I upvoted you, pfdietz, and AnimalMuppet because you are all correctly describing different phenomena that can increase and decrease the prices of a mineral com

I upvoted you, pfdietz, and AnimalMuppet because you are all correctly describing different phenomena that can increase and decrease the prices of a mineral commodity. Increasing demand pushes up the price, which spurs searches for additional resources and improved extraction techniques. Improved techniques and the discovery of more resources can push the price down again, sometimes even below the price before major industrial demand started. Uranium is cheaper in the 21st century than prior to its large scale industrial use. Platinum remained more expensive after demand shot up from catalysts, despite huge investments in improved extraction and the discovery of new resources. I'm not trying to make predictions about the price movement of beryllium following a very successful ARC demonstration. I'm just pointing out that you can't look at current resource levels and divide by annual production rates to learn when resources will fall to 0. Making predictions about future prices is particularly hard when an element currently has only niche uses (e.g. beryllium, thorium, thallium, rubidium).