Overall abundance of an element in the earth's crust doesn't mean as much as you'd think -- for example the element scandium is even more common than lead in th

Overall abundance of an element in the earth's crust doesn't mean as much as you'd think -- for example the element scandium is even more common than lead in the crust (20 ppm) and is a dream metal both in bulk and as a strengthening additive to aluminum, but due to a lack of readily extractable ores very little of it is produced a year. Lead is only as common and cheap as it is because it forms a variety of easy to get at ores.