4 ms·

> The iron ore reserves near Scranton began to be depleted by the end of the 19th century. Something mentioned in the book "The Toaster Project" (where a guy t

by f00zz 5y ago

> The iron ore reserves near Scranton began to be depleted by the end of the 19th century. Something mentioned in the book "The Toaster Project" (where a guy tries to build an electric toaster from scratch) is that high-grade ore basically doesn't exist any more, and you now need to process a ton of ore to extract a few kilograms of metal. (Just something to keep in mind if you ever find yourself in a position of having to rebuild civilization after being trapped in stone for 5,000 years.)

Athas 5y ago
Would it be viable to mine the remnants of civilization? Would a garbage dump or the ruins of a 20th century skyscraper be a viable source of iron?
- debacle 5y ago
  All over your town, drivers work day in and day out harvesting scrap metal on garbage pickup days.
- kevinmchugh 5y ago
  There would be plenty of metal to work with, but sources of heat hotter or denser than charcoal will make working the metal difficult.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Precisely.
- sbierwagen 5y ago
  Collapsed skyscrapers absolutely would be a good source of steel. Depending on the apocalypse, there would also be a good argument for intentionally collapsing any skyscrapers that were still standing, as depressing as that is. An unmaintained skyscraper will be shedding glass panels fairly frequently, and once the window glass is gone it will start accumulating rainwater and corroding the structural steel. Uncontrolled collapses also have a risk of knocking down neighboring buildings. Walking through a downtown area 50 years after it was depopulated would be fairly dangerous. You would want crews stripping empty buildings and knocking them down asap. Not to mention large cities are located at ports where you're going to want to operate anyway, once civilization is rebuilt enough to engage in ocean freight again.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    Or you'd have to dive, like in Waterworld, because every former coastal port is under water.
- decasteve 5y ago
  It depends on the scale. I still like the idea of harvesting bog iron and smelting in a homemade bloomery.
philipkglass 5y ago
Was that book perhaps referring to copper ore? Even low grade iron ores like taconite contain a double digit percentage of iron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taconite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taconite
jacquesm 5y ago
I would start digging where there had been a scrapyard or a garbage dump or landfill.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Why not following railroad tracks?
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Good one. I would expect those to be gone pretty early on though, there is just too much tonnage there. Same for scrap yards, harbors and so on. By the time things get desperate you'll have to expend a lot of effort. On the plus side, mining garbage will probably turn up a lot of other useful elements.
bigger_cheese 5y ago
That claim is highly exaggerated. I work in Steel industry so can maybe shine a bit of background here. I'm not sure what would be considered historically "high grade" but modern high grade ore is 62 to 65% Fe see for example here (first google result for Iron Ore Benchmark price https://www.marketindex.com.au/iron-ore https://www.marketindex.com.au/iron-ore). There are very large reserves of this stuff in places like Brazil and Australia it is not exactly a finite resource. Lower quality ore is also traded. There is a 58% Fe benchmark price as well. You buy ore in one of two formats "lump" or "fines" (https://www.metalbulletin.com/Article/3811904/Iron-ore-pricing-explained.html https://www.metalbulletin.com/Article/3811904/Iron-ore-prici...) Lump is considered to be the premium product and is generally +8mm sized product - think of it like pebbles. You can charge lump directly into a modern blast furnace. The other product fines is more like dirt than pebbles and needs to be agglomerated either via pelletization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelletizing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelletizing) or sintering (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintering) A well run modern blast furance typically operates in region between 1,300 to 1,600 kg of ore per Tonne of iron produced. This is far and away from "ton of ore to extract a few kilograms of metal". I think maybe confusion is that there is high demand for ore. Iron Ore is considered by countries like China etc as a key strategic resource and keep their own internal stockpiles. Supply ships (bulk carriers) are booked months ahead of time). So while average citizen can't go into a store and buy a handful of ore to make his own toaster that's very different from saying the stuff doesn't exist.

by f00zz 5y ago

Athas 5y ago

Would it be viable to mine the remnants of civilization? Would a garbage dump or the ruins of a 20th century skyscraper be a viable source of iron?

debacle 5y ago
All over your town, drivers work day in and day out harvesting scrap metal on garbage pickup days.
kevinmchugh 5y ago
There would be plenty of metal to work with, but sources of heat hotter or denser than charcoal will make working the metal difficult.
jacquesm 5y ago
Precisely.
sbierwagen 5y ago
Collapsed skyscrapers absolutely would be a good source of steel. Depending on the apocalypse, there would also be a good argument for intentionally collapsing any skyscrapers that were still standing, as depressing as that is. An unmaintained skyscraper will be shedding glass panels fairly frequently, and once the window glass is gone it will start accumulating rainwater and corroding the structural steel. Uncontrolled collapses also have a risk of knocking down neighboring buildings. Walking through a downtown area 50 years after it was depopulated would be fairly dangerous. You would want crews stripping empty buildings and knocking them down asap. Not to mention large cities are located at ports where you're going to want to operate anyway, once civilization is rebuilt enough to engage in ocean freight again.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Or you'd have to dive, like in Waterworld, because every former coastal port is under water.
decasteve 5y ago
It depends on the scale. I still like the idea of harvesting bog iron and smelting in a homemade bloomery.

philipkglass 5y ago

Was that book perhaps referring to copper ore? Even low grade iron ores like taconite contain a double digit percentage of iron: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taconite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taconite

jacquesm 5y ago

I would start digging where there had been a scrapyard or a garbage dump or landfill.

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
Why not following railroad tracks?
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Good one. I would expect those to be gone pretty early on though, there is just too much tonnage there. Same for scrap yards, harbors and so on. By the time things get desperate you'll have to expend a lot of effort. On the plus side, mining garbage will probably turn up a lot of other useful elements.

bigger_cheese 5y ago

That claim is highly exaggerated. I work in Steel industry so can maybe shine a bit of background here. I'm not sure what would be considered historically "high grade" but modern high grade ore is 62 to 65% Fe see for example here (first google result for Iron Ore Benchmark price https://www.marketindex.com.au/iron-ore https://www.marketindex.com.au/iron-ore). There are very large reserves of this stuff in places like Brazil and Australia it is not exactly a finite resource. Lower quality ore is also traded. There is a 58% Fe benchmark price as well. You buy ore in one of two formats "lump" or "fines" (https://www.metalbulletin.com/Article/3811904/Iron-ore-pricing-explained.html https://www.metalbulletin.com/Article/3811904/Iron-ore-prici...) Lump is considered to be the premium product and is generally +8mm sized product - think of it like pebbles. You can charge lump directly into a modern blast furnace. The other product fines is more like dirt than pebbles and needs to be agglomerated either via pelletization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelletizing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelletizing) or sintering (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintering https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintering) A well run modern blast furance typically operates in region between 1,300 to 1,600 kg of ore per Tonne of iron produced. This is far and away from "ton of ore to extract a few kilograms of metal". I think maybe confusion is that there is high demand for ore. Iron Ore is considered by countries like China etc as a key strategic resource and keep their own internal stockpiles. Supply ships (bulk carriers) are booked months ahead of time). So while average citizen can't go into a store and buy a handful of ore to make his own toaster that's very different from saying the stuff doesn't exist.