Tag: Congo

The Periodic Table: A Source of Conflict

~ J.S. Pailly ~ Leave a comment

In Isaac Asimov’s The Gods Themselves, the plot revolves around the discovery of a new isotope of plutonium known as plutonium 186. As anyone familiar with chemistry already knows, such an isotope cannot possibly exist (at least not in our universe), but it turns out that by acquiring it from a parallel universe, we are able to create a cheap and highly efficient new source of power.

In last week’s edition of Sciency Words, we talked about “conflict minerals.” These valuable minerals are essential to our technologically advanced society, but they’ve also become a source of conflict in the world. The most noteworthy example is in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the mining of four specific metallic elements has funded a bloody and protracted civil war.

Right now, real people are suffering and dying because of gold’s exceptional ability to conduct electricity and tungsten’s extremely high melting point. To understand why this is happening requires a little study of the periodic table of elements, which reveals the special properties of these and other metals.

Whether we’re talking about the minerals mined in Congo or mythical isotopes like plutonium 186, the lesson is the same. We cannot deny the importance of science in our world when the information contained in the humble periodic table of elements can spark so much conflict, both in science fiction and real life.

Sciency Words: Conflict Minerals

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 2 Comments

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Today’s post is part of a special series here on Planet Pailly called Sciency Words. Every Friday, we take a look at a new and interesting scientific term to help us all expand our scientific vocabularies together. Today’s word is:

CONFLICT MINERALS

Certain rare minerals are essential to our modern, technological world. Unfortunately, our sources for these minerals include countries known for their human rights violations, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is currently in the midst of a bloody, protracted civil war. When these rare minerals come from such war torn parts of the globe, we call them conflict minerals.

I imagine this term could apply to a wide range of chemical elements, but there are four particular metals of note:

  • Gold: in addition to being pretty, gold is an exceptionally good conductor of electricity, making it useful in a wide range of electronic devices.
  • Tin: alloyed with silver, tin is used for soldering electronic components.
  • Tantalum: used for making capacitors.
  • Tungsten: no known chemical element has a higher melting point than tungsten, making it ideal for use in light bulbs, vacuum tubes, and any other electronic device that tends to get really hot.

Reportedly, both sides of Congo’s civil war have profited from the mining of these four specific elements. All that money pouring into Congo has no doubt perpetuated the violence and prolonged the war.

According to an article in April’s issue of Scientific American, Intel has decided to stop buying conflict minerals. Obviously, they’ll still use gold, tin, tantalum, and tungsten in their products, just not if they came from places like Congo. The same article states that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission will soon require companies to disclose where the metals in their products come from.

P.S.: Many of the rare metals we depend on here on Earth are readily available in space. I’ve written before about how this might be just the incentive we need to make space exploration a priority once again. Maybe it would reduce our dependence on Congolese mining as well.