About the blog: What Things Are Made Of

AMERICA'S GLOBAL DEPENDENCY FOR NEARLY EVERYTHING


The United States relies on imports for dozens of commodities in everyday use. Often enough, that reliance is 100%. In this book I aim to provide awareness of the hidden geology and mineralogy behind common things, and to develop an appreciation for the global resource distribution that underpins our society. While concerns about oil import reliance are in the news every day, our needs for other minerals are comparable and are typically unknown even to technologically aware Americans.


Obviously this blog hasn't been updated in years. If you are interested in follow-up posts on this (and other) topics, please visit my Substack page.



Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Values - it's all relative

Can you rank the value of the following US industries? (not the value itself, just the rank, highest value to lowest)?

Silver production
Crushed Stone
Airline Baggage Fees
Lead
Titanium Dioxide
Aluminum metal production
Copper
 
ANSWERS: (2011-12 values)
1. Crushed Stone - $11 billion
2. Copper – $9 billion
3. Aluminum metal production - $4.2 billion
4. Titanium Dioxide - $3.9 billion
5. Airline Baggage Fees - $3.7 billion
6. Silver production - $1.01 billion
7. Lead - $843 million
 

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