WEEKLY WHINE

Step away from the balloon

As you know, being alive is expensive. What is more, chemical elements are also expensive. In fact, some elements are simply not available for purchase in the pure form. But instead, let’s talk about elements that are available for purchase. Some elements are worth a lot, and other should be worth a lot but aren’t. Here now are our choices for the most underpriced and overpriced elements.

UNDERPRICED

• Nitrogen: US$.07/kg [liquid]
• Helium: US$14.99/kg
• Lead: US$2.39/kg
• Antimony: US$4.30/kg
• Arsenic: US$1.43/kg
• Germanium: US$940/kg
• Indium: US$590/kg
• Hydrogen: US$4.00/kg [gas], US$7.00/kg [liquid]

Liquid nitrogen is unbelieveably awesome, and unbelieveably cheap. Just think of how many Mr Wizard experiments you could do with a seven US cent kilogram of liquid nitrogen.

Everybody uses helium, but it’s actually really cheap at fifteen US dollars per kilogram. You would surely still use it at five times that price. Likewise, lead is a popular X ray shield, battery ingredient, and solder.

Antimony, arsenic, and germanium are all important in semiconductors. Antimony and arsenic in particular are undervalued: wouldn’t you pay much more for their ability to bronze stuff, make solid state devices, and create coherent laser light? As for indium, it’s used to make mirrors with more resistance to corrosion, as well as metal alloys that can go liquid at lower temperatures.

And what about hydrogen? Even if its only use was to make flammable balloons [another Mr Wizard experiment], that would be awesome. But you also need it to weld, and liquid hydrogen is essential for launch vehicles and superconductivity. Surely that’s worth more to you than seven US bucks per kilogram.

OVERPRICED

• Actinium: US$7,000,000,000,000/kg
• Rhenium: US$5,000/kg
• Gadolinium: US$19.50/kg
• Gold: US$46,390/kg
• Terbium: US$650/kg
• Tin: US$24.06/kg
• Rhodium: US$80,000/kg
• Cobalt: US$46/kg
• Nitrogen: US$3.04/kg [gas]

It should be no surprise that actinium is at the top of our overpriced element list. Seven trillion US dollars per kilogram? So what if it’s just about impossible to find in concentrations any greater than a part per billion? If you need neutrons that badly, we know a guy.

Rhenium has never done anything good for you. In fact, the most recent thing it did for you is probably redeye, as it is used in camera flashbulbs. And gadolinium is even worse: it’s used in cathode ray tubes, which are now obsolete.

Gold, terbium, and tin are not as important as everyone says. Tin is just a pretentious fancy zinc, and as for terbium, how much do you really need to dope your semiconductors? Gold is just some shiny shit that nobody actually needs for any real purpose, except for a few minor things like electroplating, dentistry, and cancer treatments.

Rhodium is actually pretty useful; it’s used in catalytic converters in automobiles. Still, if people weren’t driving automobiles so much, we wouldn’t need that much rhodium to begin with. Likewise, if people didn’t fly in aircraft so much, we wouldn’t need as much cobalt for the alnico. And nitrogen as a gas is clearly too expensive. Seriously: just open the window.