Why would pre-colonial Africa be different than pre-colonial Europe? We used to have mass famines here….why wouldn’t they there?

“On the tantalum side, it can’t be effectively replaced in modern sub-minature electronics such as phones. An equivalent aluminium electrolytic capacitor is about 100 times the size of a tantalum capacitor, and ceramic capacitors are bigger still. I mean, you can make capacitors out of foil and oiled paper, but if you tried using them in in a mobile phone it would be the size of a large suitcase…”

Indeed. Although you can use Niobium with only a small loss of efficiency: unfortunately that usually comes from the same ore.

One thing that has happened to capacitor demand for Ta in recent years is that it has gone down: even as we make ever more capacitors. This is because the stuff is expensive and so there has been continual pressure to use less of it. Minuturisation in short, and it’s had an effect even over so short a period as the last 6 years.

What really bugs me about Merrick’s idea that we must reduce demand for Ta so as to stop coltan mining in the Congo is that it won’t actually work: not unless we stop using Ta and Nb altogether.

He implies that they are the lowest cost producers (in purely cash terms, not including those environmental and other externalities) by stating that they make huge profits (which he, BTW grossly over estimates. That 50 tonnes of metal from the surrounding countries, even if we value it as metal not ore, is worth about $10 million at today’s prices. Tough to see how anyone can make hundreds of millions of dollars out of that.)

I have to assume that “huge” means more than the Australians or Brazilains etc.

So if we reduce demand then it will be the highest cost producers who close first: leaving the lowest cost, the Congo, producing whatever small amount we do use.

So to stop that mining we’d need to completely ban the use of Ta across the globe. Wouldn’t it be simpler to just go shoot the warlords?

I’m not saying colonialism didn’t make things worse, just that the idea there was no hunger or poverty in Africa before then is extremely fanciful.

I don’t think anyone is saying there was no hunger or poverty in pre-colonial Africa, but I think it’s fairly safe to say that it didn’t occur on anything like the same scale. Yes, many people were poor and needy, but millions of people didn’t starve to death in a single year whilst simultaneously exporting huge quantities of food. There is a significant diffence between being poor, even destitute, and actually starving to death. That requires a really astonishing level of deprivation.

On the tantalum side, it can’t be effectively replaced in modern sub-minature electronics such as phones. An equivalent aluminium electrolytic capacitor is about 100 times the size of a tantalum capacitor, and ceramic capacitors are bigger still. I mean, you can make capacitors out of foil and oiled paper, but if you tried using them in in a mobile phone it would be the size of a large suitcase…

A deep water port at the end of a railway is a natural resource.

The presence of mineral wealth seems to be something of an economic curse for developing countries: it gives local elites something to graft off without needing to invest in the kind of diversified economy that creates affluence.

“Piffle.”

Thankyou for that considered intelligent response. How it informs the debate and makes me see that I’m wrong.

Tim, if you have a point to make then make it. If you use a one-word dismissal without elucidation then you’re not saying anything of worth, you’re merely throwing insults around. Such chest-beating doesn’t help anyone.

Putting it at the start of your response colours the reader’s perception of you and detracts from their willingness to properly listen to any good points you may have.

I’m sure that’s not what you want, I’m sure you’re bright enough to respond without recourse to such tactics and I’m sure those who visit The Shaprpener expect a higher standard of debate.

“Even if we assume that all Tantalum production in Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe is from the Congo (not a valid assumption but let’s play) then that is responsible for 49 tonnes out of global production of 1,510.”

Nowhere did I say that Central African tantalum is the majority of the world’s supply. I said it holds the majority of the world’s reserves and that mining it is the catalyst for the war and the destruction of World Heritage rainforest habitat and wildlife.

Disagreeing with something I didn’t say or imply doesn’t really help us any more than the insults or make you seem any more engaged, but at least it’s more polite.

“Ta is used in the capacitors, not ‘chips’.”. Thankyou, my mistake and I stand corrected. The validity of the points about coltan’s essential role in modern electronics remains unchanged though.

Can you tell me how my statement that ‘it’s the only thing capable of making such tiny electronic processing chips work so well’ is ‘even further piffle’ when the only alternatives deliver ‘a lossofperformance’?

