Which elements are common in asteroids?

[Crown-Horned Snorkack]

Which elements are common in asteroids?

Platinum is rare and expensive on Earth. Dearer than gold or tungsten.

But see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmochemical_Periodic_Table_of_the_Elements_in_the_Solar_System

Platinum (1,4 parts per million Si) is the most common element between
lead (3,3 ppm) and barium (4,4 ppm). Far more abundant than gold (0,20
ppm), quicksilver (0,41ppm) or tungsten (0,13 ppm).

Osmium (0,67 ppm) and iridium (0,64 ppm) are also more common than
gold, quicksilver and tungsten.

The heaviest metals that are more common than barium are zirconium
(11,3 ppm), yttrium (4,6 ppm) and strontium (23,6 ppm).

But if you consider trying to mine the sky... what would you go after?

[Brian Davis]

Post by Crown-Horned Snorkack
But if you consider trying to mine the sky... what would you go after?

Water. Reaction mass, heat sink, chemical feedstock, and it tastes
good too. Not as sexy as Pt, but ultimately rarer. Now if you're
talking about being the first or only mining trip, the equation
changes a whole lot - in that case, your only market is lijkely still
Earth, where water is abundant (heck, we're swimming in it), but Pt is
very rare and useful.

So perhaps you need to rephrase your question - what likely markets do
we assume are around? Are these large-scale markets within the Belt,
or markets sitting at the bottom of gravity wells currently
constrained by the oddities of planetary chemistry? that makes a big
difference on both the relative desirability of the materials, and the
transport costs involved.

--
Brian Davis

[Sjouke Burry]

Post by Crown-Horned Snorkack
Which elements are common in asteroids?
Platinum is rare and expensive on Earth. Dearer than gold or tungsten.
But see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmochemical_Periodic_Table_of_the_Elements_in_the_Solar_System
Platinum (1,4 parts per million Si) is the most common element between
lead (3,3 ppm) and barium (4,4 ppm). Far more abundant than gold (0,20
ppm), quicksilver (0,41ppm) or tungsten (0,13 ppm).
Osmium (0,67 ppm) and iridium (0,64 ppm) are also more common than
gold, quicksilver and tungsten.
The heaviest metals that are more common than barium are zirconium
(11,3 ppm), yttrium (4,6 ppm) and strontium (23,6 ppm).
But if you consider trying to mine the sky... what would you go after?

I would mine a place where it tends to collect.
O blimey, we are already sitting on such a piece
of real estate......

[Brian Davis]

Post by Sjouke Burry
I would mine a place where it tends to collect.
O blimey, we are already sitting on such a piece
of real estate...

True - but the asteroids are a good bit easier to get to and mine than
the Earth's core. "Where it tends to collect" isn't always "where you
can economically mine"...

--
Brian Davis

[SolomonW]

In article <6f15991e-31a6-4055-b7bc-

Post by Brian Davis

Post by Sjouke Burry
I would mine a place where it tends to collect.
O blimey, we are already sitting on such a piece
of real estate...

True - but the asteroids are a good bit easier to get to and mine than
the Earth's core. "Where it tends to collect" isn't always "where you
can economically mine"...
--
Brian Davis

The big problem with the asteroids is how do you bring it back to Earth
safely.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

[Ian Parker]

Post by SolomonW
In article <6f15991e-31a6-4055-b7bc-

Post by Brian Davis

Post by Sjouke Burry
I would mine a place where it tends to collect.
O blimey, we are already sitting on such a piece
of real estate...

True - but the asteroids are a good bit easier to get to and mine than
the Earth's core. "Where it tends to collect" isn't always "where you
can economically mine"...
--
Brian Davis

The big problem with the asteroids is how do you bring it back to Earth
safely.
** Posted fromhttp://www.teranews.com**- Hide quoted text -

You find a method of extracting platinum which will work IN SITU. The
real question is how to develop automation so that we have a mining
system which is capable od autonomous operation with an ability to
repair itself. It is fundamentally an AI question.


