What about aluminium, the most common metal in the earth’s crust—albeit one we only learned to refine relatively recently? What about platinum and its sister metals such as palladium and rhodium—scarce, important ingredients in electrical components and catalytic convertors? What about chromium, which plays an essential role in the manufacture of stainless steel, or cobalt, or rare earth metals such as neodymium, which goes into precision magnets?
