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The golden asteroid that could make everyone on Earth a billionaire

14 points by smn1234 7y ago

gus_massa 7y ago
... assuming the price of gold does not fall to almost $0. Anyway, gold has a lot of industrial applications, so it would be nice. The annual mining of gold is about 3000 tons. In a very optimistic scenario, let's assume a weekly rocket with 20 tons of gold, that increase the annual production in 1000 tons. Probably enough to reduce the prize, but not to $0.
- Retra 7y ago
  If the gold is mixed or chemically bonded, you are delivering rock, and there's plenty of gold in the rock beneath your feet, it is just not worth the cost to extract. Surely requiring a high-risk rocket delivery system makes it less feasible... perhaps so much that mining even a pure-gold asteroid would not pay dividends.
  - gus_massa 7y ago
    Gold mostly appear on Earth as a pure metal or an alloy with Silver (that is also valuable), so I expect that in the asteroid it is in one of those forms. (But I'm not an astrogeologist.) Anyway, the article is probably too optimistic.
rongenre 7y ago
That's not how scarcity works.
jackfoxy 7y ago
I think the real potential game changer here is platinum group metals. The total world supply (of platinum alone) is a mere 8 million ounces https://www.statista.com/statistics/418212/global-platinum-supply/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/418212/global-platinum-s... Investors long on platinum would not like it, but a significant increase in supply would open economic activity using platinum group metals in catalysts and other industrial uses. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/platinum-catalyst https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/platinum-ca...
the_seraphim 7y ago
lets capture it and crash it onto earth somewhere in the ocean, then dig it up and boom, rich
NikkiA 7y ago
'could' is the key word here... Much more likely to make a handful of people quadrillionaires and the rest of us slightly more bitter.
dragonwriter 7y ago
No, it couldn't. What it could do is drop the value of gold so everyone on Earth could afford as much gold (but not anything else) as present billionaires. It's not like modern currency is pegged to gold. And exploiting the asteroid might make people billionaires, but would also generate hyperinflation, if currency was pegged to gold.

14 points by smn1234 7y ago

... assuming the price of gold does not fall to almost $0. Anyway, gold has a lot of industrial applications, so it would be nice. The annual mining of gold is about 3000 tons. In a very optimistic scenario, let's assume a weekly rocket with 20 tons of gold, that increase the annual production in 1000 tons. Probably enough to reduce the prize, but not to $0.

Retra 7y ago
If the gold is mixed or chemically bonded, you are delivering rock, and there's plenty of gold in the rock beneath your feet, it is just not worth the cost to extract. Surely requiring a high-risk rocket delivery system makes it less feasible... perhaps so much that mining even a pure-gold asteroid would not pay dividends.
- gus_massa 7y ago
  Gold mostly appear on Earth as a pure metal or an alloy with Silver (that is also valuable), so I expect that in the asteroid it is in one of those forms. (But I'm not an astrogeologist.) Anyway, the article is probably too optimistic.

rongenre 7y ago

That's not how scarcity works.

jackfoxy 7y ago

I think the real potential game changer here is platinum group metals. The total world supply (of platinum alone) is a mere 8 million ounces https://www.statista.com/statistics/418212/global-platinum-supply/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/418212/global-platinum-s... Investors long on platinum would not like it, but a significant increase in supply would open economic activity using platinum group metals in catalysts and other industrial uses. https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/platinum-catalyst https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/platinum-ca...

the_seraphim 7y ago

lets capture it and crash it onto earth somewhere in the ocean, then dig it up and boom, rich

NikkiA 7y ago

'could' is the key word here... Much more likely to make a handful of people quadrillionaires and the rest of us slightly more bitter.

dragonwriter 7y ago

No, it couldn't. What it could do is drop the value of gold so everyone on Earth could afford as much gold (but not anything else) as present billionaires. It's not like modern currency is pegged to gold. And exploiting the asteroid might make people billionaires, but would also generate hyperinflation, if currency was pegged to gold.