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How Alumin(i)um Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, we want to remind you we are wrapping
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• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's lurking around too, which makes this stuff
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: you should know. Uh, one of the first I think
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: the first, No, I think we've talked about iron before
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: the second in our ongoing saga to do an episode
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: on each element in the periodic table. Oh kill me,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: it's like so much fun, Chuck.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: No, this is a good one.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it for me. I'm done.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: We'll see about that. But we're talking today about aluminum,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: which is pretty much ubiquitous. If you think about it,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: you find aluminum everywhere. I don't even need to rattle
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: off where you find aluminum. You can figure that out yourself.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Because it's just that ubiquitous, right, agreed. So one of
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: the interesting things about it, though, Chuck, is that as
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: much as it's like entered into our world or become
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: like so enmessed with our world, it is a very
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: very new invention as far as elements go and discovery
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: and use. Yeah, I mean we've been using copper forever,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: iron forever, a bronze even longer than iron. Remember, aluminum
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: we've been using essentially since the twentieth century.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Is this the aluminum age, Yes, it is an people
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: call it that, no, but I think we should start
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: calling it then.
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, bronze had an age, and if iron had
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: an age, stone had an age.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Yeahs a great idea, Chuck, the aluminum age. It's a
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: wonderful idea. It really gets the point across.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: It does.
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  Speaker 1: And you mentioned that it's ubiquitous in use these days
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: for sure, but it's also abundant. And as Libya Livia
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: pointed this out because she helped us out with this one,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: she did a really good job on this one. I
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: think eight percent of the total mass of the Earth's
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: crust has aluminum in it. But it's not like from
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: the beginning we could just go down there and chop
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: out a bunch of aluminum with a screwdriver and a hammer,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: because aluminum had a well, not a problem, it just
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: had a quality that it's it bonds very easily with
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: other elements, so that means it's reactive, so that means
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: it's in the crust. It is, you know, parts of
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: rock and parts of other things in combination with other
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: elements and minerals. And it wasn't just like, oh, look
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: there's aluminum, we can just go like, we had to
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: figure out how to extract usable aluminum from other things.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Mainly these days and back then something called box site.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, boux site is it's kind of like an umbrella
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: term for naturally occurring aluminum ores.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: Basically, yeah.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: But the problem with aluminum, like a lot of metals
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: and minerals like show up in nature's ores and we
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: can extract them. The difficulty is that aluminum is so
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: reactive it really really meshes with the other mineral or
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: the other rock or the other metal, and it's really
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: tough to get apart. Kind of like poor Wilfrid Brimley
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: in the thing. It's like that ameshed.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Oh man, I'm feeling better now.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: So you've got this box site and we know about it.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: We know that there's something useful in it, but we
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: didn't know how to get it out. And for a
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: long time people had noticed like, oh, there's all sorts
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: of stuff you can do with this box site that
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: we'll call alum which is a kind of aluminum sulfate
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: made with potassium. People have been using that for about
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: seven eight thousand years.
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  Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, all sorts of stuff like oh, of course,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the Egyptians they put all kinds of things in makeup,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: as we've talked about before. Aluminum or that potassium aluminum
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: sulfate is one of them used often, and dyes used
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: for dressing wounds. I think you can also find aluminum
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: in clay. So yeah, for many thousands of years they
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: were using aluminum strengthened clay to make harder and stronger pottery.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't break it. It's like an unbreakable comb.
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: Unbreakable what comb? Like a hair comb?
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a I think it's a brand name even.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: Oh really, I've never heard of it.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: It just invites you to break it, and it eventually
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: does break, by the way, but it's hard to break.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: I got so yes, people were using it for a while.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: And by the way, as an aside, there's a I
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: don't want to say famous, but there's a noteworthy artifact
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: that was discovered in the tomb of a general zoo
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  Speaker 2: Chu who lived in China about seventeen hundred years ago.
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  Speaker 2: And it's a belt and it's made of aluminum, and
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: it's what you would refer to as an out of
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: place artifact or oop art, which is something that kind
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: of bucks our understanding of history and time like that
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: should not exist because this was the third century CE,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: and it.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Wasn't Lomo control in you know, the Old West or
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: something like that exactly.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: That would be that would be a very significant out
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: of place artifact. This one's pretty significant, so much so
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: that they're like, we think this is an archaeological prank,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: like a joke. Like somebody was like, this is really
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: going to blow their minds, and it did. But most
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: people are like, this is so inexplicable, there's no way
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: that it's real.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Oh that's awesome, yeah, but still an explicit Yes.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: That's one of the things that makes it awesome.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: Sure.
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  Speaker 2: But the upside of my whole point was we knew
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: that there was something useful in there, and as far
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: as the chemistry world goes, it's not enough to just
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: know it's there. They have to isolate it. They're just
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: fanatics about it. And they said that about doing that
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: in the nineteenth century.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, there was one chemist in particular name Antwin Lovoisier.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very nice.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, obviously French, and he was like, hey, you know
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: this aluminum oxide or I think you were calling ilumina
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: at that point, you know, we can probably extract this
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: stuff wasn't able to. But not too long after an
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: eighteen and oh eight there was a British chemist name
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Sir Humphrey Davy who and he actually named named it. Well,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: we'll get to the naming thing in a second. It
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: goes through some stages. It was to him it was illuminium,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and then he wrote a book of elements elemental in
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: chemistry I'm sorry, Chemical Philosophy four years after that, and
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: at that point it was spelled aluminum. But then later on,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: like four years later in the Quarterly Review, there were
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: a bunch of British chemists who were just like, I
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: don't like the ring of aluminum. It doesn't sound British enough,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: so they went with aluminium with an extra eye, and
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: that was basically what people called it for a long time,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: except for Americans who were like, you know what, we're
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: using both of these terms. We really like aluminum. It's
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: in the dictionary, It's in Webster's dictionary.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: Is aluminum? Can we just settle this?
