3 ms·
We already produce a significant quantity of ruthenium, rhodium and palladium in spent nuclear fuel and choose not to extract them. If these metals became more
by HarryHirsch 6y ago
We already produce a significant quantity of ruthenium, rhodium and palladium in spent nuclear fuel and choose not to extract them. If these metals became more widely available the market price would collapse, which now would not justify both mining or nuclear reprocessing.
Going to space to mine a nickel-iron asteroid would be out, for very much the same reason.
- dodobirdlord 6y agoGoing to space to mine a nickel-iron asteroid makes a lot of sense, because the material is then already in space and you can use it for orbital manufacturing without having to pay the energy cost of getting it out of Earth’s gravity well.
- bluGill 6y agoI specified platinum for a reason. High value, and high potential demand. I believe that if supply expanded price would go up as industrial processes switch. (diesel catalytic converters would be better with platinum, but total world supply covers less than 10% of all diesel engines so they use alternatives)
- HarryHirsch 6y agoThe lighter platinum group metals are widely used as catalysts to produce large-volume chemicals. Off the top of my head there's methyl acrylate, vinyl acetate, acetic acid, many more. Rhodium is especially scarce, palladium not so much, but it's a political metal, a substantial part of world production is not in the West. Rhodium use would go up were it more available, lots of interesting chemistry there, and political security is also worth a lot, but extraction from nuclear reprocessing isn't happening. That's the intersection of politics and the markets, where markets become political.