Titanium White: Global Cartels in the Opaque Paint Industry

Look at the white stripes on a highway, the casing of your computer monitor, or the walls of an office building. Every single one of these surfaces relies on titanium dioxide, a chemical compound that scatters light more efficiently than a diamond. Despite being the most ubiquitous pigment on Earth, its production is guarded by a vanishingly small number of global chemical giants. Extracting pur...