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: And in nineteen twenty five, finally the American Chemical Society said, yes,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: we were going to say it's aluminum. And so Americans
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: and Canadians are the only people who call it that's
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: for some reason.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, everybody else calls it aluminium. Yeah, they stuck with it,
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: They really did. They really stuck with it for sure.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: So that Humphrey Davy, going back to him, probably one
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: of the reasons he came up with different spellings was
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: because he was fresh off of his self experimentation with
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: nitrous oxide. He was the guy who called the O
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: excellent airbag, remember him. So he was the one who
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: said there is an elemental useful metal here in this
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: cruddy or and he described it before anyone had ever
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  Speaker 2: even isolated it. But in the world of chemistry, you
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: wouldn't call Sir Humphrey Davy the discoverer of aluminum in chemistry,
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: to discover something, you have to have isolated it in
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: its pure form, and there was an early attempt to
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: do that. I think there was a guy named Hans
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Christian Ursted who in eighteen twenty five came very close,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: but he had an impure isolated aluminum, and then very
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: triumphantly Friedrich Vohler or Vuler i think, came up with
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: pure aluminum two years after that.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the old chemistry tradition that in order to
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: be named the discoverer, you have to extract it and
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: then roll up in a ball and hit someone with it.
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  Speaker 2: That's right, that's the tradition.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: That's right.
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  Speaker 1: But it was really expensive to do so for the
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: first And it's kind of funny to think about now
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: because they've gotten so good at making aluminum. It's obviously
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: used in so many different things and it's fairly inexpensive,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: but back then it was a luxury item. So aluminum
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: at first was known as the Medal of Kings, and
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Napoleon loved it and he was like, just think of
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: what we could do with this stuff in the military.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: Like it's fairly strong, it's very light, I think, you know,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: the lightness was such a huge attractive quality for aluminum
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: still is. And he was like, we need this stuff,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: and here I even want to eat off of it.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: So make some cutlery for me, and I'll just keep
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: very select sets of this stuff for me and my
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: very special guests, and everyone else will just dine on
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: silver with silver spoons and will use this aluminum. And
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: they were just going crazy for illumina. It was very
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: kind of funny to look back at how it was
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: a luxury metal in its earliest days.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: It definitely was. And one reason why is because even
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: though Voler had come up with a method for extracting
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: pure aluminum, it was really labor intensive. It was really
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: hard to do, and you didn't get very much from it.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: So that made it a very precious metal, especially when,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: like you said, you had people like Napoleon the Third
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: bankrolling investigations into getting more and more aluminum.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: And one of the reasons why I did not know this,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: but there's probably people out there who do that there
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: is an aluminum pyramid capping the Washington Monument that was
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: put It was installed when the monument was built in
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: eighteen eighty four. Finished is in part because America was
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: showing off. Yeah, in eighteen eighty four, it was sill,
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: a very luxurious good and they had the six pound
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: aluminum period pyramid placed on the top. And it was
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: so difficult still at that time to extract aluminum that
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: that represented one quarter of the annual production of all
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: the aluminum in the world that was produced that year,
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: that one six pound pyramid.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty funny. Eight inches and six pounds, and
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: they like, get a load of this. Wait'll they see
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: this thing? Yes, it's like a bunch of beercans mashed
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: together exactly.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: That's the funniest part. This is eighteen eighty four. They
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: paid like seventy five hundred bucks in today's money for it,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: which seems kind of cheap to me. But two years later,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: we got so good at extracting aluminum we came up
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: with another process, which we'll talk about in a second,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: that that pyramid went from like hero to zero almost overnight.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it you know, it also served a purpose
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: because well everyone knows aluminum is very anti corrosive, so
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: that's a nice topper for a monument. And it also
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: served as a lightning rod, so it served a purpose.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: But it was for sure a brag, but like you said,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: it went kind of to a staple thing very quickly
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: once some very smart people got to work refining this process.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: One was Charles Martin Hall, an Ohian. He's very so
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: HIGHO and I would say, Paul heral Hero, how would
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: you pronounce that Herald Herauld?
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: I think you might actually say the T in that one.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure he.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: H h E R O U L T.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Another Frenchman, they independently in eighteen eighty six, invented this
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: technique that they have now has been code named after
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: them as the Herald process, in which you dissolve aluminum
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: oxide and molten cryolite mineral pass the.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Current through there.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: We've talked about those kind of processes before and leave.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: The Frenchman actually filed the patent about a month and
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: a half before Hall, but Hall proved that he had
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: come up with it previously, and so they worked it out.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: They shared credit. They even ended up dying in the
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: same year. I guess they really wanted to share everything,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: so they said let's just die together as well, and
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: they both passed away in nineteen fourteen, and that was
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: at the end of the process. Though I think someone
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: else came along and really refined it.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was not only not the end, that
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: was just the beginning. That process is still in use today.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: And then, like you said, a third guy, Karl Josef Behar,
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: would you say Yosef Oh?
