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Demand isn't there at current prices. Lower prices, and demand will rise!

• Retric 5y ago
  Metal prices rise and fall quite a bit. They have fairly inelastic demand because raw material prices are a small fraction of total costs. A skyscraper may need a lot of steel but in total it’s still a small fraction of total costs. Even just making steel from iron is rather expensive. A great deal of copper is used in new construction, but the number of outlets in the average new home isn’t going up because raw copper is suddenly 1/3 the price.
  • BurningFrog 5y ago
    I'm sure you're right about current trends. I'm thinking/dreaming about a world where prices are orders of magnitudes lower. Is there some advantage to make tin cans out of palladium rather than tin? Then we can just do it because the metal cost is the same! A bit of utopian fantasizing, sure. But even cutting end user prices in half should have important effects.
    • Retric 5y ago
      Unfortunately, I think that’s more from sci-fi taking place in space rather than some inherent advantages to asteroid mining. 100% automated manufacturing process in space seem like a minimum requirement, but presumably doing the same thing on the ocean floor gets you to the same place.