Conflict Minerals and Cell Phones 136
Presto Vivace sends in this story at Slate:
"If you are reading this on a smartphone, then you are probably holding in your palm the conflict minerals that have sent the biggest manufacturing trade group in the U.S. into a court battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At stake in this battle between the National Association of Manufacturers and the government is whether consumers will know the potentially blood-soaked origins of the products they use every day and who gets to craft rules for multinational corporations—Congress or the business itself. ... These minerals are tantalum (used in cellphones, DVD players, laptops, hard drives, and gaming devices), tungsten, tin, and gold, if they are mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo and surrounding countries including Rwanda, where the mineral trade has fueled bloody conflicts. The rule requiring disclosure of conflict minerals will go into effect in 2014. Congress included it in Dodd-Frank out of concern for what is known as the “resource curse”—the phenomenon wherein poor counties with the greatest natural resources end up with the most corrupt and repressive governments. The money earned from selling the natural resources props up these harsh regimes and funds violence against their citizens and neighbors."
Oil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems this should apply to oil, as well...
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Not just oil (Score:1)
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It's not just oil - will our new Apple products come with the label: "Designed by Apple in a country which undertakes secret rendition, torture and massive online surveillance and privacy invasion."?
"And we're not allowed to tell you whether it's spying on you."
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And plastics (Dupont) (Union Carbide from back in the day).
People of America you are getting bamboozled and ripped off. You could be making these things yourselves in your own small companies and making 100% of the profit. Yet you are a consumer of some megacorp that borders on monopoly and exports all trade and work oversease. These huge companies make and buy the materials for these things for slave labor cost or less.
If we did it ourselves, it'd be the same cost because it is marked up so much. Yet you w
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Why would I make something myself for $100 plus investment in time and training when I can buy it for $89.95, fully made this second, packaged and on the shelf, made by people (or more likely, machines) better trained than I am, with quality control than I am likely to muster, and a warranty included?
Seems pretty dumb.
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. You could be making these things yourselves in your own small companies
Are you aware that the US is the leading manufacturer in the world?
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The leading manufacturer of owned assets overseas. How much actually gets made in the USA? Don't BS because the "ledger" goes to some fat ass in wall street.
Who owns Sony-Erikson and where are their manufacturing facilities?
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By the way my smoked salmon comes from Thailand imported into California. Seems like it would be cost inefficient to burn all that diesel fuel and run those container ships. When it could be sailed down the coast or shipped overland or by plane from the NW. So its not even just electronics.
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BULLSHIT. Who's cooking that book? Is that manufacturing going on within the continental US employing US citizens?
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The difference being that people are pretty well aware of that. This is intended to bring about the same level of knowing-but-ignoring.
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People are aware that the plastic in there phone came from countries with bloody conflicts, but they are not aware that other materials used in there phone may have a similar origin?
Low abiding oil companies, free form corruption will be hard to find, even within the US.
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>blood-soaked origins
This reeks of exaggeration. We would buy things from Devil and capitalists always did. Whenever I read phrases like "blood-soaked origins" I smell competitors.
let the Congo bombing raids begin (Score:1)
The US has a longstanding policy of getting involved where it doesn't belong over some natural resources, why not others? We need hard drives and cell phones just as much as we need internal combustion cars... Right?
Re:let the Congo bombing raids begin (Score:4, Insightful)
So the history of the 21st century will be America going to war for Apple rather than oil?
Makes sense.
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You mean going to war for Apple instead of Haliburton... or United Fruit... or pick a large company.
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I'm sure Apple products contain tantalum capacitors (most modern electronics do), and there's certainly tin in them. I'm not sure why you're fixating on the lack of a spinning hard drive, these materials are used in a lot of other electronics.
Reducing Tantalum Content (Score:2)
If the new requirements give some companies "image problems" it could actually succeed in reducing tantalum usage.
