This is interesting. I questioned the "why is tinanium so expensive" more than once and the only answer was "It's hard to make"

I have a bit of a titanium fetish. 90% of my cutlery and cups in the kitchen are now made of titanium. I especially love the (double-walled) bowls.

I really like touching the material. I like its aesthetic. I find it very strange myself. My first encounter was 15 years ago with the Snow Peak spork that I bought for outdoor activities/camping. Later, I acquired a Snow Peak cup, which I still use every day.

The work hardening when machining titanium is also just brutal, worse than stainless

Weirdest thing I know about titanium: it acts as a sponge for hydrogen, to the extent that H will knock Ti atoms out of the material until it becomes friable.

This is never observed in ordinary usage, because titanium dioxide forms SO DAMN QUICKLY, and completely blocks absorption of H.

Source: a series of failed parts inside a high vacuum device (chip photolitho).

This point was also briefly mentioned in the article, but I think is other half of the equation: even if Ti is made cheap to manufacture, it's use will still remain problematic as it's brutal to machine and form, which increases manufacturing costs drastically.

I wonder if research into magnesium alloys would be a more fruitful avenue for research.

Is it cost effective to go from sponge to powder then Electron Beam Melting?

TLDR, AFAICT:

A: refining the titanium is probably fairly close to maximally efficient. But converting the refined titanium sponge into the final product has a ton of steps, and figuring out ways to delete one or two of those steps would pay dividends.

B: Assuming that the price of energy is going to drop relative to the other costs in the process is probably a safe assumption that can be exploited.