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America has a tungsten problem

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Re: America has a tungsten problem

#181

Post by Dylan16807 »

mnw21cam wrote: post #169
Dylan16807 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you said there is all true, but largely because you didn't mention efficiency. If your heat source is a lot hotter than the steam you make, you do lose a lot of efficiency. If you had a million degree heat source, you could have many steps extracting huge amounts of power before your "waste" heat gets down to 1000C and is used to boil water. The part about bad conduction being a problem is nonsense. The "lucky t…

Carnot efficiency is 1 - Tc/Th, where Th is the hot side temperature and Tc is the cold side temperature. Tc is set by the surrounding environment, probably in the vicinity of 300K. If you have a hot side temperature around 1,000,000K then the theoretical maximum efficiency is very good. If that heat has to be stepped down by separating it from materials that would melt and you can only sustain a hot side temperature…

You're right, I was mixing up how the boiling process would work numerically.

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#182

Post by philwelch »

nullhole wrote: post #45
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Wikipedia Tungsten article states the largest reserves are in China followed by Canada, Russia, Vietnam and Bolivia. This contradicts the articles claim. No, it does not, it's just a confusion of the term reserves. That's not on you, though, because everyone constantly gets it wrong. Reserves are not estimates of the amount of a mineral underground. To be counted as proven reserve, you need to show that the min…

> To be counted as proven reserve, you need to show that the mineral is economically extractable at market prices. Specifically, by starting to extract them. You don't need to be actually mining the stuff for it to be considered a reserve, at least in the Canadian (CIM) definitions. You do need at least a pre-feasibility study, and details on market prices & contracts. The general point is right though, "mineral reso…

Nobody’s going to pay for a feasibility study in a regulatory climate with sufficient barriers to mining. Canada might have less of that thanks to its resource-extraction economy but it’s a huge problem in the US.

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#185

Post by burnt-resistor »

josefritzishere wrote: post #5

It's worth mentioning that the US has tungsten mines, but they are not operating currently. https://www.usgs.gov/data/tungsten-deposits-united-states

The raw GIS data of US tungsten deposits is linked to here:

https://www.sciencebase.gov/catalog/item/5ae385eae4b0e2c2dd3...

The site loads very, very slowly.

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#186

Post by burnt-resistor »

PKop wrote: post #79
h4kunamata wrote: post #42

Tungsten is the least of their problem. When a population cannot afford health care system, and have to walk with their passport so they are not sent to jail, you have a broken country. Not to mention the financial problems. Tungsten won't matter when there is no country.

> walk with their passport so they are not sent to jail No, it's broken because we've allowed millions of foreigners to come in and raise said healthcare and housing costs. Checking that people here actually belong here else they're deported is part of the "cost of living" solution, in addition to crime.

[flagged]

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#187

Post by throwup238 »

russdill wrote: post #143
throwup238 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good news, that’s a tiny drop in the bucket compared to mining operations. Rocket payloads are measured in the metric tons; copper mining is measured in tens of millions of metric tons per year. It’s not even a rounding error, you’d have to launch hundreds of solid copper rockets a day to even make a dent.

Elon is talking about a million satellite constellation and launching a rocket capable of putting 100 tons into orbit every hour.

And here I thought we’d moved past taking his nonsense at face value.

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#188

Post by cucumber3732842 »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #147
MisterTea wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > China has 50 years of ore refinement development behind them. It's amazing how many people think China bootstrapped its industry from first principals when all it did was lure western companies to move their production over and "learned" by copying.

> all it did was lure western companies to move their production over and "learned" by copying Yeah, and they fell for it. Handed over all their intellectual "property" to the chinese on a silver platter. Moved all their production to China, thereby deindustrializing their own countries and impoverishing their fellow citizens to the point of nearly wiping out the middle class. I wonder if it's even possible for the w…

>Yeah, and they fell for it. Handed over all their intellectual "property" to the Chinese on a silver platter. Moved all their production to China

"Fell for it" looks a lot like "basically compelled by the economic impacts of public policy and political winds" so far as I can tell.

Some man in a C-suite in 2002 who was wrestling with a decision to refresh domestic factories with capital investments that would pay off over the next 15yr and be competitive for 30 or build new in China could only make that decision one way without being ousted by his own board. Even if the economics barely penciled out positively after compliance costs the political winds made it too risky.

I mean, yeah, someone fell for it. The public, the politicians, etc. etc. But it's not like anyone who didn't have to grapple with the numbers didn't know what they were doing was suspect at best, though many of course deluded themselves into believing in it.

How many decades and dollars did we spend shipping trash plastic overseas because they provided us with receipts saying they were recycling it when they were landfilling, burning or dumping it? Everyone who knew the chemistry and energy prices knew it didn't really work but still, it happened.

Re: America has a tungsten problem

#189

Post by toss1 »

terminalshort wrote: post #145
toss1 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The environmental review WILL help if it is used to adjust the mining techniques so they don't destroy everything nearby to do the work, or even if it jist creates a reclamation / restoration plan (and yes, factor that into the price, it's trivial). Taking too long is a problem.

Then make laws and punish the people who break them. It doesn't do any good to litigate before the project has even started. DUI is a problem and you solve it by arresting drunk drivers, not making them fill out paperwork before they go to the bar.

Your proposal is to do nothing and then make sure the entire thing causes orders of magnitude greater costs and damage which can be irreparable for centuries.

That has ALREADY been tried, and it was an absolute disaster, killing people, wrecking lives, and wrecking vast areas of ecosystems including driving species to extinction. You clearly were not around when rivers literally caught fire or when pollution required entire areas of cities and towns to be evacuated and dug up (look up Superfund Sites), costing taxpayers hundreds of $Billions.

A billion dollar mining operation is not a quick trip to a bar, and it is not putting personal liberties at risk to require planning.

It is far better to PLAN ahead and AGREE on the requirements up front so the company and investors can make sound profit projections and the ecosystem is protected. It is far worse for everyone to let them cause irreparable damage then hit the company/investors with crushing legal actions after the fact.

Yes, I agree that such reviews need to be expedited, the delay does no one any good. But doing the reviews is crucial.

Please read some history and lookup Chesterton's Fence before whinging about topics of which you are clearly ignorant

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