| ISSUE 013 · MATERIALS, CAPACITY, CONVERSION | |
| Infrared optics are counted by the unit and fibre optic cable by the kilometre. The element common to both is counted by the kilogram. It is germanium, recovered in traces from zinc ore, and the US Geological Survey records zero domestic primary refinery production in every year from 2021 to 2025 (Mineral Commodity Summaries, February 2026). | |
| The Survey ranks the American end uses in order. Fibre optics come first, where germanium tetrachloride and dioxide go into the glass for data and telecommunication networks. Infrared optics come second, where the metal is processed into lenses for commercial and government systems. Then semiconductors and the wafers beneath satellite solar cells, then radiation detectors. | |
| China banned all germanium exports to the United States in December 2024. US imports of germanium metal fell an estimated 67 percent in 2025, to 7,000 kilograms, and the European price averaged $4,100 a kilogram against $1,991 in 2024 (USGS, February 2026). On 9 November 2025 China’s Ministry of Commerce suspended the ban until 27 November 2026, and left in force the clause barring dual-use exports to US military end users. | |
|
| PLATE · TRANS-ALASKA PIPELINE, ELEVATED SECTION, 1977 |
| On 19 October 1973 the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries placed an embargo on oil shipments to the United States and began a series of production cuts. By January 1974 crude had gone from $2.90 a barrel to $11.65 (Federal Reserve History). The embargo was lifted in March 1974. |
| Much of the oil the country needed had already been found at home. The Prudhoe Bay discovery on Alaska’s North Slope was announced in March 1968, and a pipeline to Valdez had been held up in the courts since April 1970. President Nixon signed the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act on 16 November 1973, four weeks into the embargo. Oil entered the line on 20 June 1977 and reached Valdez on 28 July. |
| The resource was known and domestic; the missing layer was the one that carried it to a refinery. From signature to first oil took three years and seven months. |
| PLATE · RED DOG ZINC CONCENTRATE, NORTHWEST ALASKA | |||
| Red Dog, in northwest Alaska, is one of the world’s largest zinc mines, operated by Teck under an agreement with NANA Regional Corporation, and germanium is among its byproducts. It produced 462,700 tonnes of zinc in 2025, and Teck puts the end of mine life at 2032 (Teck, October 2025 and 2025 annual report). | |||
| Most of that germanium comes back to the United States by way of Teck’s smelter and refinery at Trail, British Columbia (Reuters, June 2025). On 7 July 2026 Teck and Canada Growth Fund signed a framework for up to C$400 million toward an expansion that could double Trail’s germanium capacity, with offtake rights for the Government of Canada. | |||
| Red Dog ships all of its concentrate in a short ocean season, normally early July to late October. In 2025 the season ran from 11 July to 21 October: 1.2 million wet tonnes of zinc and lead concentrate, loaded from coastal barges onto 22 ships. | |||
|
|||
|
|
|||
| Every supply figure carries a date and a source in the text. Not a footnote. In the sentence. | |||
| FREE. NO STOCK PICKS. NO PREDICTIONS. | |||
| Nothing here is investment advice. No company is named as an investment. |
