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A lot of heavy rare earth metals can only be found in very limited concentrations in the earth's crust, with the largest concentrations all being from asteroid
by whiskers08xmt 8y ago
A lot of heavy rare earth metals can only be found in very limited concentrations in the earth's crust, with the largest concentrations all being from asteroid impacts. As a consequence, these metals are incredibly valuable. A single high-concentration asteroid, could provide more of these metals than has been mined in the history of the earth, in high concentrations, and may be able to make a host of applications economically viable, which previously weren't.
- sisu2019 8y agoThe rare earth scarcity scare is already receding: https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/17/17246444/rare-earth-metals-discovery-japan-china-monopoly https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/17/17246444/rare-earth-metal... Yeah, heavy REMs are still expensive but there is really no reason to believe that they'll stay that way. New sites will be found, new extraction techniques will be tried and new processes developed and then the problem will go away. Sure, it could happen in space but it's so much easier to do here on earth that it might never be worth it to go to space for it.
- Brakenshire 8y agoThe guy's misusing "rare earth", in that phrase rare refers to the concentration in the ore, not the abundance in the crust.
- metalliqaz 8y agobut it would be, by far, the most expensive mining operation in the history of mining operations
- whiskers08xmt 8y agoNo doubt. It'd be incredibly expensive and risky, but with a huge potential pay-off.
- mr_overalls 8y agoYes, but if several thousand tons of iridium, platinum, or various rare-earth metals could be captured & towed to Earth orbit, the payoff could be astronomical.
- HarryHirsch 8y agoSuddenly there would be so much of a supply that the sale won't be profitable any longer. That's probably the reason why no one is extracting rhodium from nuclear waste, where it is a common fission product.
- mr_overalls 8y agoThat's why I suggested orbit, where the supply could be parceled out (or its true extent even kept secret) so as not to crash the market.
- cwkoss 8y agoOrbital piracy is going to be a great subject for action films.
- HarryHirsch 8y agoThe demand is mostly in chemical industry and very inelastic. No one is going to put another plant on line because platinum group metals are cheap (but plants may be pulled off line because the economy is in the dumps, as happened in 2008 and 2017). Even small increases in supply will lead to great drops in price. You can only hope that a plentiful supply would encourage new uses.
- elsonrodriguez 8y agoCounter example: De Beers.
- bluGill 8y agoI've been told that the trucking industry needs every year more platinum than has been mined in all of history. Since there obviously isn't supply they instead use alternative means to achieve their emissions goals. I'm not an emissions system engineer so I can't evaluate the truth of the statement. If it is true, and supply existed: it would create demand, potentially it could even drive up price as potential users quit using less desirable alternatives.
- dnautics 8y agoRare earth metals are a bit of a misnomer, they're not that rare at all.