have experienced enough mental deterioration that I can no longer live a fulfilling intellectual life, I'm calling it quits. I'm not afraid. I don't believe in immortality. I don't believe in god. When it's over it's over and that for me is liberating.
I don't believe in immortality. ... [I believe that] When it's over it's over and that for me is liberating.
Just pointing out that you are not stating a fact. You are stating what you believe. We both accept that believing in something doesn't make it true. (If something is true, it is true independent of our beliefs.) You say that, just because I believe in God doesn't make him exist. And I say, just believing that when it's over, it's over, doesn't make it so. For your sake, I hope you are not wrong. Eternity is a long time to be wrong, if eternity exists. I'm sure you'll find out the truth soon enough.
So.....did you get her phone number?
Happy TGiv to all.
MOE, LOL..when I was teaching a grad level course in pharmacology, I would ask the class are toxins in the environment a serious problem for the western world..they would all say yes of course we are killing ourselves..then I would ask as scientists do we ignore data?? of course not they would reply..I then ask them to explain why the ave life span is increasing each decade ,,and does that support the idea of pollution as major issue.. silence.
I then ask them to explain why the ave life span is increasing each decade...
You've stopped asking them that now tho... right?
Thank you. It reminded me in Honduras when I had students, they said they did not have pollution. I said, what is that smoke hanging over the city every day? Wood smoke, not pollution. Why do you die if you drink the water from the river? Not pollution, from raw sewage.
One man's normal living conditions are another man's pollution.
I don't want adulterated food either but the fact this generation lives so much longer than the previous two is meaningful. And yes, the previous two generations had toliets and sewers too.
I thought the title was "The Future is Gravy."
Too bad you didn't take a few history courses.
The single greatest contributor to the increase in Western life span was the creation of sanitary sewer and water services. Next biggest contributor--generally improved diet. Third, WWII development of anti-biotics
At some point (now) the accumulation of environmental toxins will make that increased life span increasingly expensive to maintain...and at some point may prove overwhelming. Think endocrine disruptors.
It's simply a matter of time.
flat..don't disagree with first two points you made, but also do not see the point. If you think toxic burden from accumulation is going to derail the data to date of life spans..fine, but it is your guess not fact.
science is about facts not a guess.. our life spans and quality of life will be more impacted by poverity and the collapse of economies as your first 2 points imply.
I think we really agree in many ways,.. and a nice(not so nice) little visit of a virus like the spanish lady to me is a greater concern than whats in my meat or other foods. or of course the end game of todays pols a nuke winter.
" It was a significant finding: The degrees of DNA damage and genetic instability can be "linked to all the big killers of man, namely cancer, heart disease, neurological disease and aging."
Yes, nobody got cancer or heart disease, got old, or had a neurological disease before they started using TD. We lived forever without illness before they started poisoning the food, water, air, the homes we live in, the workplace, destroying medicine, on and on. One aspect of the National Socialist movement in Germany was the pure food movement, they were all for fresh air, natural organic food, etc. This led of course to the cleansing of the human gene pool of impurities. Let us not forget that Himmler and Hitler were vegetarians [inconsistent ones, however].
Expectation of life at birth [USA]
1940 - 62.9 | 1950 - 68.2 | 1960 - 69.7 | 1970 - 70.8 | 2010 - 78.3
Those numbers prove it, they are killing us off faster than ever. Those are average numbers across all demographics. Us men that do the hard physical and dangerous work will die younger.
As for the insane state of California, I lived there for a few years. They have two lists. One list has the things that are known to the state of California to cause cancer. The second list has the things they have not added to the first list yet.
Stop with the fear mongering Bruce. There is enough real shit to get upset about. Stick to illegal alien boys in your swimming pool.
