Dear Friends,
It seems to me that with the world wide shortage of rare earth elements (REE), and the concentration of production in China, some out of the box thinking might work to the advantage of some entrepreneurs and the world’s people. The out of the box thinking, I am thinking, is that some smart fellow launch a ship with the tools needed en route to mine a near Earth asteroid (NEAR).
One could be found that would have the needed orbital period so that the miners could be pulled back in case of catastrophe. Also the orbit should be such that it remains far enough from the Sun that it remains cool enough to be on/in.
A good initial candidate might be Apophis. It will be making a near Earth transition soon and is a chondrite asteroid. Chondrites have a regular abundance of rare earths and chondritic meteors have been shown to have relatively plentiful of REE. Funding being easier to get if the quality of the ore is pretty well ascertainable beforehand.
When the space miners get to the asteroid they land and attach their ship to it. Then deploy a balloon made of multiple layers of Mylar and aluminum around the asteroid. The outer layer would be flexible solar panels. Then inflate the balloon to one half atmosphere. Once the balloon has stabilized it would be tethered to the asteroid at strategic locations. This would give the space miners a controlled atmospheric space to work.
Within the low pressure of the bubble the space miners could work with less protection on and increase their productivity as a result. There could even be tests to see if some hardy plant could be grown in asteroidal regolith within the bubble.
The first order of business would be to drill a shaft directly to the center of the asteroid and hollow out the center to fit all the miners and needed equipment in case of a major solar flair. Use the tailings to process into rare earth metals. The initial foray might just be to drill the protective tunnel and ascertain the potential of the technology.
With the greater and greater demand for electric powered cars, busses and “clean” energy the demand for REE will grow faster than the primitively mined supplies in China can keep up with. Once the demand outstrips the supply China will hoard their REE for themselves. That will in turn bring the “clean” industries in other nations to their knees.
Not to say that the rest of the world is not trying to bring REE mines online. In North America and Australia there are two ready to go into production and in Greenland there is exploration, but with the expensive regulatory environment in North America we can count on it being an expensive producer, the extreme environment in Greenland will also add to production costs. Australia will be a relatively low cost producer, if, the government doesn’t loose it’s mind again and try to impose insane taxes on the industry. But Australia only has a few of the needed REE.
With no dysprosium electric motors will loose efficiency, without indium and tellurium for solar panels or the lanthanide series of metals for battery and other “clean” technologies, “clean” will become incomprehensively expensive. The limit on the supply of the necessary elements to make a “clean” economy function; make a “clean” economy risky for those that venture down that risky path.
If the most fretful scenario comes true, China will have a monopoly on “clean” technology, and the rest of the world will have pledge to buy only clean technology. No way that could be a problem eh?
But if the ability of the worlds mines, to begin producing REE to meet the upcoming surge in demand, it would be much more reasonable to mine asteroids for them…
If the price skyrockets and someone lands a few hundred pounds of REE from an asteroid, what would that make him/her?