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: Probably? I think yeah, okay with Yoseph.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Carl Joseph Bear in nineteen eighty seven. The next year
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: came up with a way to get aluminum oxide, which
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: was the base form of aluminum that you start out
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: within the Hall Herald process. Somebody came along and figured
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: out a better way to get aluminum oxide from box side.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: So in the span of a year, essentially we went
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: from aluminum being a precious metal to having an industrial
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: process in place that we still use today. That's incredible.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: That's why we live in the aluminum age today. I
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: just think the timing of the whole thing is so amazing.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: And I saw it explained in part because people were
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: so well aware that aluminum was light and strong and conductive.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Those are really desirable properties. They wanted this metal really bad,
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: so it was a real target in the chemistry world,
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: which explains why Hall and Herault both came up with
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: this same process independently. At the same time. But the
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: fact that you put that together with Bears Discovery, it
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: just all congealed all at once rather than over the
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: course of you know, decades and decades. Yeah, I just
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: find that very interesting.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very cool.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: In fact, Hall in eighteen eighty eight helped out a
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: company that still around today. Back then it was called
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, and now it's known as the
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Aluminum Company of America ALCOA. I'm sure we have listeners,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: plenty of listeners in Pittsburgh that work for alcoa very
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: big company. And the price of aluminum really went down.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: So I mean, if you want something to go from
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: a luxury to like something that you crush against your
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: head from a beer, can you go from almost five
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: dollars a pound in eighteen eighty eight to seventy eight
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: cents in eighteen ninety three, and then all the way
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: down to about twenty cents a pound in the nineteen thirties.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So in today's prices, it's going from six hundred
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: and sixty five dollars a pound to five dollars and
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: forty five cents a pound in just a few decades.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: That's how how radical and just world changing that process
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: was and is.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: All Right, I think that is a heck of an intro.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: All right, well, let's take an that break then, I say,
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: some podcasts might stop there, Yeah, but we're gonna keep going.
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: All right, We'll be right back, all right.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: So one of the things, Chuck, that we talked about
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: was you've mentioned that you melt cryolite. I think it
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: melts at a thousand degrees celsius, and then you melt aluminum,
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: so the temperature has to be even hotter than that,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: like really really hot, and then you pass a really
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: strong electrical current through that and to do all this
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: it's really really energy intensive, as we'll still is. Yeah.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: So one of the other things that supported the boom
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: in aluminum was that the electrical grid and ways of
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: creating and generating and getting electricity from place to place
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: was also developing simultaneously in the United States as well.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: That really helped a lot.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, big time.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: And in fact, a lot of aluminum plants early on
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: were built near dams. They were like, let's just you know, this,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: really make this efficient instead of camp right next to
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: that dam over there, so you know, we should probably
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: go over some of the modern uses of aluminum. Aluminum is,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: like we said, has so many great properties, but it
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: is fairly soft and weak in and of itself. I
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: mean it makes then we'll talk about foil and beer.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: I can't stop talking about beer cans. And it's great
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: for that stuff. But if you want to use it
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: in you know, commercial settings, you can make commercial aluminum.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: You just have to mix in a little iron, maybe
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: a little silicon, and it makes it much stronger. And
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: there are like all kinds of ways that you can alloy.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Is that a word?
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: I think it works all right.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: You can alloify aluminum to do things like, you know,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: build an airplane, and in fact that the right brothers.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: You might be thinking that airplane was made of wood,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: and it was, but the engine and I never knew
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: this was made of ninety two percent aluminum. Because they
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: needed horsepower. They needed a strong enough engine to get
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: that little wooden frame off the ground. But they couldn't
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: make it like out of like you would a car
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: enginecause it'd be way too heavy. So they needed to
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: be less than two hundred pounds produce that eight horses.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: And German car makers were starting to use aluminum for
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: their engines and they said you're onto something. They ended
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: up using eight percent copper to the ninety two percent
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: aluminum and they got that thing off the ground.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they turned to their mechanic, Charlie Taylor, and it
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: needed to be no more than two hundred pounds and
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: produce eight horsepower. Like you said, he delivered one from
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: scratch that weigh one hundred and eighty pounds and produced
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: twelve horse power. So Charlie Taylor really came through. I know,
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: we talked about him in the Right Brothers episode we did.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: Was that a two parter mm?