Hitler was a vegetrarian and adamant nonsmoker. bastard
It's true that the vegetables didn't kill him, but they didn't have GM frankenfoods in his day. If they had, he would have been better off on an all fish and meat diet. That stuff scares me to the point where I'll pay the high prices for locally grown organic produce. Although the idea of GM foods was sold as a way of enhancing nutritional content of foods, my understanding is that the engineering is really about lowering costs for the producer (big agri-business). How I long for the days when strawberries were little but had intense flavor! (Why can't they find a way to add artificial strawberry flavor to the baseball sized strawberries we eat today?--just kidding.) Children nowadays have no idea what food tastes like in its natural state. No wonder they turn into junkfood addicts and eventually turn to drugs. As a people we have replaced everything good with debased substitutes, food being but one example, education another.
Thx for another interesting article Bruce! lol @ turkey.
I am cool with giving up white.
Gray matches our ethics.
OT: Magnesium is excellent option as it's cheapish, super-light and abundant, but difficult to refine and process, as it's got a high melting point, and lower ductility. But much lighter than Aluminum, though not as fatigue resistant or easy to work, or join/weld, so high pressure forging is the normal practice to produce consistent high grade billets, for CNC machines.
For example, carbon fibre wheels used to be used in GP motorbike racing, but these were very light and strong, but suffered several catastrophic structural failures, so are no longer used. So the option was forged aluminium, or forged magnesium (mags) wheels.
The 'light' aluminium racing wheels are cheap durable and reliable but heavier, which is a big negative for a rapidly rotating and vibrating mass, like a motorbike wheel.
But magnesium wheels are significantly lighter, about 30% more expensive, but last only one season, before they must be destroyed and recycled, due to cumulative fatigue, that and cause cracking, and eventual failure. So forged magnesium wheels are what the GP riders all use, as these offer the best mix of high performance, low cost and sufficient durability and reliability. No metal is perfect though, and titanium has similar pros and cons. No one builds super-light titanium motorbike wheels, because titanium, regardless of its strength, is much too stiff and brittle for that purpose, they would shatter almost immediately.
So magnesium is easily the most under-rated and under-used and over-looked of all the high-performance light metals for most applications, but its global potential use is HUGE, going forward.
The Kunwarara magnesite deposit in east central Qld is the world's largest known ultrafine-grained cryptocrystalline nodular magnesite deposit ... and is largely undeveloped still, but quite accessible for extraction.
http://www.portergeo.com.au/database/mineinfo.asp?mineid=mn808
http://www.ga.gov.au/image_cache/GA5414.pdf
This very high grade deposit is almost 100% pure in places and will be worth a bloody fortune one day when people finally realise how useful magnesium is, and start to use it for a lot more things -- just like what's happening now with titanium (not oxide).
how about sodium or lithium while we are at it! Right there, the whole family of elemental table. What's his name; Mendeleev, woaaw, that takes me back to school classes! I learnt Periodic table before I learnt of girl friend's periods in menstrual cycle!
Just saying, natural order of adolescence...in those days; nowadays its probably reversed!
They don't call them MAGS for nothin'.
Now we know what really killed Michael Jackson.
Fox 8 Breaking News: Life Causes Cancer!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGZeFFInn94
Something that kills all of us in a horrible way getting more expensive because we need it so bad seems very fitting for our age.
If white gets too expensive, some other, less dearly priced, colors will no doubt fill the void.
I'm waiting for that beautiful Avocado Green to come back in vogue.
I'm worried that TD might be found in dogfood or cat food. With social security getting decimated and the military budget sacrosanct, this could have a big effect on my diet.
Escapeclaws
Ferget it, you will be forced to EAT your pets,much less be able to buy them food.
He doesn't HAVE any pets!
But if the pets had TD in their food, that will just give me a more concentrated dose. I guess I'll just have to hope for some salutary news about Social Security's finances from Bruce, to have any hope.
I am stockpiling catfood, both for me and the cat.
good TG to you Bruce
The nano particle is the active ingredient in SPF sunscreen. STOP using it on your children (and you, too). Use zinc based products that don't leech into your bloodstream thru your skin! It is worth the extra bennybux.
