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There’s Big Money to Be Made in Asteroid Mining

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Re: There’s Big Money to Be Made in Asteroid Mining

#21

Post by bryanlarsen »

By comparison, there's $956 quintillion of platinum in the earth's crust, and similar amounts of other precious metals.

5 ug/kg (incidence of platinum in crust) x 6x10^24 kg (crust size) x 32 USD/g (price of platinum)

Asteroid mining is crazy silly. We're not supply limited for any element on earth, we're demand limited. If the price of platinum rose substantially, so would supply.

It doesn't matter how much of anything is available in space, the only thing that matters is cost. Can it be extracted and brought back to earth for a cost less than the current price on earth? AFAICT, we're not even close to that for anything.

Re: There’s Big Money to Be Made in Asteroid Mining

#22

Post by bryanlarsen »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #21

By comparison, there's $956 quintillion of platinum in the earth's crust, and similar amounts of other precious metals. 5 ug/kg (incidence of platinum in crust) x 6x10^24 kg (crust size) x 32 USD/g (price of platinum) Asteroid mining is crazy silly. We're not supply limited for any element on earth, we're demand limited. If the price of platinum rose substantially, so would supply. It doesn't matter how much of anyth…

Additionally, the production cost of most rare metals is very highly correlated with the cost of energy. It seems likely that space mining may have to compete with metals produced at a price an order of magnitude cheaper than the current price because cheap solar energy appears to be coming.

Re: There’s Big Money to Be Made in Asteroid Mining

#25

Post by kchoudhu »

mzw_mzw wrote: post #18
personjerry wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But where would you store all of it?

Space is big. I mean, really big. The orbits that are most useful for our current-day satellites are crowded, of course, but you could stash your asteroid booty anywhere you like. Putting it in orbit around the Moon might not be a bad move.

Why bother bringing it home at all? Set up orbital factories as well, and ship the finished goods back to Earth via space elevator.

Get rid of mining and dirty manufacturing on earth once and for all.

Re: There’s Big Money to Be Made in Asteroid Mining

#26

Post by jfoutz »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #21

By comparison, there's $956 quintillion of platinum in the earth's crust, and similar amounts of other precious metals. 5 ug/kg (incidence of platinum in crust) x 6x10^24 kg (crust size) x 32 USD/g (price of platinum) Asteroid mining is crazy silly. We're not supply limited for any element on earth, we're demand limited. If the price of platinum rose substantially, so would supply. It doesn't matter how much of anyth…

But we're using a lot of the crust. No one will be mining under Atlanta. There are plenty of places we aren't using, but the crust is also thick. A mile down sounds really deep, much less 20 miles.

I mostly agree with you, but it might wind up easier to nab an asteroid than dig a mile under the ocean.

Re: There’s Big Money to Be Made in Asteroid Mining

#27

Post by zitterbewegung »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #21

By comparison, there's $956 quintillion of platinum in the earth's crust, and similar amounts of other precious metals. 5 ug/kg (incidence of platinum in crust) x 6x10^24 kg (crust size) x 32 USD/g (price of platinum) Asteroid mining is crazy silly. We're not supply limited for any element on earth, we're demand limited. If the price of platinum rose substantially, so would supply. It doesn't matter how much of anyth…

You really wouldnt' want to bring it back to the Earth's surface. You would keep in in orbit and make a satellite(s) out of it.

Re: There’s Big Money to Be Made in Asteroid Mining

#30

Post by Lxr »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #21

By comparison, there's $956 quintillion of platinum in the earth's crust, and similar amounts of other precious metals. 5 ug/kg (incidence of platinum in crust) x 6x10^24 kg (crust size) x 32 USD/g (price of platinum) Asteroid mining is crazy silly. We're not supply limited for any element on earth, we're demand limited. If the price of platinum rose substantially, so would supply. It doesn't matter how much of anyth…

Yep, like mining anything asking how much is down there without reference to the cost of extraction is useless. Gold mines exist all over the world with large known deposits but feasibility comes down to whether it's worth it to extract based on current prices.
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