There is probably some relationship here with the current trend of high valued ceramic capacitors. You can easily find 100 uF ceramic caps in a form factor smaller then the same value tantalum and the cost is comparable.
The end result here (as always) is consumers paying more for some products.
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I wasn't the one who brought Apple into the discussion.
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Most motherboards use tantalum, tin, and other conflict minerals, but don't let that get in the way of your sheer ignorance and lacking education.
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The US doesn't have a specific lack of these "conflict minerals" - We simply don't have much in the way of proven reserves because they cost too much to pull out of the ground at current prices while obeying both environmental and labor laws.
As soon as the price starts to shoot up because C
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That was my thought as well, tantalum capacitors are used in almost everything.
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The interesting thing that TFA does not mention is that most tantalum comes from Australia. Sometimes resources truly are limited to a small geographical area, and then if it is a conflict mineral, that is a tragedy ... but it is an oversimplification to say "ah, tantalum -- conflict mineral -- bad!" ... that's just a way for some rich westerners to make fun of other rich westerners for not knowing of some tragedy in the world, of which there are a great many.
Tantalum is useless for some kinds of capacitor
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Tantalum ... still the gold standard for miniature components.
Hardly. I use MLCC's where I used to use tantulum, and have for about 10 years. If I really need high capacitance, solid electrolyte aluminum's are quite reliable.
Re:Uses of tantalum? (Score:5, Informative)
That was my thought as well, tantalum capacitors are used in almost everything.
There are three qualities you want in a capacitor:
1. Cheap
2. Reliable
3. High Capacitance
You can pick any two:
1 & 2 = Ceramic
1 & 3 = Electrolytic
2 & 3 = Tantalum
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tantalum resistors: also useful when you need something that smells funny to tell you when you've installed it backwards and let the magic smoke out.
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ESR can be pretty important factor too, for say, switching power supplies. To move from a normal electrolytic to low ESR electrolytic seems to increase the price a few fold.
Ceramic is low by nature, tantalum is quite lower than electro in general, but lower is more money again.
Then of course in tuned circuits, stability / tolerance / etc is one of the important factors, where you want little drift in capacitance. So something like low-drift ceramic, or silver mica, or film. For bulk caps smoothing a power r
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4. Size
5. ESR
And there are way more than 3 types of capacitors.
Oh and tantalum is probably one of the most volatile. They are certainly the least likely to survive a slight overvoltage. I wouldn't have put them in the "reliable" category.
I heard people die while trying to find them (Score:2, Informative)
What's the point of these kinds of laws? Just like drugs, these resources will make their way to whomever wants to buy them. Where there's a market, there's a way.
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What's the point of these kinds of laws?
I suspect the answer will come if you ask yourself: cui bono?
I doubt it's the poor people in these countries who'll be out of a job when they can't sell materials to America.
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What's the point of these kinds of laws? Just like drugs, these resources will make their way to whomever wants to buy them. Where there's a market, there's a way.
That might be a problem if they were banning these minerals, but they're not. At most they're discouraging the use of them when they're obtained from certain dubious sources. All of those minerals are available elsewhere in the world though, so at most you'll see a small increase in price. That won't be enough to make it worth most companies while to smuggle them.
Ultimately what would be nice is if "blood free" sources of some of these minerals could be established in, for example, the Congo. Coltan (for ta
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That might be a problem if they were banning these minerals, but they're not.
If slippery slopes weren't a logical fallacy, the next step after compulsory labeling would be the compulsory ban.
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1) To make it absolutely, crystal clear that this is wrong.
2) To reduce its scope by making it more expensive. Dodging the law incurs some operational costs, and hopefully this means that some customers who don't care about the ethical or the legal angle would be discouraged by higher prices, and go elsewhere.
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The point is that one party wants to keep this information secret, which is contrary to the idea of a free market.
It should be up to the customer to decide what products to buy based upon the available information.
i can see it now (Score:2)
Where does the moral outrage end? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not also China, where manufacturing props up a violent and corrupt dictatorship? What props up equally -- though differently -- corrupt India? The US is pretty violent too, and corrupt, as is Mexico.