It is also used to turn glass white. I use white borocilicate in lampworking... and it has steadily gotten worse over the years. The new stuff is grainy (rough) and bubbles horribly in an reducing (oxygen lean) flame. The old stuff (if you can find it) is like butter.
Sunlight never reaches my bunker, and cannot penetrate my tinfoil suit.
Ah well, they still haven't found a cure for death, so I'll take my world on the light side please.
Stay away from margerine. The stuff is really bad shit.
If you are a c*nt who voted for the kenyan muslim in 2008 - I encourage you to put margerine on everything.
Freddie says vote for McCain Palin and everything would have been OK.
Genius. And I'm no fan of Barry. Just sick of both parties and their nonsense. Obama may be bought and paid for by Wall Street, but the least of my worries, or rather deranged obsessions, is that he is either Kenyan or Muslim.
Get a clue.
McCain was Soros Plan B. McCain is a RINO or really a Democrat defense whore as AZ and PHX/Scottsdale have huge defense plants. Obam is a muslim - grow up. Dork.
I am for Ron Paul. Name a Democrat who is like Ron Paul. In addition - yeah both party's suck but Harry Reid and the Democrats in the Senate have blocked having a budget for 1,000 days. Why? So they can loot the Treasury? What country does not have a budget? Zimbabwe? Greece? That is ALL the Democrats BS.
Paul Ryan put forth a decent budget and the Democrats shot it down. I know many here want to live in a fantasy world with TEOTWAWKI where we all have lolly pops, gold bars and plenty of .308 but the - both parties are the same BS is a lie.
I support Ron Paul and I support him destroying The Federal Reserve.
one of the best things about ron paul is he is unlike the national leadership of either major u.s. political party.
Thanks for the reminder. I need to stock up on lollipops.
it's one molecule or so away from being a plastic. mmmm partially hydrogenated goodness.
save a tree and wash your ass with a shower massage the way god intended, voila no more skidmarks.
+1
Yup. Exactly. One molecule from being plastic. Avoid margerine.
I worked with TiO2 in a lab for my thesis, and everyone was super paranoid about inhaling it. Ironic that they are consuming that much per year anyways.
Used to like those 'milk white' levi jeans. Wonder why I can't find them anymore. While this was just a fashion preference for me, what in the hell is the Navy going to do?
Well, at least they didn't list my whisky by name. So I'll have another.
Happy Thanxgivin, Bruce and all ZH
Cheers !
Thanks Brucs,
Been in and out of REE's for the last couple of years and one of the reasons was their "critical supply" issues - Titanium Dioxide is just one of those metals and of which India is actually the fastest growing market for it. A scientist by the name of Gareth Hatch has been studying this sector for awhile and sees other mineral / metals also heading in this direction due to Chinese consumption - antimony is one, Zirconium Dioxide is another. Lot of common metals / minerals getting scarse real quick. Got to be a buck made there somewhere.
TBH I've researched "REM" but never REE.
Thanks for the info Bruce and Desert Irish.
Years ago I got involved with financing a Titanium Dioxide plant in Brazil.
I got a feeling that someone has lots of really good stories to tell, but so far he ain't talkin'.
I used to be in plastics. tiO2 was the magical additive in an already high-end engineering plastic (Torlon) to make it even harder for a very specific application (and was called something else) and I was selling machining blanks of various sizes but, a common one was 2" thick x 10" dia. for $2,500 apiece and this was 4 years ago. I would be more specific but I don't want to get sued (got sued in '08 for violation of non-compete, partly for knowing too much about this product). tiO2 has been around forever in everything. Before plastics I was in paint. Had no idea this stuff was dangerous - never got talked about as one of the "bads" of which there are many. . . Very interesting. Thanks Bruce, and Happy Thanksgiving to you too!