That low price was only in 2020, as a result of the huge air traffic decrease caused by COVID-19.

The price of rhenium fluctuates wildly and a few years ago there was a maximum at $10 per gram.

It is unlikely that it will ever return to the COVID-19 price.

The problem with rhenium is not the current price, but the minuscule production, for which there is very little hope that it could be increased much.

If instead of being used in a few military and commercial airplanes and in a few industrial applications, like thermocouples or catalysts, there would be demand to use it in something used by everybody, the price would increase quickly.

Here, I see the problem with your logic.

> The price of rhenium fluctuates wildly and a few years ago there was a maximum at $10 per gram.

You lost sight of the simple fact I mentioned, you only need a very small amount of it and you add it to a CPU that costs hundreds of dollars already. So the impact on the cost of the CPU would be negligible.

Even at the highest cost of rhenium you have mentioned, even if you needed a full gram of it (which I don't believe, this is going to be more like milligrams or even micrograms), you still only change the cost of the CPU slightly, at most.

This before you account for inevitable improvements in obtaining the Rhenium itself.

The GP's point is that if people start using enough of it, the price will easily explode into several thousands or even millions per gram.

It all depends on a lot of details that haven't yet been quantified here. And the recycling the GP talks about is a huge one.

> If instead of being used in a few military and commercial airplanes and in a few industrial applications [...]

Wait, above you said it's heavily contended...

Presumably given its scarcity any application makes it heavily contended

53 tons of it are produces annually... Surely not "any application" uses up 53 tons per year.

Why do you think there's little hope on increasing production?

At $10/gram, of course there isn’t much production?

Price of gold is ~$60/gram, so this is not especially expensive in the grand scheme of rare metals even if it's significantly more expensive than copper.

Considering its rarity and industrial usage, it’s quite a steal even.