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: I want to say it was, but I make a
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: lot of stuff up in my head.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: So, you know, come World War One, not too long after,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: they were making full airplanes out of metal. Like aluminum
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: replaced wood very very quickly, because you had wood and
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: fabric airplanes obviously, you know, that was the best they
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: could do at the time, but aluminum is so much
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: stronger and you could go a lot faster and do
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: all kinds of things you couldn't do with wood and fabric. Yeah,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: and there's even Lyvia found a gentleman at the National
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: Air and Space Museum, the Smithsonian who was like, if
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: it wasn't for aluminum, we wouldn't have the planes in
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: spacecraft we have today.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: Kind of period.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so that really gets across one of the
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: big prized things about aluminum. It's strong, but it's also light.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: It's not quite as strong as steel, but it's much
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: lighter than steel, I think three times lighter, so its
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: strength to weight ratio is much better, which means that
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: it requires a lot less either horsepower in your your
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: twelve horse power engine or a lot less I guess
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: solid rocket fuel to get your rocket off of the
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: ground because you're using aluminum. So that's pretty great. There's
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: another quality of it that's allowed aluminum to really kind
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: of help us, as it's conductivity.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if it was equally as conductive as copper, it
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: would have fully replaced copper at this point because of
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: how much easier aluminum is, you know, to get. But
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: it's about two third is as good as copper, which
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: is still great, very conductive, but it's a third is heavy,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: which is great. That the problem there is you know
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: you're gonna need aluminum wire. It's about one and a
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: half times the diameter of copper if you want it
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: to perform the same.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: So it is, but that's a lot bigger, so they couldn't.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: They tried to for a little while, but they couldn't
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: just like go in and replace copper and households and
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: stuff because the wiring is too big. They do use
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: it for overhead and underground transmission because you reinforce it
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: with steel and it can be bigger in diameter. It's
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: not that big of a deal, but I think in
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies they were trying it in houses
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: because copper was really expensive. I think it worked well,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: but the connections ended up where you connect it together
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: ended up being a fire hazard, so they did away
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: with that.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what happens is in where the wiring goes into
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: like your outlet, your socket right in the back. The
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: aluminum expands and contracts much more than copper does, so
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: it loosens over time, and when it gets loose enough,
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: it'll arc. And an electrical arc is way worse than
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: just an electrical current because the electricity encounters gas the
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: atmosphere and it shoots up to like thirty five thousand
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: degrees farent height and causes fires. So if you have
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: you buy a house with aluminum wiring, like from the
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: sixties or seventies. Your insurance company is probably going to
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: be like, if you want insurance on this house, you're
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: going to have to totally rewire it.
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: And now we can talk about beer cans finally, because
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: that is what started to happen all the way back
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: in the late nineteen fifties. You know, the old cans
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: were made of usually ten sometimes steel, and there was
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: a very forward thinking company in Hawaii called the Hawaii
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Brewing Company, and they tried it out on their Primo
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: beer and they said, shipping this stuff is a lot better,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: it's a lot cheaper.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: We can ship it.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: To the mainland, no problem. But the can linings that
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: they were using at the time, there was a chemical
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: reaction going on between the beer and the can. It
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: ruined the beer, bankrupted the company. But it did not
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: die there because Cores was right on their heels. They
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: were already working on the same thing, and they perfected
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: it just a year later in nineteen fifty nine and
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: basically said the same thing is like, this is a
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: lot cheaper, it's easier to and you know, lighter obviously
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: than glass bottles. It actually helps the beer deprive the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: beer of light and oxygen better than bottles, and cores
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: started the whole thing as far as beer goes, followed
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: very quickly by Arci Cola on the soft drink side,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: and then it was aluminum can City as far as
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: soft drinks and canned anything goes, basically. But if you
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: remember when like we were kids, those same aluminum cans
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: just were felt heavier and thicker. It's because they were.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: They've they've refined the process and made it much thinner
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: over the years. But those old cans, because I was like,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: were those ten They weren't. They were aluminum. They were
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: just a lot heavier back then.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Right. So today aluminum cans are so useful that twenty
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: percent of the entire global supply goes to making aluminum cans,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: which is pretty amazing. And the other thing about it
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: is it's high recyclable. As we'll see, it has what's
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: called infinite recyclability, like it doesn't degrade in the recycling process,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: and it requires way less energy, time and money to
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: recycle aluminum cans. So much so that I read that
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: the can of say like coke or beer or whatever
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: you're drinking was probably in the exact same form in
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: a different life sixty days before. Each can has about
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: a sixty day life cycle from sale to use, to
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: recycling to reprocessing to repackaging to going back on the
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: store shelf. Again. Isn't that amazing? But it's not like
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: they just wash out the same can. It's completely disintegrated,
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: so it's not the exact same can, but it was
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: in some way that same can before. It's like that
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: ship we talked about, and does your body replace itself
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: if you slowly replace each part of the ship, when
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: you replace everything, is it's still the same ship? Same
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: question applies to aluminum cans. It turns out.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we might as well finish up on
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: recycling and just say that we've tried to beat the
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: recycling drum over the years, and we know that there
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: are some problems with the recycling process for a lot
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: of stuff. I know glass is particularly problematic, but aluminum
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: is one of those that they have really really figured
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: out how to do it in a great efficient way,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: and it's so recyclable and it's very easy to recycle.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: Yet only fifty percent of aluminum and it's just cans,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: just the cans that people drink. Only fifty percent of
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: those still are recycled. So just we implore you. We
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: try not to get on the old high horse, but
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: if you're not going to recycle anything else, please just
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: recycle those cans. It's so easy and it really really
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: makes a big dip.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, it requires five percent of the carbon emissions
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: to recycle aluminum pound for pound then it does to
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: process it and create it initially five percent.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: It's not a scam. It's not just going to some
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: landfill like. They've really got aluminum recycling down pat so
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: you can feel good about throwing that can and the
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: recycling and knowing that some other jerk next to you
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: will be drinking from almost that same can.
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: What two months later.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: You said, yeah, about six, six to eight weeks.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just a wonderful thing. So recycle that aluminum.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: There's a very often cited stat that I think goes
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: all the way back to two thousand and one. I
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: couldn't find a more updated one. But we throw away
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: so many aluminum cans that we could rebuild the entire
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: US commercial air fleet every three months with that aluminum
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: just thrown away. And the other thing talking about is recyclability.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: If you can just recycle aluminum over and over and
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: over again, eventually we have enough that we've mined and
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: processed that we don't have to mine and process it
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: anymore because it's all getting recycled. So we could stop
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: to that now, right, No.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: Not.
