I remember about 5 years ago there was a tantalum shortage scare. Just the notion that tantalum was in short supply drove the price way up. Tantalum is used in high-reliability electrolytic capacitors, and allows for the creation of denser capacitors than those using aluminum. The industry quickly re-tooled to use Niobium and for a while it looked as if we might have to switch. But, alas there was no true shortage, so I can still buy my tantalum capacitors at nominal prices.
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