Re:Where does the moral outrage end? (Score:5, Funny)
That does it! I'm not buying another thing made on this planet ever again.
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No need to worry about the extremes, you could just use stuff at lower rates maybe there is even some sort of optimum somewhere.
Also once we are through with this planet all the concentrated stuff will be spread out and the energy we will be willing to expend to process a mineral at a certain concentration will be less than is required. Then we will find something new (then we are not though with this planet and we can increase the future maximum possible moral outrage) or we are screwed (then we have achie
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Also once we are through with this planet all the concentrated stuff will be spread out
There might be more rare minerals per volume in a first-world landfill than in a natural deposit, especially for things like gold.
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We need only look in a mirror to find a violent and corrupt democracy.
One mountain at a time, as they say. First you fix what you can to prevent wholesale slaughter, rape, and pillage. Then you move on to the retail, bought and sold kind.
You can make choices, based on the information. Who's doing a better job of dictatorships? Vote them out with your monetary choices.
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<sarcasm> That's working really well in the case of North Korea. </sarcasm>
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OH MY GOSH I just realized that the history of humanity is one of violence, corruption, and death!
I wouldnt put China quite on the level of Rwanda, however.
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Why not?
More Chinese have been killed by their government in the last 100 years than Rwandans by their government over the same timespan.
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And more Jews were killed in Germany in the past 100 years than in Rwanda. Fortunately, we arent stuck in the 40s, or the 60s, or the 80s. We're in 2013, and the current Chinese government, as bad as they are, arent quite on par with Rwanda,.
Resource Curse? (Score:4, Interesting)
“resource curse”—the phenomenon wherein poor counties with the greatest natural resources end up with the most corrupt and repressive governments.
My ass - that shit is engineered by the people and groups who stand to profit from preventing those people from taking ownership of their national resources.
The De Beers artificial diamond shortages [wikipedia.org] being a prime example.
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The whole statement is ridiculous doublethink. "Poor countries with the greatest natural resources"? In Burkina Faso, you can get gold by sifting tiny, tiny flecks out of dirt. That's not super-rich great natural resources; there's gold in the dirt and it takes a ridiculous amount of effort to get to it, so that's essentially "resource poor".
If these countries had great natural resources, they would be rich as living fuck. Don't tell me that ubiquitous presence of trace elements means "great natural
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Burkina Faso is not the only poor country. For example, think Nigeria with all its oil.
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Natural resources have no influence on poverty (Score:2, Insightful)
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Re:Resource Curse? (Score:5, Informative)
Add to that list:
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man [wikipedia.org]
and
Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq [amazon.com]
Conflict Diamonds (Score:2, Interesting)
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Assuming this is the same situation, is there any way I can confirm that my cell phone's components were once soaked in the blood of tyrants? I'd toss in an extra $50 (once, not on the monthly bill) for some sort of proof of that.
No shocker (Score:1)
The reality is that most people don't give a shit. Oh they say they do but they truly don't. They like the idea of being guilt free but when it comes right down to it, they won't vote with their wallets.
This is comparable to the "buy local" campaigns you see at grocery stores in the US. People say they want to but then when it winds up being significantly more expensive, they opt for the cheaper products rather than local. They tell themselves "next time" to appease their conscience.
A law declaring the
Nestlé (Score:1)
And yet Nestlé comes in, sucks up all your fresh sources of water and we barely hear about it.
http://www.bottledlifefilm.com/ [bottledlifefilm.com]
Conflict Petroleum (Score:1)
Multilayer ceramic capacitors (Score:5, Interesting)
Nowadays there are MLCCs at 220uF that could replace Tantalum in a number of applications, not to mention Niobium based capacitors that derive their raw materials from Brasil and Canada.