- Ian Parker

[Raghar]

Post by Ian Parker

Post by SolomonW
In article <6f15991e-31a6-4055-b7bc-

Post by Brian Davis

Post by Sjouke Burry
I would mine a place where it tends to collect.
O blimey, we are already sitting on such a piece
of real estate...

True - but the asteroids are a good bit easier to get to and mine than
the Earth's core. "Where it tends to collect" isn't always "where you
can economically mine"...

The big problem with the asteroids is how do you bring it back to Earth
safely.

You find a method of extracting platinum which will work IN SITU. The
real question is how to develop automation so that we have a mining
system which is capable od autonomous operation with an ability to
repair itself. It is fundamentally an AI question.

Naw, it's an engineering question. As long as there are creative,
cheaply working, and fast working engineers it's just matter of few
computer generated prototypes.

It has next to nothing to do with an AI.

[Brian Davis]

Post by SolomonW
The big problem with the asteroids is how do you bring
it back to Earth safely.

Well... no, that doesn't need to be a problem (especially in rasfs).
Thus my earlier question about what the potential markets are. One
thing that often gets skipped in the economics is the market drives
and forces. For instance, what happens to the market price of Pt when
you drop a small asteroids' worth into the resource pool.

As to bringing back the whole thing, well, as others note you don't
need to refine in situ (especially because with the start-up costs
involved, you might as well).

--
Brian Davis

[Bernard Peek]

In message

Post by Brian Davis

Post by SolomonW
The big problem with the asteroids is how do you bring
it back to Earth safely.

Well... no, that doesn't need to be a problem (especially in rasfs).
Thus my earlier question about what the potential markets are. One
thing that often gets skipped in the economics is the market drives
and forces. For instance, what happens to the market price of Pt when
you drop a small asteroids' worth into the resource pool.
As to bringing back the whole thing, well, as others note you don't
need to refine in situ (especially because with the start-up costs
involved, you might as well).

There's a hybrid solution where you have a processing station at a
convenient point and bring the asteroids to it, then ship the refined
products to where they are needed.

There is scope for more than one solution to be used. I imagine that
asteroid mining might be initiated by a requirement for certain minerals
that are depleted on the Earth's surface. The economics would probably
favour a run to the asteroid belt, refining the material there and
shipping the finished product back on a high-speed orbit.

At the same time a separate mission could set out to capture asteroids
and ship them on a minimum-cost orbit for processing whenever we get
around to building the facilities to process them. It would be a
multi-decade project but it might be more profitable to build a massive
refinery in Earth orbit than to build several smaller ones in the Belt.

Even later the mining operations in the asteroid would start to support
their own communities and some sort of local infrastructure. Probably
starting with casinos and brothels. Those would become customers for raw
materials that would most sensibly be refined locally.

The economics are going to depend on the relative values of the
materials, the cost of the delta-vee to move them and of the energy
needed to power the refineries. All of those may change over timescales
shorter than the time it takes to build the space infrastructure and to
ship materials in slow orbits. The people who are going to make the
biggest profits (and losses) will be the commodity traders.

[SolomonW]

Post by Bernard Peek
All of those may change over timescales
shorter than the time it takes to build the space infrastructure and to
ship materials in slow orbits.

Now would you get say 1000 tones of platinum from a spaceship in a lower
orbit to Earth safely and cheaply.
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com **

[Brian Davis]

Post by SolomonW
Now would you get say 1000 tones of platinum from a spaceship in a lower
orbit to Earth safely and cheaply.

Aerobraking followed by lithobraking. Don't laugh, if it works for
manned spaceships, with those fiddle bits of meat in them, it's
trivial for something like bulk metals. No reason you have to bring it
all down at once... in fact, going back to market dynamics again,
there are some *very* good economic reasons you don't want to. Ask
DeBeers.

--
Brian Davis

[Brian Davis]

Post by Bernard Peek
There's a hybrid solution where you have a processing station at a
convenient point and bring the asteroids to it, then ship the refined
products to where they are needed.