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: If we're we're only recycling fifty percent of our cans,
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: that means we have to we have to supplement the
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: recycled material with another fifty percent of new cans.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but about seventy five percent of all aluminum ever
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: used is still being used.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that's true. So sure, I guess twenty.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: There's some missing math in there somewhere.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Well, that's so we're talking cans and then we're talking
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: all aluminum.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, it's true.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently the building industry has a much higher recycling rate.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: That's right, it's good for them.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: You want it? Wow? Do you want to take another break? Yeah,
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: let's do it. Okay, Well here we are. Everybody taken
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: another break?
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: All right?
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Everyone? Cans are great. We love those cans. But I love,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: and I always have loved aluminum foil. I don't know
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: what it is about it. I think it's the I
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: think it's the fold ability of foil. I just love it.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: I've had a roommate who used to make eat candy
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: and make little things out of gum wrappers, little little
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: swords and things and poke people, and I just, I
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: don't know. I've always loved aluminum foil. I even make
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: the mistakes sometimes still calling it tinfoil, even though I
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: don't think it was at all, even around when I
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: was a kid. Even I'm not picked it up for
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: my grandmother or something.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: Probably, I mean, everybody calls it tinfoil still.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess so.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: Even Adam Savage on his his Japanese fol oil ball
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: video called tinfoil yeah, which we'll talk about in a sec.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: But in nineteen ten, there was a manufacturer, an aluminum manufacturer,
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: that said, all right, I can figure out how to
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: get this aluminum into these big rolled sheets, and we
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: can package candy in it, we can package tobacco in it,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: And before you know it, in nineteen thirteen it hit
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the US in the form of life savers, candy rolls,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: and other kinds of candy bars. And then it didn't
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: take long before like the nineteen twenties, when it was
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: used as you know, the rolls of foil.
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: That very useful.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I still try to not use it because you know,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: to you know, cutting, like reducing is the first thing
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: in reduce, reuse, recycle. So it's not like I'm just
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: like ripping tinfoil off all the time just to play
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: with it. But it is a very handy thing to
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: have in the house.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: If you toss that aluminum foil ball in the recycling,
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. You can play with it all day long.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: Heck yeah, because it's infinitely recyclable. I don't know if
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: we said that or not yet.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: We've a bunch of times, but reducing is still better.
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: Sure, that's why it's number one on the list.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: But it's so hard, Chuck.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: To not play with illuminum boil.
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, to reduce, Yeah, it is. So we can't not
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: talk about the tinfoil hat too, Like think about it.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: No one ever says the aluminum foil hat. They say
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: foil or tinfoil. Apparently, the Vice magazine traced it back
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: to a nineteen twenty seven story by al Juics Huxley's
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: brother Julian. I can't remember what it's called, and I
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: knew it. It's a great name too. Sorry, everybody, but
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: he develops this form of mass control. The scientists the
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: main character, and he uses a cap of metal foil
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: to prevent that mind control being used on him. And
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: as far as Vice Magazine's concerned, that's where the whole
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: thing began.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: Who brother was this?
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Al Juis Huxley. The door is a perception guy.
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I think you added you did the josh Adavowl al Juis.
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've always done that. I don't think I've ever
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: said his name other than al Juis Huxley.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, I'm surprised you don't say aluminium because they've added
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: the valeve for you.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: I refuse to because I'm an American three and three.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: I believe red, white and blue chuck.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: That's right, all right, So that happened in what nineteen
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: twenty seven?
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: No, seriously, please call a doctor. My blood is white.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Sometimes it's no, it can't be helped.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: You're fine, You're fine. That was in nineteen twenty seven.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: And then in World War Two there was a propaganda
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: broadcaster named William Joyce who talked about tinfoil hats protecting
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: against shrapnel.
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: So that was another use.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that guy was a Nazi propagandist who was
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: trying to undermine the British morale. He was a real jerk.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: They hung him named lord he ha ha.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: I always want to say lord he haw. Actually I
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: want to say lord he haw haw because I always
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: had an extra vowel. But the upshot of all this,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: I don't even know if that applies in this case.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: But how about to wrap up this section like a
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: piece of aluminum foil. If you've ever watched Better Call
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Saul the original, I guess the first couple of seasons
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: is brother. What's his brother's name?