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Heck this isn't even new:
http://www.yageo.com/exep/pages/download/literatures/an08436.pdf [yageo.com]
and to give a slightly different view:
http://www.digikey.com/Web%20Export/Supplier%20Content/TDK_445/PDF/tdk_high_cap_replacement.pdf?redirected=1 [digikey.com]
that is just as old.
Ridiculously there is something new as well:
http://www.element14.com/community/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadBody/55139-102-1-275420/Panasonic%20Polymer%20Capacitor%20Technologies%20-%20Replacement%20of%20Tantalum%20and%20MLCC.pdf [element14.com]
US war victims (Score:2)
considering how many people have died in the name of spreading "democracy" and protecting oil interests... Pot Kettle....
The missing mineral is the one that matters (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't about naturally rare minerals, it's about the one mineral that's rare by design. This is the latest in a long history of disinformation campaigns intended to keep DeBeers' control of the diamond. In fact, diamonds are so common in nature that there are beaches in Africa where they wash up on shore. You could pick them up like seashells if it weren't for the armed guards ready and willing to shoot anyone who tries. If DeBeers ever lost control of the market the value of diamonds would plumet.
When General Electric developed the first artificial diamond DeBeers bought the company. When Israel threatened to dump their cache on the market, DeBeers practically bought the country. They spent billions buying artificial diamonds from the Soviets, just to keep them off the market. In the US, when DeBeers was investigated for antitrust violations they put every employee in their country on a plane and sent them back to Europe. In one night. The next day there was a new person in every US job, and not one of those people could testify about how DeBeers operates. If you ever want to have your life turned upside down, try buying and selling used diamonds. See just how long it takes for DeBeers to shut you down.
DeBeers modus operandi is to back whoever controls a country, as long as they are willing to do business. If not, DeBeers will back a coup. So, if you want to control an African country, step 1 is to gain control over the diamonds. If you want to get rich, step 1 is to take over a country. THAT is why there's so much violence in Africa. The regime that labels "conflict" minerals is just one of the tools DeBeers uses to maintain control. The "conflict" countries are places where more than one group operates. Whatever group is on the outside will smuggle diamonds out, undermining price controls.
The history of the DeBeers cartel is the most fascinating and disturbing story that's rarely told. If you haven't read it I strongly recommend a trip to the local library. Don't wait for Hollywood to tell the story. They're too busy writing a sequel to "Blood Diamonds". On contract of course. The sad truth is that EVERY diamond is a blood diamond.
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Personally I blame stupid women and needy men on this, all sensible and industrial needs are fulfilled with artificial diamonds. The problem is diamonds are not really the issue we are talking about. It is first and foremost energy and concentration of minerals and their availability. If the concentration of ores in unstable regions lowers enough that stable regions are becoming competitive again (hmm, why would that be?) things will change.
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20 seconds and Google make it patently obvious DeBeers isn't in the business of going after people buying and selling used diamonds. As would a drive through nearly any bad section of any decent sized American city that is full of pawn shops that will happily purchase your used diamond jewelry for pennies on the dollar.
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When Israel threatened to dump their cache on the market, DeBeers practically bought the country.
Funny, the last three conspiracy theories I read online where about a cabal of Jews controlling the markets, not a cabal of monopolists controlling the Jews...
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You make a valid point. In reviewing what I wrote I made a very broad statement that appears to reinforce anti-Israeli conspiracy theories. I actually regard the incident as a brilliant geopolitical manuever by the leaders of the young state of Israel. It's been many years since I studied the history of the cartel and my recollection of details isn't great. Without books on hand I'll do my best to recall what took place.
In the early days of modern Israel, many people had expertise in working with diamon
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Probably talking about this: http://www.justice.gov/atr/public/press_releases/1994/211749.htm [justice.gov]
GE and DeBeers got together to fix the price of industrial diamonds back in the early 1990s.
Blood Minerals? (Score:2)
Oil and Diamonds are far worse (Score:1)
Oil is highly correlated with terrorism, non-functional government, and massive subsidies.
