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0 pointsdekhn1y ago0 comments

Trillions+ in mining value? What exactly are you proposing mining (platinum seems the most likely, IIRC my D&D)? remember that new sources affect the supply, which changes prices significantly, so it would have to be basically unobtanium to be worth it. And remember, since you developed all that tech just to make the space elevator... most of the mining you did is probably obsolete.

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ben_w1y ago· 3 in thread

Even aluminium gets you to a trillion dollars in 6 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_aluminium... *

Calculation: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1%20trillion%20USD%20%2...

* Old data, China has rapid growth in this sector and is now about 42 megatons/y, but that just changes the result from rounding down to 6 years to rounding up to 6 years: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-2023-alumi...

dekhnOP1y ago

Aluminum is widely available in the earth and if you approached earth with a new delivery at scale, prices would fall through the floor.

ben_w1y ago

That aluminium is widely available on earth was necessary to my point that it is trivial to find existing examples in the trillion-dollar scale.

Aluminium prices would only fall if you were selling the whole thing in one go for instant delivery — unusually for most supplies this form of delivery would be technically possible, but RFGs are normally considered "weapons" rather than "shipping". Look at how much supply has increased this century vs. price: production has seen near-continuous growth while the price has been spiky rather than a consistent downward trend, this is because aluminium is *really useful*.

Given that orbital dynamics makes it more like a months-to-years process just to get to the asteroid in the first place, who knows how long to capture it and stabilise for mining etc., and that mining itself would not be an instant process even if we happen to get a convenient pile of purely metallic (non-oxidised) rubble, it won't be all on the market for instant delivery.

I get similar values for copper: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1+trillion+USD+%2F+%28%...

Zinc is ~ 30 years of global production at current prices, which would be pushing it for a corporate investment but not totally implausible: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1+trillion+USD+%2F+%28%...

Just under 4 years for iron ore: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1+trillion+USD+%2F+%28%...

Just over 4 years for gold: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1+trillion+USD+%2F+%28%...

I think aiming for a trillion USD of platinum would indeed crash the market, as the same formula gives me 180 years for that: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1+trillion+USD+%2F+%28%...

darby_nine1y ago

So would the cost of building space elevators. I'm betting there wouldn't be a single part of society unaffected by an explosion of raw materials at much lower cost. It's just an insanely high investment cost to kick off the industrialization of space.

Besides, mining on earth has many externalities that aren't reflected in the commodity price. Some of the most brutal and inhumane conditions on earth right now are tied directly to market demand for rare or difficult to aggregate minerals. The sooner we can shut that down the sooner we can claim social progress without ten asterisks trailing it.

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