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: I never seen the show.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, Well, Michael McKeon plays his brother very well.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: He's a big jerk, but he has an electro magnetic sensitivity,
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: which they explore in depth, and he wraps himself in
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: magnetic foil anytime he wants to get out of the house.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: But an MIT study in two thousand and five found
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: that doing that would actually amplify electromagnetic frequencies rather than
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: prevent them from entering your body or head.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: No goods, then, yeah.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Tim, foil hat does not work, everybody.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: I referenced the Japanese foil ball thing, and it's apparently
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: one of these internet challenges from like five years ago
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: that I had never heard of me either, so immediately
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: went and looked it up. And you know, it's basically
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: you take a big, you know, crinkly ball of foil
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: and you start hammering on it until you do it
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: so much that it ends up. You know, if you
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: just use the hammer, you can even get it down
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: to a pretty smoothish.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: Aluminum ball.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: I did see others though, that you know, then they
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: would get out some grinders and some sandpaper and stuff.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: That feels like cheating.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it depends on what you want to
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: up with it. They could have stopped and just said,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: all right here, this is like really cool. But then
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: when you like sand it down and use the grinder
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: and use like polish and stuff, you can literally take
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: it to the point where it's a very very shiny.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: It looks like almost like a solid chrome steel ball,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: and it's really cool and fun to see. And I
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: think I want to try to do it.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: I think you shouldn't. You should post it on Instagram.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Maybe, I mean, if I'm well, I'll post it either way.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: I was going to say, if it's a success, but
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: it's even more fun if I screw it.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Up exactly totally. But that gets across how aluminum can
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: be decorative. So, like a lot of shiny paper or
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: shiny materials that are just shiny on one side, they're
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: coated in aluminum because they figured out a technique to
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: flash vaporize it in a vacuum and it goes whoop
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: and coats whatever happens to be in there with it.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: That's the process they use it, flash vaporizing aluminum. You've
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: got to feel like some sort of god on Earth
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: when you're able to do that, when you press that button,
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's used in all kinds of buildings, kind of
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: starting with in the nineteen thirties in New York City
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: with the Empire State Building. Use a lot of aluminum.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: It is used a lot in car making. They use
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: about eighteen percent of all aluminum is used in automaking
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: these days. And then I mean what else, Like you
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: mentioned the decorative paper, it's in toys, it's in medicine.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: It can be an acid if it's aluminum hydroxide.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, most over the counter an acids are made to that.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's still used topically, just like they did back
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: in the old days for burns and wounds and stuff
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: like that, and it's still in makeup.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it plugs up your pors and your anti.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: Persprint, yeah, which we just talked about in What History
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: of Hygiene? That's right and apparently and I always thought
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: that that was not good at all, but Lvia pointed
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: out in that podcast, and you know, we can talk
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: about it from here too, that it is it has
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: not been proven decidedly that aluminum is really really bad
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: for your body and the quantities that you would normally
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: have aluminum.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a scare back in about twenty eleven
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: that the aluminum in your anti perseprint was going to
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: give you breast cancer, and apparently that was just made
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: up on the internet and studies don't actually support that.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: The new one is that aluminum and I shouldn't say new,
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: because I think it kind of started in the sixties
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: and seventies that there was some sort of correlation between
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: the tau protein tangles and plaques that are associated with
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Alzheimer's and aluminum consumption. Was it in like mice or
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: rats that they found this in I think I.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Think it was mice, but they were I think they're
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: like injecting mice, right, And they ended up saying like
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: humans are never going to come into contact with this
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: much aluminum just from you know, being on the Earth
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: and using aluminum. I think they have found that there's
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: like aluminum in the drinking water supply of your town,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: which has happened and is a real problem. Then if
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: you have Alzheimer's, that can accelerate it. But I don't
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: think they have still linked it to like causing full
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: stop Alzheimer's.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: No, but they have identified it as a neurotoxin because
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: remember how it's super reactive. It does the same thing
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: with cells in your body, including your neurons, so it
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: can really mess your brain up, and it causes double
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: strand breaks, which messes up your DNA. So when that
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: cell divides into another one that new cells, DNA is
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: messed up too, hence tumors too. So there are problems.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: That's aluminum, Like you said, it is in the water supply.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: It's really in a lot of surprising places, and we
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: put those things in our body. Again, want to point
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: out before the twentieth century, this didn't happen. People weren't
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: like ingesting aluminum. It just didn't exist in that form
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: on Earth. Right, that's a new thing. But it does
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: seem that despite it not being used in any biological process,
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: despite it being very new, and so the human body
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: has not really encountered this and gotten used to it.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: Our kidneys are supposedly very very efficient at flushing aluminum
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: right out of the body about as fast as it
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: comes in. Yeah, I mean, that's that's impressive.
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: It is, And that's the that's where it stands right now.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: I don't think anyone has like closed the book and said, well,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: we're just not going to study this anymore.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: Right, but right now that's where things stand.
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: One problem with aluminum is that there have been instances
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: fairly recently about aluminum hoarding. In the early twenty tens,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: the Go Goldman Sax Company, they bought a warehouse complex
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: outside of Detroit, Michigan, and they stored aluminum for producers
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: and for banks and for people who traded aluminum. And
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: they said, you know, at a certain point in the
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: years that followed, buyers are trying to get a hold
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: of aluminum, and all of a sudden, what used to
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: take you know, a month a month and a half
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: to get was taking a year or more to get
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: and it was a real problem, and there were people
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: like beer companies and soft drink companies were saying, what's
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: going on. This is costing us millions and billions of
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: dollars waiting on these aluminum delays. And Goldman Sacks was like, Hey,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: you know, we don't have enough forklift drivers and trucks
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: and that's the problem. It's not us telling everyone to
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: hold on to that aluminum to make a false supply
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: issue so we can charge more for it. But the
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: New York Times came along and said, none, that's exactly
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: what's going on. You're just increasing profits by creating a
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: false supply.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah. What's interesting is the aluminum market. Aluminium as a
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: commodity is in like the supply is tracked so closely that,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: you know, just little instances of hoarding like that, if
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: it happens like enough times, it can it can affect
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: like the price pretty easily. The supply can just stop.