Perhaps, but it's a little hard to see. If the refinery masses the
same or greater than the asteroids in question, then it makes sense to
ship the asteroids to the refinery, which you can then locate in some
place handy for other reasons (like LEO, for maintainence & upgrades).
But if they asteroids to be refined out-mass your refinery, it's hard
to see an economical solution that doesn't involve moving your
refinery to the source, rather than the (more massive) source to the
refinery... unless you expect to generate so much "product" from the
asteroid that the refined material is nearly the same mass as the
asteroid.

There are a lot of potential tradeoffs and possibilities, all of which
could be constrained... by things like determining what the markets
are in the scenario in question. If your markets are "brothels in the
Belt" (think of the swimming pools), then forget Pt-class metals, you
want water, and you want it "refined" in situ. If your market is a
technological civilization sitting at the wrong end of a gravity well,
then a tiny percentage of Pt-class materials can be such a huge haul
it collapses the market you're trying to make a profit from, and the
whole dynamic changes.

Post by Bernard Peek
The people who are going to make the biggest profits
(and losses) will be the commodity traders.

Yep. They usually are. And even more so in the case where the problem
is so poorly defined (little or no information implies high risk...
which can be a very good or a very bad thing, depending on which side
the coin lands on).

--
Brian Davis

[Bernard Peek]

In message

Post by Brian Davis

Post by Bernard Peek
There's a hybrid solution where you have a processing station at a
convenient point and bring the asteroids to it, then ship the refined
products to where they are needed.

Perhaps, but it's a little hard to see. If the refinery masses the
same or greater than the asteroids in question, then it makes sense to
ship the asteroids to the refinery, which you can then locate in some
place handy for other reasons (like LEO, for maintainence & upgrades).
But if they asteroids to be refined out-mass your refinery, it's hard
to see an economical solution that doesn't involve moving your
refinery to the source, rather than the (more massive) source to the
refinery... unless you expect to generate so much "product" from the
asteroid that the refined material is nearly the same mass as the
asteroid.

Good points.

It also occurs to me that if the platinum group metals are in
iron/nickel asteroids then you could probably do some prospecting with a
big permanent (superconducting?) magnet. Build the magnet and launch it
on a long period orbit through the belt. It will pick up some of the
small magnetic particles by accretion and you can scrape those off when
it returns. It's orbit will be shifted if it passes close to a big hunk
of iron, which you can then go out and investigate.

In the short term it would make sense to work the biggest asteroids,
which will each justify an on-site refinery.

[Ian Parker]

Post by Brian Davis

Post by SolomonW
The big problem with the asteroids is how do you bring
it back to Earth safely.

Well... no, that doesn't need to be a problem (especially in rasfs).
Thus my earlier question about what the potential markets are. One
thing that often gets skipped in the economics is the market drives
and forces. For instance, what happens to the market price of Pt when
you drop a small asteroids' worth into the resource pool.

Well if you are going to convert the whole car fleet to run on fuel
cells, and if the Chinese are all going to get a taste for motoring,
you might find you need asteroids. Otherwise prices will skyrocket.


- Ian Parker

[Brian Davis]

...Otherwise prices will skyrocket.

Sort of my point. Prices skyrocketing are a great thing, say, to
attract investors. "Look, Pt is going for XXXX $/gram, if we had Pt to
sell we'd be rich!" Wealth investors bankroll you based on what they'd
make from selling 1 kt of 99% pure Pt at a market price of XXXX.
'Course, when you suddenly arrive in the market with a kt of Pt, and
the entire world annual demand is a metric ton or so, the prices
crashes, and your investors start using said Pt to make large heavy
objects to use on your skull.

Look at it this way. Current world steel production is around 1,300
million metric tons / year, with some sources saying as much as 75% of
that is recycled (in other words, not derived from ore feedstocks), so
the total market demand for "new" steel is around 3.25e+11 kg. a 1 km-
scale asteroid with just 10% Fe/Ni is roughly 4e+11 kg of metal.
Dropping into the market with more than the annual production of a
substance is likely to be... economicly disturbing. A very
conservative (& wrong) response would be for the price to be cut in
half, but actually it would drop a lot more than that.

--
Brian Davis


--
Brian Davis