http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/elon-musk-hangout/Toward the end Elon gets asked about PR. Says asteroid mining doesn't make sense for Earth, makes more sense for Mars, mentions propellant.
A "water" asteriod contains 22% water, so a 700,000kg asteriod whose water in high Lunar orbit is worth $20,000/kg would yeild just in water $3B!
Quote from: oldAtlas_Eguy link=topic=28680.msg898317#msg898317 date=1337/*211905A "water" asteriod contains 22% water, so a 700,000kg asteriod whose water in high Lunar orbit is worth $20,000/kg would yeild just in water $3B!The 7m diameter is the chosen size for tugging to cis-lunar space. No asteroid is going to have 20% ice left after that process unless very well taken care of and sourced form very far away from the sun.The 7e5 kg mass number is for the densest possible 7m diameter asteroid I assume. Which doesn't make sense because a 7m diameter sphere of iron is 1.2e6 kg. However an ice asteroid will not be nearly that dense, 1.8e5 kg if all liquid/////// water, less if ice, which won't make it to high lunar orbit without lots of care.
Quote from: krytek on 05/26/2012 11:31 pmhttp://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/04/elon-musk-hangout/Toward the end Elon gets asked about PR. Says asteroid mining doesn't make sense for Earth, makes more sense for Mars, mentions propellant. It depends on the price and availability of PGM materials. One could make an argument that the possibility of shortages of PGM on Earth may exceed the probabilities of anyone going to Mars - in the next 40 years.
There just isn't enough PGM's in easily accessible NEA's to be worth it, or to make a difference in the supply situation. You would be lucky to find a metal asteroid with 50 ppm Pt.
Thus, for a million kg metal asteroid that was snagged and dragged to an L2 processing plant would yield a grand total of 50 kg Pt. At $100K/kg, the Pt would only be worth $5M. Mere chicken feed.
Quote from: Warren Platts on 05/28/2012 04:21 amThere just isn't enough PGM's in easily accessible NEA's to be worth it, or to make a difference in the supply situation. You would be lucky to find a metal asteroid with 50 ppm Pt.It would be incredible if the only NEOs found in accessible orbits were limited to 50 ppm of PGMs.
Quote from: Warren Platts on 05/28/2012 04:21 am Thus, for a million kg metal asteroid that was snagged and dragged to an L2 processing plant would yield a grand total of 50 kg Pt. At $100K/kg, the Pt would only be worth $5M. Mere chicken feed.You are assuming that anyone would be stupid enough to exploit a low grade asteroid.
Also, you are assuming that no one would ever take the time to refine the ore before returning it to Earth.
Investors led by Google Inc. GOOG +1.78% Chief Executive Larry Page and film director James Cameron in April launched Planetary Resources Inc., based in Bellevue, Wash., with a message that the Earth's resources could soon fail to meet the technological needs of a population spiraling toward 10 billion.Caterpillar Inc., CAT +3.60% one of the world's largest makers of mining equipment, has already joined with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to design space-mining gear. "We looked at autonomous operations of equipment as being the same type of technology that could be used on the Moon as well as in a mining application," said Michele Blubaugh, manager of Intelligence Technology Services at Caterpillar.But firms that make their money mining this planet say the Earth is one big, practically inexhaustible mine, with just as many unexplored corners as outer space. "We think there are 10,000 more years of minerals left for civilization," said Andrew McKenzie, a geologist and BHP Billiton BHP +3.27% PLC's chief executive for nonferrous metals.
Eric Anderson, a co-founder of Planetary Resources, the space-mining start-up, said he has already figured out how to mine a 396-foot-long asteroid, which he estimates contains 330 tons of platinum, at an expense of $431 an ounce, slightly higher than the cost of mining platinum on Earth. Possible methods range from robots to wrapping the asteroid in a bag that would dissolve the minerals.[However,] Willi Boehm, an executive at Perth, Australia-based Aquarius Platinum Ltd., AQP.AU +9.11% one of the world's biggest platinum producers, doesn't think asteroid mining can be done so inexpensively. He said platinum sale prices must reach multiples of today's price of $1,500 to make space mining worthwhile. He added, "We have enough problems just mining in Africa."
it's $431 per ounce. I'm extremely curious how he gets at that figure.
One other thing I thought interesting about the article is that although it emphasized the number of years we have to exploit reserves at current extraction rates, the time left for gold reserves are only 18 years. So Lunar gold is looking bullish despite the article IMO!
Is it just me or does that WSJ link not provide a visualization of any of the platinum group metals?I've been trying to search the web to find up to date (2011+) estimates on the total reserves of platinum group metals and I have been unsuccessful. Does anyone have an good links to papers identifying how big the reserves of platinum group metals are, specifically on Earth?
I have been stuck on the problem of how Planetary Resources plans to get the platinum back to Earth, and just realized that maybe they don't plan to return the platinum back to Earth - maybe they expect to sell the platinum in space to whoever needs it there.