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: People do that. When it's really cheap, they'll do what
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: Goldman Sex did, it just buy up supply and sit
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: on it until it goes up in price. Because in
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: part you're sitting on the supply and then you just
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: kind of slowly reintroduce it to the market so that
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: you don't drop that high price while you're still raking
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: in the dough by selling the aluminum you have. And
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: to be fair, Goldman Sex was far from the only
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: investment bank doing this running these kind of warehouses. But
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: this is the early twenty tens, fresh off of the
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: financial meltdown that Goldman Sex got bailed out for, so
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: everybody was they were just pointing out Goldman Sex alone.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's fair, I think. So that's as fair as
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: you get.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: It's called tit for tat, buddy.
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: In this case.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Even just a couple of years ago, in twenty twenty one,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: they found aluminum hoarding going on in Vietnam to the
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: tune of about up to five billion dollars worth of aluminum.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: They said, this may be the largest aluminum horde that's
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: ever been And like you said, people are just you know,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: doing the wrong thing. And the prices really fluctuated quickly.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: I think there was a low of about fifteen hundred
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: dollars a ton during the pandemic shutdown, and then they
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: went to about thirty five hundred dollars a ton, just
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: a couple of years later.
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very big, very sensitive. The price is very sensitive.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: China is a big producer now, and they've figured out
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: that when they throttle or dial back supply, they can
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: change the price pretty easily themselves too. So it's a
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: it's a strange market, especially if we stop mining it.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: I want to know what's going to happen to the
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: price when we just say, okay, we have our aluminum
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: supply and now we're just circulating it throughout the economy, Like,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: is that gonnke? Is that going to make it more
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: expensive less expensive? I'm curious what will happen to that.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Well, the cynical human in me thinks that they will
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: then find a way to maximize profits there by doing
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: something untoward.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Probably you don't have much faith and commodity traders, huh,
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: I know. So one other reason Chuck to make it
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: to this circular economic status for aluminum where we've mined
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: everything that we need and we're just reusing the stock
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: is because box site mining is really really bad for
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: the environment. Most mining is, but any kind of strip
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: mining is really bad because it just completely depletes the
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: land of everything it needs to keep itself going. Box
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: site also really pollutes water supplies to with other heavy metals.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: And then also because it's so energy intensive, just the
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: box site mining produces three percent of the world's direct
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: CO two emissions. Just the mining, not startling, not processing
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: it into aluminum, just the mining alone does that.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's uh yeah, three percent. I mean three is
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: a small number, but we were talking about all of
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: the CO two emissions on planet Earth coming from one
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: single process.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: That's that's staggering.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And so start looking around if you're like, just
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: ask yourself before you throw something, await, is this aluminum?
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: If the answers, yes, throw it in recycling, then yeah.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: And you know, world War two there were kids turning
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: in their gum wrappers for the war effort to get
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: aluminum recycled, so.
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: Be more like World War two kids.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: Someone apparently suggested melting down the Washington Monument cap during
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: that time, but everybody just kind of didn't say anything
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: about it, just what.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: It did they really?
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, somebody did.
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: And people are like, how do you even know that?
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Right, that's a really arcane piece of trivia. Yeah, okay,
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: well that's it for aluminum everybody. And that means, of course,
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: it's time for listener mail.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this airplane etiquette. Did you read this
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: one yet?
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: I don't think that I didn't.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: This is fresh offor presses.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: But I'm also gonna call it, am I the a
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: hole because this is sort of what this person is
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: asking a little bit with this airplane situation that this
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: gentleman was on recently, and it is asking for advice.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: And like, did I do the wrong thing?
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: Oh boy?
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna read sort of a shorter version. But
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: needless to say, Frank is really into the show and
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: very thankful for it. So Frank and his wife were
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: on a comfort plus flight from our good friends at
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Delta recently and they were in the you know, the
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: aisle seat in the middle seat.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: I believe Frank was on the aisle. He's tall. His
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: wife took the.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: Middle seat and they were bored and seat belted when
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: a passenger assigned to the windows heat arrived.
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: It's a courtesy.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: My wife and I turned our leg sideways so he
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: would have an easier time sliding past us. But he
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: said that he doesn't feel comfortable sliding past people like
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: that and asked us to get up and let him in.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: I mentioned there was plenty of room for him to
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: slide past, since we were in comfort plus, but he
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: insisted we get up, so we unbuckled, We.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: Got up, and we let him in.
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: When we were preparing to land, about ten minutes out,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: the same passenger decided they needed to use the restroom.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: He asked my wife and I to get up again
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: to slide out. I was watching a movie at the time,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: so I had to pause the movie. Oh my God,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: fold the arm that holds the screen back into the seat,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: you know. Sometimes they come out of the arm there,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: and then fold up my tray holding my drink into
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: the seat so he could get it out. I did this,
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: turn my leg sideway so we could slide out, and
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: this angered him, and he showed his displeasure by sliding
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: past us angrily and shaking his head in an exaggerated manner.