Diamonds are highly correlated with even more problems.
So, just download iOS7 instead of buying the iPhone 5s, and wait until the iPhone 6 comes out.
fairphone (Score:2, Interesting)
This is perhaps the right place to plug the Fairphone ( www.fairphone.com ), an experiment in making electronic products free from conflict minerals and exploitation of workers. It's not a commercial phone manufacturer (they're only making 25.000, at least to start with), it's more a proof of concept and they seem to be pulling it off. Obviously it's relatively easy to source non-conflict minerals when you're only making 25.000 units, not so easy to scale that up under current conditions.
But if every manufa
Tantalum Capacitors (Score:4, Informative)
Since ceramic got so good, I haven't needed to specify Tantalum in any of my designs for 5 or more years. In my experience, it is mostly inertia / laziness that keeps designers from exploring alternatives.
Like most engineers, I enjoy the challenge when someone says "you have to use tantalum - nothing else will work". True, Y5V Ceramic has highly voltage-dependent capacitance. So what? Often it's ESR and not absolute capacitance you need, anyway.
Re:Tantalum Capacitors (Score:4, Informative)
If you need better stability than Y5V, but still need high values in a reasonable size, X5R is good. I haven't used tantalum in 10 years. For electrolytics I find solid electrolyte aluminums are fine for most stuff, and can always be shunted with a ceramic if need be. I've even used these kinds of parts in military designs.
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Yeah, most anything that ends in R is good. Things ending in V should be illegal to sell as they do. (and others.. one of P or U, I forget which is worse)
Y5V for example. At 40% of rated voltage it is down to only 20% of it's nameplate capacitance. If the temperature is above 60C, it loses another 50% on top of it.
So a "16V 100uF" Y5V capacitor, running at 6.5V and 60C, is down to 10uF. What a joke.
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Modern tantalum capacitors still have 2 to 4 times lower ESR than modern low ESR aluminum electrolytic capacitors. This difference is especially pronounced at higher frequencies. Of course an aluminum electrolytic of 2 to 4 times the capacitance to make up the difference where ESR is important is still less expensive than a tantalum although not quite as small.
Boycott the Congo (Score:1)
Resource Curse Vs. Tinkerer Blessing (Score:2)
As a student of international relations and ardent environmentalist in the 80s, we saw then what would be labelled the curse of natural resources. But we have also grown to recognize what promotes positive social development in developing/emerging markets. Fixers, tinkerers, repairpeople, recyclers and geeks. The history of Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan - all resource poor nations - is a history of repairs, knock offs, reverse-engineering, and recycling, serving what Harvard Business Review a
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Well congratulations to you for being unlike most people who would happily pay an extra $5 for a phone made without violence.
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It's disappointing to see so many (presumably) intelligent people on Slashdot clinging to financial morality.
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i dont know about some tree hugging morons, but i dont really give a shit about the conditions in which minerals are attained. if it makes my product cheaper, it isnt my problem
You're probably a troll, but what the hell, I'll bite.
It becomes your problem when those 'conditions' lead to people who start to hate the west. People who start to listen to so-called leaders who are willing to turn those people into weapons. It becomes your problem when those people blow themselves up at rush hour at your l
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I don't think that has anything to do with us buying minerals from them. people hate the US because it is rich. we are also mostly christian and not muslim.
Yet most of these people didn't hate America before 2001. They wanted Green Cards so they could move there and become rich too.
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If more of them hate us now, that's probably because we spent the better part of the last decade bombing them.
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The âoeresource curseâ - the phenomenon wherein poor counties with the greatest natural resources end up with the most corrupt and repressive governments. The money earned from selling the natural resources props up these harsh regimes and funds violence against their citizens and neighbors
They're not angry because you're buying minerals, they're angry because their life is hellish, and ripe to to moulded into terrorists. If they had a better life then they'd go home to their fam
Re:so what. OK Try this (Score:2)