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An international team of researchers, led by the University of Delaware's Saleem Ali, says global resource governance and sharing of geoscience data is needed to address challenges facing future mineral supply.
Specifically of concern are a range of technology minerals, which are an essential ingredient in everything from laptops and cell phones to hybrid or electric cars to solar panels and copper wiring for homes. However, base metals like copper are also a matter of immense concern.
The research team, which included experts from academic, government and industrial institutions across five continents, the U.S., Europe, South Africa, Australia and South America, reported their findings today in a peer-reviewed paper in Nature.
"There are treaties on climate change, biodiversity, migratory species and even waste management of organic chemicals, but there is no international mechanism to govern how mineral supply should be coordinated," said Ali, the paper's lead author and Blue and Gold Distinguished Professor of Energy and Environment at UD.
The researchers reviewed data and demand forecasts on the sustainability of global mineral supplies in coming decades. The study showed that mining exploration is not keeping up with future demand for minerals and recycling in and of itself would not be able to meet the demand either.
Saleem H. Ali, et al. Mineral supply for sustainable development requires resource governance. Nature, 2017; 543 (7645): 367 DOI: 10.1038/nature21359
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @05:21AM (13 children)
If you're already going all the way to Mars, might be easier to just keep moving until you reach the Belt. Then there would be no need to lift the resources out of that pesky planetary-scale gravity well.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Monday March 27 2017, @05:37AM (12 children)
The Belt is rather far away, and even there the asteroids really aren't very densely packed despite what Hollywood would have you believe in "The Green Lantern". There's plenty of asteroids that cross Earth's orbit or come relatively close, so if we're going to start exploring the idea of mining asteroids, those would be the most sensible to start with. It wouldn't take spacecraft long to reach them, and with them so close by, it'd be easy to use remote-control vehicles. The asteroid belt is so far away that remote control won't work; the latency is likely at least an hour, instead of a few seconds.
That said, I have no idea how likely we are to find copper, tantalum, etc. in asteroids. I do know there's asteroids rich in iron and nickel, which is great, but that's not very useful for electronics. I also know there's supposed to be some with platinum, which might be useful for electronics if it suddenly became so ubiquitous that its price dropped below that of copper. But for copper and others (esp. lithium) I have no idea.
(Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Monday March 27 2017, @06:47AM (6 children)
Cheap platinum would have uses in electronics, but not as a conductor. The second best known conductor is silver, with copper just behind. The best conductor, at room temperature, is graphene, but we don't really know how to use it practically.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday March 27 2017, @02:52PM (2 children)
So what would dirt-cheap platinum be good for?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @05:40PM
It's hard, dense, and difficult to corrode, so:
frying pans, barbeque grills, piston rings, exhaust valves, boat anchors, boat propellers, bridges over saltwater, keys, locks, pool equipment, armor, armor-piercing bullets, gun internals, grounding rods
(Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Monday March 27 2017, @09:57PM
Electrodes and contacts are the only electrical uses I'm aware of for platinum.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday March 27 2017, @02:56PM (2 children)
Actually, wouldn't platinum be a better conductor than aluminum? Dirt-cheap platinum, therefore, could be a good replacement for aluminum for electrical wiring (such as the stuff used for wiring my oven and HVAC).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @03:12PM
You guys know that aluminum weighs much less than platinum, right?
Platinum being used in the place of aluminum would need to be done based on the intent and purpose. Don't wire your plane with platinum and gold because your fuel costs will skyrocket. Same for any transportation costs that seek to repurpose a cheap lightweight material with a heavier one.
(Score: 2) by WalksOnDirt on Monday March 27 2017, @10:00PM
Aluminum is not only lighter but is a 3-4 times better conductor by volume.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @08:11AM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundances_of_the_elements_(data_page)#Sun_and_solar_system [wikipedia.org]
Iron seems to be abundant, period. I see no reason why copper, gold, tantalum couldn't be found in roids. They should even be found in M-types, since most of our gold for example sunk to Earth's core, and the largest M-type is an exposed protoplanet core.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday March 27 2017, @03:00PM
Well gold isn't very useful, it's copper that is really useful for practical applications. The only thing gold is good for is corrosion resistance, so it's used for plating contacts. But gold-plated contacts today are pretty cheap, so there's no shortage of gold (thanks to gold's extreme malleability; it can be plated in ridiculously thin layers a few atoms thick). It's copper where we could really use an abundant, cheap source of it. The main use for gold is for either jewelry, or for stupid people to hoard thinking it's valuable (and mining tons of it from asteroids would immediately stop the latter because it'd crash the price).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 27 2017, @09:16AM (1 child)
The asteroids don't have to be densely packed. You just need to pick a few suitable asteroids to mine. The first to secure rights to the "juiciest" asteroids would be at a significant advantage.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday March 27 2017, @02:54PM
I didn't miss the point about the gravity well. You're missing *my* point: why bother going all the way to the belt when there's plenty of asteroids right here?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 27 2017, @06:54PM
But, far more useful than the copper/tantalum/etc. would be to drop the asteroid on a mineral rich area of earth that is presently politically uncooperative. After the asteroid strike, whether or not the asteroid was rich in anything, the local populace where we _know_ abundant supplies of copper, tantalum, etc. exist should be either a) more cooperative, or at least b) less troublesome.
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