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: So this is where we are so far.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: He returned from the restroom and then asked again if
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: we would get up this time and let him in.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: I mentioned to him that he slid pats us getting
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: out quite easily, so can't you just do that sliding
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: back in? He said, no, I feel uncomfortable sliding past,
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: and he called the flight attendant to come over. And
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: the flight attendant arrived and was fairly puzzled. I think
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: he was. The flight attendant was confused as to what
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: was going on. I knew the situation was beginning to
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: stress my wife out, and quite frankly me as well.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: Not wanting to cause any more stress issues because we
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: were landing, I relented, unbuckled and stood up again, and
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: my wife did the same. So before we get into this,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: just may finish this last part, which is what bothers me,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: is the h he kept saying he's not comfortable doing so.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: He never said why he was uncomfortable, and that he
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: just insisted that people unbuckle and stand What about my comfort,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: life's comfort. What if we weren't comfortable unbuckling and getting
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: up because you're supposed to remain seat belt at all
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: times in case of turbulence. But if my wife was
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: nine months pregnant, But if I was an eighty year
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: old man with bad knees, what if I had anxiety
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: about unbuckling? So the wife, I'm sorry. The flight attendant
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: never said anything. And my question to you guys is
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: what is the proper etiquette that did a lot of
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: internet searches couldn't find an answer. Passengers in his twenties.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: My wife and I in her mid fifties. We were
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: in good shape, so it wouldn't a health issue. But
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: I thought this man was an entitled young man who's
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: never been told no in his life.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: All right, that's from Frank. So what do you say?
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: I mean, Frank, I think yes, you were the a
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: hole in this in this instance, Oh for sure.
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: Well here's what I'll say.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Wait, wait, now I have to explain. I can't just
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: be like, sure, there you go, that's my ja.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: It sounded like you were, dude no, So.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: Like the it seems like you were put out because
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: you're being asked to do something you didn't want to do.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: It didn't have anything to do with your comfort level.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: And the examples that you came up with for at
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: that man intruding on your comfort level were just made up,
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: Like you're not eighty, your wife isn't pregnant. You were
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: just annoyed. That guy sounded like he had like a
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: real thing about pushing past people's knees, maybe touching other
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: people physical contact. Sounds like he was not into that
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: at all. Some people are not into that to a
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: clinical degree, and I feel like, whoever's more put out,
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: you should just refer to them. It just makes things
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: so much more pleasant than saying no to somebody who's
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: asking you to do something for them that really is
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: no skin off of your.
• 47:48
  Speaker 4: Back at all.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: So I don't think you are an a hole like necessarily,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: but I think in this case, if there was an
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: a hole, it was it was you. Okay, okay, check,
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: now I'm done.
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: I agree in that. My philosophy is two parts. One is,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: you know, you're all on this plane together, everyone's crammed
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: in there, and it's just one of those social situations
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: where I think everyone should just do their best to
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: just work it all out and.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: Get along while you're done.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: In that short time that you're forced to be rammed
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: in there together, you know, like just help each other out.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: It's just a lot easier, a lot less friction. No
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: one likes to be on those planes anyway. And then
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: the second part is I think there's an implicit thing
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: where if you're an aile seed person. I'm an ile
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: seed person, you know that you're gonna have to get
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: up and let people out, Like I like an aisle
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: seat at a concert and at a sports game, and
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: you're going to get up and down a lot and
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: let people in who have to use the bathroom or
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: get their beer or whatever. And it's the same on
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: a plane, Like, you know what you're getting into with
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: an aisle seat. That's if you want it. I love
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: the aisle seat, but you got a you know what's coming.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: Otherwise you could sit by the window, and that's what
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: you do if you know, Like I'm just I'm going
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: to sleep. I know, I don't pee on airplanes. I
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: don't want to be bothered, so I'll just take that
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: window seat. So that's my thing, is you know what
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: you're getting into if you're in an aisle seat, you're
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: gonna have to get up. I think people should always
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: get up. It's just easier. I don't like sliding my
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: crutch or my butt past somebody's face what at all ever,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: So like it's a reasonable thing I think to say,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: you know, would you mind just standing up and letting
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: me in? And that's what I think.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there was one another there was one other red
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: flag that I that caught my attention was when Frank
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: suggested that this guy was just an entitled young man
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: who no one had said no to in his life.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: That sounds then that you were doing this out of hostility,
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: not just because you felt like you were being put out,
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: but because you wanted to be an obstacle in this
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: man's life, be the person who said no to him.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: And again, that's just hostile, and I agree with you.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: It flies in the face of just going along and
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: getting along while we're on this flight together so everybody
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: can get off and never see each other again.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and we weren't there, so kid may have been
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: very sarcastic and nodded and acted like sort of a jerk,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: but he may have thought that you drew first blood. True,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: you know. So that's where we stand. And Frank, you're
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: certainly not an ahole. You're sound like a sweet guy
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: who listens to the show and it means a lot
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: to you.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: So we're not we're not calling you out for that.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: But he literally wrote in and asked, but you did.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Ask, and that's our stances. Just get out, let the
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: guy out, live and let live. And if you see
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: that same twenty year old kid asking some old person
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: who has bad knees like, that's a different situation'suly different.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: We were responding strictly to the to the situation as
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: it was presented.
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, all right, boy. We could have a whole
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: other show where we did this.
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: We could think we would routinely get ourselves into trouble though.
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: Instead, listen to the Ultimate Judge, our friend Judge John.
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: Hodgman on what the Max Fun Network?
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: That's right?
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: Nice, Well, since we shouted out the Max Fun Network
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: and I already ended the episode, and now listener mails
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: over if you want to be like Frank. Frank, by
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: the way, thank you for being brave and putting yourself
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: out there like that. If you want to put yourself
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: out there like that, you can give a shot. Maybe
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: we'll answer it, who knows. Either way. You can give
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: it a try by sending an email to Stuff podcast
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.