[aurizon]

Looking back at Aluminium, it was once very costly - there was no economical way to extract it from clay by traditional metallurgy. When the Hall process of electrolytic extraction from molten salts was invented = huge price decline, and useage. Titanium is in a similar position, fairly common, but hard to extract economically. I hope there is a low cost electrolytic to recover Titanium found some day, as it is a very good material for all manner of uses at a lower price. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall%E2%80%93H%C3%A9roult_proc...

There is a new Titanium process, not as cheap as I would like, but a lot better than we have now. https://www.nature.com/articles/d42473-021-00166-8

[zardo]

>Looking back at Aluminium, it was once very costly - there was no economical way to extract it from clay by traditional metallurgy.

Supposedly Napoleon III had aluminum tableware for his most honored guests, and gold for everyone else.

[aurizon]

Yes, It was very hard to liberate Aluminum from oxygen with his level of chemistry...

[pitaj]

Titanium is extremely difficult to machine, which is part of why titanium parts (like those used in airplanes) are so expensive.