In a largely grim dispatch on the copper industry, Tim Heffernan finds some reason for cheer: Developing countries are collectively in a better bargaining position than they were two decades ago. The Internet deserves some credit for this shift:
The Internet, [World Bank economist Michael Stanley] says, has been a key factor in changing the way mine development is negotiated, because it has given formerly weak third parties–local communities, native peoples with traditional rights to mining lands, environmental groups–a voice in the negotiations and a sympathetic audience in the wider world. “A small group in any rural country can, with a Google search and the ability to speak some English, access that whole global experience. And they are. In 1985, it was very difficult for somebody in Mongolia to understand what was going on in mine development. Now you can push information to the community on their cell phones.”
In a follow-up, Heffernan discusses the secondary metals produced by copper mining operations. One example:
The turbines of jet engines are made out of so-called superalloys, and the key element in superalloys is an exceedingly rare metal called rhenium. To get one pound of rhenium out of the Earth’s crust, you would have to sift through a billion pounds of other stuff. As a standalone business, this would be madness. Luckily, rhenium tags along with molybdenum, which of course tags along with copper, and big copper mines like Bingham Canyon have billion-pound-a-day copper-ore-snorting habits.
The Dish 