Mineral scarcity on Earth: are Asteroids the answer

Carol Dahl, Ben Gilbert and Ian Lange

Mineral Economics, 2020, vol. 33, issue 1, No 7, 29-41

Abstract: Abstract Depletion of minerals and other non-renewable resources has long been a source of worry to industrial economies. This worry waxes when markets are tight and wanes when they are not. However, evidence has continued to mount that there are staggering amounts of minerals in space that are technically within our grasp. Scientific work has considered mineral availability and technical ability to mine on near earth objects. Within the last decade, a number of space related industries have gained attention. While availability and technical feasibility are both necessary conditions for this industry to develop, they are not sufficient. Rather sufficiency also requires financial feasibility. Although studies have considered the costs of mining asteroids, we are aware of no papers that model the effects on terrestrial mineral market structure with the injection of extra-terrestrial minerals. Our contribution is to consider the current state of mineral markets and provide a model of firm entry to derive implications to the market from space mined minerals entering the market. We provide a numerical simulation to demonstrate what prices asteroidal entrants might face for the injection of a variety of metals and provide an online model for others to change inputs to their asteroid and metals of choice.

Keywords: Mining space; Asteroids; Milling; Smelting; Magnetic precious metals; Demand; Cost; L72; Q30; Q31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1007/s13563-020-00231-6

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