-snip ti- Hank wrote: > A buddy of mine and his wife wear titanium rings as their wedding > bands, because they wanted to boycott the African mining industry.
A Muzi said:
Hmmm. So the Gulag is 'better'?
Hank said:
What gulag? Half of it comes either from Australia or Canada. 20% comes from South Africa. Less than 10% comes from former Soviet republics, mainly the Ukraine. If you're buying wedding rings, it would be neither difficult nor unimportant to vet the source of the material.
Australia, Canada, South Africa, USA, Indonesia along with Russia supply the bulk of gold. Slave states like Zimbabwe and Sudan extract negligible amounts.
I was mistaken about Ti.
Rutile's almost entirely from Canada and South Africa. With other ores, add in Australia for the preponderance of Ti. Small sources with antipathy toward their citizens include Vietnam and Egypt but not Zimbabwe or Sudan.
If one wishes to boycott luxury items on ethical grounds, gold seems like a less pressing target than diamonds [*]. Or oil, for that matter.
Ben
[*] AFAICT, only a relatively small percentage of diamonds are actual conflict diamonds. But they all are tied up with De Beers's ruthless grip and marketing strategy, which is close to reason enough to choose something else.
> Hank wrote: > >> A buddy of mine and his wife wear titanium rings as their wedding >> bands, because they wanted to boycott the African mining industry. > Where does titanium ore comes from? Russia, mostly.
I think that might be the wrong question. From the Wikipedia article Tim cited below, we see
"About 95% of titanium ore extracted from the Earth is destined for refinement into titanium dioxide (TiO2), an intensely white permanent pigment used in paints, paper, toothpaste, and plastics."
So "most ore extracted" might not be related in any useful way to "most metal produced" (as opposed to oxide/pigment production).
I think the right question to ask is "Where are the large producers of titanium /metal/?" Again, the same article points out that turning Ti ore into metal is not a trivial job.
There is a story that Russia obtained mountains of the stuff during Cold War times for making submarines out of. Having lost interest in that it's now being hawked off to the rest of the world by shady characters to make into bicycles.
In article <[email hidden]>, John Thompson <[email hidden]> wrote:
> On 2008-05-24, nmp <[email hidden]> wrote: > >> Hank wrote: >> >>> A buddy of mine and his wife wear titanium rings as their wedding >>> bands, because they wanted to boycott the African mining industry. >> Where does titanium ore comes from? > Russia, mostly.
[...]
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There is a story that Russia obtained mountains of the stuff during Cold War times for making submarines out of. Having lost interest in that it's now being hawked off to the rest of the world by shady characters to make into bicycles.
"This latest theft, said authorities is part of some 30 tonnes of titanium that has disappeared from bulkheads on decommossioned subs at Saida Bay over the past five years.
"The most recent loss of 14 tonnes was discovered during internal checks of the derelict subs's titanium bulkheads, said a representative of the Murmansk Regional Police in an interview with Bellona Web. Earlier checks of exterior buikheads, carried out in 2003, revealed that 17 tonnes of titanium was missing. [...]"
A buddy of mine and his wife wear titanium rings as their wedding bands, because they wanted to boycott the African mining industry.
Quoted message said:
Hmmm. So the Gulag is 'better'?
What gulag?
Half of it comes either from Australia or Canada. 20% comes from South Africa. Less than 10% comes from former Soviet republics, mainly the Ukraine. If you're buying wedding rings, it would be neither difficult nor unimportant to vet the source of the material.
Turn off the lights. If it glows, it's from the former USSR..gotta do something with all those old titanium hulled submarines.
On May 23, 7:34 pm, Andre Jute <[email hidden]> wrote:
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>A bike may not be jewelry but titanium is -- several of my sports >watches are titanium. So there. -- AJ
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My watches are all carbon fiber. So there back.
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Pee Ess-- When I want to feel retro, I wear my steel watch. It is much slower than my carbon ones.
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That's odd, the one thing that peeves me about the stainless watch that's on my wrist now is that it runs consistently fast, even after having it serviced and adjusted. 🙁
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Of course, 5 PM comes that much sooner every day 🙂
And that's why titanium is so fast. It won't brake!
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Andre Jute said:
A bike may not be jewelry but titanium is -- several of my sports watches are titanium. So there. -- AJ
Dude:
My glass frames are made of titanium. I used to go through frames every year. Now, I've had the same frame for 5 years. I bends and twists, but won't brake. I also have a custom ti frame. Bought it for $500. It doesn't rust, It doesn't get old, It doesn't break. Once A year, I get sandpaper and sand it a little. It looks new again. Maybe, in 1000 years, If I keep sanding it, It will dissolve into thin air.
