If you, like SLL, have never heard of coltan, you’re about to learn what it is, why it is extraordinarily important, and why it is more valuable than diamonds. There is a little problem with coltan—Venezuela, not exactly a US BFF, has a big chunk of the world’s supply. From Stucky at theburningplatform.com:
Follow the Minerals: Why the US is Threatened by Venezuela’s ‘Blue Gold’
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US President Obama generated international outcry after imposing further sanctions on Venezuela in March and claiming that Venezuela poses an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security.
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President Maduro of Venezuela fired back at Obama, saying the sanctions and executive order are an attempt to use force to control the country. One forthright response to the US decree from Bolivian President Evo Morales demanded Obama to: “Stop turning the world into a battlefield.”
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Is any threat posed by Venezuela merely an illusion created to oil the wheels of intervention? What is real and tangible is the US’ increasing demand for the natural resources Venezuela has in superabundance. Resource wealth can be a blessing and a curse. Not only is Venezuela the fifth largest oil exporting country in the world, with the second-largest reserves of heavy crude oil, but also add to that the country’s rich mineral reserves, plus a turbulent economy, and you have a recipe for ‘resource curse’.
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Staving off the dreaded resource curse, Venezuela has paved a new road to success. Key to sustaining this progress is the country’s ability to maintain its own mineral wealth..
Venezuela sits on mineral reserves of gold, iron ore, diamonds, coal, uranium and the precious mineral coltan.
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Coltan is Venezuela’s Oro Azul or ‘blue gold’. In 2009, President Hugo Chávez announced the discovery of reserves worth $100 billion of “the blue gold of the 21st century” in the Amazon region of the country. The price of this blue gold follows an increasing demand for a high-grade metal known as tantalum, processed from refined coltan. Demand for coltan is so intense, it fetches a higher price on the international market than even gold or diamonds.
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Tantalum is the metal used in capacitors that store energy in modern electronics like smart phones and tablets. Tantalum capacitors are also essential in powering modern military weaponry because the metal resists corrosion and can withstand the extreme temperatures generated by the new military applications. Without it, weapons systems would overheat. The US relies on tantalum to build the basic circuitry in guidance control systems in smart bombs, the on-board navigational systems in drones, anti-tank systems, robots and most weapons systems. The metal is vital to US defense.
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Yet, it has no domestic source of coltan. Importing and stockpiling tantalum is its only recourse. As the need for tantalum increases, smugglers move coltan from Venezuela to the US via Colombia and Brazil.
To continue reading: COLTAN, Or, why Venezuela is an “extraordinary” threat
