this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
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I haven't seen any reporting on just how much gallium, germanium, and antimony is used in electronics. I can see that it's basically present in all electronics, and the price per kilogram has gone up a lot under the restrictions, and that China accounts for 94% of the world's production.
Ok, so is this like gold, then, where very small quantities are used in most electronics so that it matters, but doesn't actually account for a significant percentage of the cost of the finished product?
How much gallium is used to manufacture a typical cell phone, a laptop, a car? How much does that $90/kg price hike translate to actual devices? Because if 1 gram of gallium goes into a particular device, that's an increase of 9 cents in raw materials, basically a rounding error.