Cost is a function of supply and demand. Power-cells are expensive on account the supply of their material can run high. I'm interested in increasing the supply of rare-earth metals. But... what if their demand was reduced? I mean besides "make ze proles eat bugz".
The Koreans have an answer - they can make zirconium behave like the rare-earths. Zirconium isn't all that rare; I remember when jewelers were selling cubic zirconia as an alternative to diamond. Well, now jewelers can just sell industrial diamonds (or lonsdaleite, lol), so zirconium is even less expensive.
Their Engrish translation may require some work, by the way. Is the author's name really KANG Kisuk
? This got as far as ScienceDaily.
They still need the lithium and chlorine alongside the zircon so, you know, there's that. Have they tried sodium and chlorine? We up in the high plains have too much salt which we'd like to ship elsewhere.
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