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Not that I disagree with your conclusion, but increasing the actual supply doesn't necessarily have to wreak havoc on the economy if limited number of distribut

Not that I disagree with your conclusion, but increasing the actual supply doesn't necessarily have to wreak havoc on the economy if limited number of distributors are willing to control the release of the supply (which could be considered the perceived economic 'supply'). See (at least formerly) the diamond industry. (I am not an economist, so somebody correct me if I'm terribly off base here.)

qq66 14y ago
But then it's not worth a bajillion dollars anymore. If you can only sell, let's say, 1 ton each year (worth $53 million), then the present value of the platinum needs to be discounted (because you have to finance the recovery cost upfront). Assuming a discount rate of 5% (ridiculously low for such a high-risk operation), the present value of 1 ton of platinum delivered 364 years from today is 1 dollar. The present value of an infinite stream of annual deliveries of 1 ton of platinum is $1.1 billion. The fact of the matter is that platinum has limited uses and even more limited supply, that's why it's very expensive. If you managed to find a huge supply of it, it wouldn't be very expensive anymore, unless you also found thousands of other extremely high-value applications for it. If you can find a way to make platinum entertain people, give them better sex lives, give them better food, help them get to work faster, help them teleport, and help them become famous, then you'd have a $20 trillion opportunity.
- DennisP 14y ago
  The main reason we aren't driving cars powered by fuel cells is that the platinum makes them too expensive. So there's one use for a high volume of platinum. With a little googling, it looks like platinum can also be used for producing hydrogen and absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere to produce hydrocarbon fuels. With lots of cheap platinum, we could make the whole transportation sector carbon-neutral, even if we never manage to make those 600-mile batteries.

qq66 14y ago

But then it's not worth a bajillion dollars anymore. If you can only sell, let's say, 1 ton each year (worth $53 million), then the present value of the platinum needs to be discounted (because you have to finance the recovery cost upfront). Assuming a discount rate of 5% (ridiculously low for such a high-risk operation), the present value of 1 ton of platinum delivered 364 years from today is 1 dollar. The present value of an infinite stream of annual deliveries of 1 ton of platinum is $1.1 billion. The fact of the matter is that platinum has limited uses and even more limited supply, that's why it's very expensive. If you managed to find a huge supply of it, it wouldn't be very expensive anymore, unless you also found thousands of other extremely high-value applications for it. If you can find a way to make platinum entertain people, give them better sex lives, give them better food, help them get to work faster, help them teleport, and help them become famous, then you'd have a $20 trillion opportunity.

DennisP 14y ago
The main reason we aren't driving cars powered by fuel cells is that the platinum makes them too expensive. So there's one use for a high volume of platinum. With a little googling, it looks like platinum can also be used for producing hydrogen and absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere to produce hydrocarbon fuels. With lots of cheap platinum, we could make the whole transportation sector carbon-neutral, even if we never manage to make those 600-mile batteries.