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What I'm thoroughly confused about is the notion that mining asteroids is that lucrative. The minerals/metals they're mining (example: Platinum) are worth 1,500
by philco 14y ago
What I'm thoroughly confused about is the notion that mining asteroids is that lucrative. The minerals/metals they're mining (example: Platinum) are worth 1,500 due to supply and demand. Only a few hundred tons of platinum are mined on earth every year, restricting supply, thus driving the price up. If thousands of tons of platinum were "imported" from an asteroid, wouldn't this flood the market with supply and collapse the price?
What am I missing here?
- JoeAltmaier 14y agoMaybe they could look for lithium, which we need for batteries. Or maybe platinum will see more use with the new availability, the demand will rise and the price stay worthwhile.
- im3w1l 14y agoOoh, ooh, what about phosphorous? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_phosphorus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_phosphorus
- MPSimmons 14y agoI know of some EXTREMELY large sources of helium, which as we all know is running out here on Earth. Anyone want to send me some VC funding to start a mining operation on a remote star? ;-)
- Lambdanaut 14y agoPlanetary Resources will have a virtual monopoly on the platinum, so they can charge just about whatever they want for it, perhaps only slightly lower than the current selling rate.
- swalsh 14y agoJust because they have a market value worth of 20 Trillion dollars worth of platinum doesn't mean there's demand for 20 Trillion dollars worth of platinum. On the other hand, there's probably a very large demand for cheap platinum.
- Cushman 14y agoI think what's missing is the difference between price and value. Price is determined in a straightforward way by supply and demand; value is something more complicated. Think of the comparison they used to aluminum: Until recently, aluminum was far rarer and more valuable than gold by weight. Discovery of processes to separate aluminum from its oxides made it cheaper than steel. The cost of aluminum plummeted. That's bad if you're heavily invested in aluminum; it's good if you want to buy a car or an airplane. It's the same deal for gold and platinum et cetera. We don't want them because they're rare; we want them because they have excellent physical properties, and in fact the cheaper they are the better that is for everyone. The benefits of abundance of the rarest materials will create a new era of human prosperity which cannot be quantified in terms of current economics. Don't think of it as "sell gold". Think of it as "make computers faster".
- im3w1l 14y agoHowto profit?
- InclinedPlane 14y agoThe entire market for every metal they could mine is larger than any single market. Gold, Platinum, Rhenium, Palladium, Iridium, Rhodium, Indium, Osmium, etc. Also, it can be a question of timing. If it suits them to sit on the equivalent of 10 years of global production of, say, Platinum while selling off, say, 50% of global production a year then that's still an enormously profitable venture for them.
- daniel-cussen 14y agoThis didn't happen to Saudi Arabia when they discovered oil there. This is a pretty easy problem to manage.