“While the psychological barrier to mining asteroids is high, the actual financial and technological barriers are far lower. Prospecting probes can likely be built for tens of millions of dollars each and Caltech has suggested an asteroid-grabbing spacecraft could cost $2.6bn,” the report says.$2.6 billion (£2 billion) sounds like a lot, but it is only about one-third the amount that has been invested in Uber, putting the price well within reach of today’s VC funds. It is also a comparable to the setup cost for a regular earthbound mine. (This MIT paper estimates a new rare earth metal mine can cost up to $1 billion, from scratch.)There is just one problem: That same asteroid would instantly tank the entire platinum market: “Successful asteroid mining would likely crater the global price of platinum, with a single 500-meter-wide asteroid containing nearly 175X the global output, according to MIT’s Mission 2016.”Nonetheless, Goldman is bullish. “We expect that systems could be built for less than that given trends in the cost of manufacturing spacecraft and improvements in technology. Given the capex of mining operations on Earth, we think that financing a space mission is not outside the realm of possibility.”
There is just one problem: That same asteroid would instantly tank the entire platinum market: “Successful asteroid mining would likely crater the global price of platinum, with a single 500-meter-wide asteroid containing nearly 175X the global output, according to MIT’s Mission 2016.”
Quote from: Warren Platts on 04/06/2017 02:28 pmThere is just one problem: That same asteroid would instantly tank the entire platinum market: “Successful asteroid mining would likely crater the global price of platinum, with a single 500-meter-wide asteroid containing nearly 175X the global output, according to MIT’s Mission 2016.”Assuming they found a 500 meter-wide asteroid composed almost entirely of platinum. The odds of that are really slim at best.
But even so, such an asteroid would crash the market. 130 tonnes of Pt is about 6% of the total global production of gold. Thus, if you wanted to make a killing in space mining, gold would be the target IMHO. YMMV.
Tomorrow's announcement, Discovery Channel's new reality TV show, "Gold Rush - Space".
QuoteBut even so, such an asteroid would crash the market. 130 tonnes of Pt is about 6% of the total global production of gold. Thus, if you wanted to make a killing in space mining, gold would be the target IMHO. YMMV.Depends. The current players in platinum production would definitely not want to crash the market. I wouldn't hold my breath looking for them to branch into asteroid mining unless they are forced into it to stay relevant.However, a non-mining corporation that would benefit from large quantities of bargain-basement platinum might be willing to invest in this, if new space manages to lower launch costs far enough to make the gamble enticing.
Quote from: Tuts36 on 04/06/2017 03:17 pmQuoteBut even so, such an asteroid would crash the market. 130 tonnes of Pt is about 6% of the total global production of gold. Thus, if you wanted to make a killing in space mining, gold would be the target IMHO. YMMV.Depends. The current players in platinum production would definitely not want to crash the market. I wouldn't hold my breath looking for them to branch into asteroid mining unless they are forced into it to stay relevant.However, a non-mining corporation that would benefit from large quantities of bargain-basement platinum might be willing to invest in this, if new space manages to lower launch costs far enough to make the gamble enticing.What they could do is use predatory pricing to crash the price of Pt on Earth, and put all producers completely out of business. Once that was done, they would have monopoly pricing power, and could then set the price forever at just below the marginal cost of the most productive platinum mine on Earth. I've been trying to get a quantitative handle on the Pt demand curve. In 2014 there was a big strike that took about 20% of the 6 mo. supply out of the market, and there was a correlated price rise of about 10%. So if they wanted to crash the price by half, they'd have to quadruple the world's supply. Assuming they could capture the entire market at this point, it would be worth $15K/kg x 4 x 130,000 kg = $7.8B/year. Is that enough to run a major space program? Maybe. But it's hard to see how you're going to generate the world's first trillionaire with that revenue level. For comparison Exxon pulls in about $200B/year (down by half from a few years ago).
What they could do is use predatory pricing to crash the price of Pt on Earth, and put all producers completely out of business. Once that was done, they would have monopoly pricing power, and could then set the price forever at just below the marginal cost of the most productive platinum mine on Earth.
but crazy billionaires that are going to make prices come down... what then? How can we benefit?"
A quick internet search puts the average cost of platinum production on the order of $1200-1600/oz. Ultimately, that's the number to beat for space-based platinum mining, assuming the point is to bring it back to Earth
Looking to future demand, one of the largest consumers of platinum is the auto industry for cat beds, how likely is a shift in the coming decades away from internal combustion powered autos, vs. growing demand in the developing world for internal combustion powered autos? Understanding the demand side of the equation could go a long way to determining the threshold amount for "crashing" the market.
Understanding the demand side of the equation could go a long way to determining the threshold amount for "crashing" the market.