Commodities In The Far Future - Asteroid Mining
By: Owen Higley
Technological innovation is continuing to shock the world and alter human lifestyles at a pace like never before. Through inventions such as A.I. and with better consumer technology releasing on a daily basis, there seems to be no stopping the bull-rush that is technological innovation. But a question that arises is: how far can we ride this technological wave? Does it stop, are there any limits to it? Right now the answer seems to be no, with progression through R&D we unlock the possibility to research and develop new technology which allows us to repeat the process over and over again, setting us on a seemingly unstoppable track for technological growth. It’s impossible to speculate where technological evolution will take us in the long run, but one frontier that straddles both innovation and commodities is asteroid mining.
Resource needs continue to increase alongside the growing human population, which is now past the threshold of 8 billion individuals. Supporting more people will call for more resources, and on Earth, while it may seem grand in size, our resources are finite and subject to run out at some point. Levels of natural resource depletion are increasing and are projected to continue doing so in coming time periods. Resources of already relatively finite quantities such as precious and industrial metals are on track to reach critically low supply by as soon as 2050. Lacking these resources could invent implications as far as energy production and environmental stability. However, this is where the idea of technological innovation and adapting to our societal needs comes to light. Asteroid mining is a hypothetical concept in which mechanisms are sent to space with the intention of extracting resources from celestial objects. As we battle planetary degradation and explosive resource needs, the concept of asteroid mining provides optimism in a long shot. As previously mentioned the concept is hypothetical, and if projects were to begin development they would be both extremely high in cost and in time consumption, assuming our space travel capabilities are held constant into the near future when the prospect of asteroid mining holds value. Nevertheless, looking past the current hurdles presented by the idea of interstellar mining, there are objects within our own solar system which hold unimaginable value. The asteroid: 511 Davida, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is estimated to hold an amount of metals equivalent to $27 quintillion USD. This insane amount of value is incomprehensible. To try and put the number into perspective, one quintillion seconds is nearly 32 billion years, nearly 8 times as long as Earth has existed. 511 Davida is said to have a majority of its composition made of Nickel, Iron, and Cobalt, all of which are important resources for sustainable human development.
Holding ourselves to the constraint of current technology and keeping ourselves grounded on planet Earth, in order to meet estimated energy demands, by 2035 an estimated 28 Nickel mines and 26 Cobalt mines would need to be created. Moreover, general data analysis tells us that start-up and operating costs of developing just a singular mine can fall into the price range of one billion dollars making this a costly endeavor. While both processes are expensive, asteroid mining would present an incomparable amount of additional resources relative to terrestrial mining, and while this may sound like a good thing, as economics tells us that more is preferred to less, how would this inflow of such a massive amount of resources affect metal prices? In the case of asteroid mining, the influx of metals such as Nickel, Iron, and Cobalt could cause a supply shock, potentially collapsing their market prices. Historically, commodity prices have been highly sensitive to supply changes. This price collapse could have several consequences. On one hand, cheaper metals would lower the cost of manufacturing everything from batteries to infrastructure, both of which are necessary for our current track of societal progression. This would make technology and construction more affordable and provide the industries with a stronger backbone for increased development. Contrarily, asteroid mining would devastate traditional mining industries, especially in economies heavily dependent on metal exports such as Australia, Russia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, just to mention a few. Countries and corporations reliant on terrestrial mining could suffer economic downturns as their previously valuable metal reserves become worth only a fraction of their pre-galactic market price. On another note, financial markets tied to commodities would experience large levels of volatility. Investors who have historically viewed precious and industrial metals as stable stores of value would likely see their portfolios devalued, leading to shifts in investment strategies far, far away from those of industrial metals. Even with resources that have an extremely inelastic demand due to current global energy objectives, adding a stock the size of what could be harvested on 511 Davida of these metals to the already existing supply on Earth would diminish the value of Nickel, Cobalt, and Iron drastically. In a more positive outlook, if asteroid mining reaches a point where metals become so abundant that their value diminishes significantly, it's feasible to believe that we could enter a post-scarcity economy for certain resources. The materials once considered rare or expensive would become effectively limitless, voiding the concept of scarcity. A true post-scarcity economy would mean that the essential materials for industry, infrastructure, and technology are so widely available that their cost becomes negligible. This could lead to greater global equality, providing countries and industries that previously struggled due to lack of resources with proper provision to thrive.
Fortunately or unfortunately, however it is you approach the idea of asteroid mining, all of this is a far way away, not to say that it isn't being talked about as in November of 2015 legislation was passed discouraging government barriers in the realm of space resource exploration and utilization. In order for us to reach these unfathomable amounts of resources, we need to, literally, reach for the stars.
