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To: Snowshoe who wrote (73220)	4/12/2010 1:54:50 AM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

China doesn't have a monopoly. They just do it cheaper than anyone else is willing to do it for. < indium is another rare material that has seen its production somewhat monopolized by China in recent years > And cheaper than competing technologies can do the same job. If some Colombians decide to dig indium instead of growing cocaine, then that's the end of the "monopoly". Mqurice

To: Snowshoe who wrote (73220)	4/12/2010 2:05:13 AM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Never mind indium, in Avatar, they were after unobtainium, and felled the tree to get it. The obvious answer was not to fell the tree to get the indium, unobtainium, iridium etc but to simply use the tree as firewood to generate a vast amount of electricity. Similarly, all the hard work to come up with photovoltaic cells using various expensive elements would be better replaced with the easy job of planting loads of pine trees, watering them, then cutting them down in a few years and burning them or liquefying them as fuel. Chlorophyll is a very cheap carbon-based photo-active chemical, with the carbon delivered free to the leaf, and water costing hardly anything. Dirt provides the trace elements required. If crops producing oils were used, the oils could be squashed out for fuel in engines before burning the residue. Mqurice