‘Tantalum is recycled all the time'; again, I stand corrected. When writing the article several years ago I couldn’t find any reference to recycling, whilst coming across numerous ones about the tremendous difficulty of recovery. One German phone recycler was proud that they’d found a way to recover and recycle all elements even including screens and fascia, but not the tantalum.

“and yet it is running out at an ever-increasing rate. Err, you don’t know anything about mining do you?”

Please enlighten me; if there is a mineral that we are using more and more of and having less than 100% recycling rate, how are we not running out at an ever increasing rate?

“According to the USGS most identified reserves are in Australia, Brazil and Canada”

That’s not what they say. They talk of the Reserves and the Reserve Base. There are other kinds of reserves. Check the USGS definitions document
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/mcs/2006/mcsapp06.pdf
Its terms for Speculative Resources, Restricted Resources and Reserves comfortably cover coltan that’s under protected World Heritage rainforest in the middle of a war zone.

They say the figures are not available for the African nations, not zero. You conflate ‘no precise data avaiable’ with ‘non-existant’.

The ‘80% of reserves’ figure crops up in a wide range of places. A quick google gives me

The UN:
‘The DRC contains 80 per cent of world reserves of columbite-tantalite’ (coltan).
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/monuc/drc.pdf

Industry:
‘It is estimated that Congo contains 80% of the world’s coltan reserves’
http://www.mineweb.net/columns/african_renaissance/884789.htm

media:
‘DRC is home to 80% of the world’s coltan reserves’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1468772.stm

NGO (Friends of The Congo):
‘Congo possesses 80 percent of the world’s coltan.’
http://www.friendsofthecongo.org/coltan.php

“What did the Aussies, who supply 48% of the world’s supply of Ta, do to make you mad? Why punish them by reducing demand?”

I am intrigued by the idea that reducing demand for unsustainable items is merely a punishment for the producers, but that’s by the by. The key point is that the central African war is colossal; it has been going on for 12 years, it has killed tens of millions of people, it has involved atrocities so bad that I do not repeat details of them to people. The mining of coltan has not only caused environmental devastation in the region, but it has been one of the main causes of the scale of the war, supplying the militias with hundreds of millions of dollars.

An unmarked shipment of coltan does not have an identifiable source. The convoluted chain of supply means that the processor company and end consumer have no idea where it comes from. As the article says, manufacturers say their tantalum’s not from Congo, but they have no way of guaranteeing it. Given that the people who supply it to them get it from the region, it’s undoubtedly fair to say that it is still going into our gadgets.

Our demand is what gives coltan its value, and in buying Congolese coltan we greatly exacerbate the largest war on earth and the destruction of enormously valuable ecological habitat and the wildlife it supports.

Piffle.

“I’m just one of many who’ve written about how Central African mining of coltan – the metal for mobile phone chips – is the catalyst for the largest war on earth and the destruction of World Heritage rainforest habitat and wildlife.”

Further piffle. Have a look at Table 10 in this:
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/niobium/niobimyb04.pdf
Even if we assume that all Tantalum production in Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe is from the Congo (not a valid assumption but let’s play) then that is responsible for 49 tonnes out of global production of 1,510.

From your article:

“Tantalum is a refined metal that stays stable at very high temperatures, it’s the only thing capable of making such tiny electronic processing chips work so well. It’s in everything that has a small processing chip, and by far the biggest user is mobile phones.”

Even further piffle. Ta is used in the capacitors, not “chips”. It can be replaced with either aluminium or ceramics (although with a lossofperformance).

“Tantalum is not only essential for all processor products, it is also unrecycleable.”

Unimaginable piffle.
Tantalum is recycled all the time: I’ve actually bought Ta capacitors off ebay and sold them to refiners for a profit. Those who scrap mobile phones (no, we no longer are allowed to throw them away) recover the Ta….because it’s valuable.

“and yet it is running out at an ever-increasing rate.”

Err, you don’t know anything about mining do you?

“By far the largest amount, some 80% of the world’s reserves, is in central Africa. Some 80% of that – two thirds of all the coltan on earth – is in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

According to the USGS most identified reserves are in Australia, Brazil and Canada:
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/niobium/tantamcs06.pdf

BTW, coltan mining hasindeed caused problems in The Congo. It’s just that you are rather over egging the pudding with your claims.
What did the Aussies, who supply 48% of the world’s supply of Ta, do to make you mad? Why punish them by reducing demand?