[double-a]

So, everyone here has realized how inane this article is given that it doesn't account for the price of Fe and Ni plummeting once this much supply is introduced to the market.

But what is the actual value of something like this? Surely something comparable has happened in the past where a big reserve of some rare mineral has been found and monopolized, and its price didn't go to zero.

[marcosdumay]

We live over a much larger ball full of Fe and Ni.

In fact, the actual value of a hard to get Fe reserve is 0. The ground is full of it, and it's much easier to get here. We would have to compare the costs of mining an asteroid with deep mining on Earth to discover if the Ni has any value, it's very likely 0 too, but I don't think anybody knows for sure.

[nate_meurer]

If you're referring to the earth's iron-nickel core, then the comparison is moot. Mining an asteroid is theoretically feasible. Mining the earth's core is not.

[marcosdumay]

Hum, no. The crust is full of Fe already. It is probably much cheaper to get it from dirt than from this asteroid, but it's concentrated on a huge amount of places.

If it was about the core, the answer for Ni would also be obvious.

[Turing_Machine]

> It is probably much cheaper to get it from dirt than from this asteroid

Well, delivery costs play a role as well.

If you're looking for iron for use on Earth, you're right. If you're looking for iron to use in space construction, the asteroid material is likely much cheaper.

If one believes (as I do) that the human race will either move into space or go extinct, then asteroids will be far more important for the future of our society.

[nate_meurer]

> We would have to compare the costs of mining an asteroid with deep mining on Earth to discover if the Ni has any value

Perhaps I misunderstood. What do you mean by "deep mining" for nickel?

[scarmig]

Simple solution: just crash this 140 mile diameter asteroid into Australia so it's accessible and cheap to mine. Afterwards the prices of iron and nickel would drop to zero!

[MauranKilom]

> Afterwards the prices of iron and nickel would drop to zero!

...and so would the prices of everything else. As well as the number of life-bearing planets in the solar system.

[jonplackett]

It'll be much more useful when we want to build a ship in space rather than assuming we'd want to bring it back down into our gravity well.

Imagine the cost of launching that much iron into space...

[jackcosgrove]

There was a lot of inflation in Spain during the 16th century because of all of the gold and silver mined from the Americas. Some estimate prices rose by 300% in a century.

The rise in prices made Spanish exports uncompetitive, forcing Spain to spend its bullion to buy finished imports from other countries.

[doubleyou]

US inflation has been over 1000% in the last century. Lots of money being made in the last century, and lots more people. Sorry for the tangent, had to look it up.

[bombcar]

The New World supplied Spain with untold amounts of gold. It had an effect but gold continues to have value.

[Ericson2314]

And ruined Spain's economy after the initial boom.

[ip26]

It seems impossible to predict. The reason the price would not go to zero would be that, at the new lower price point, newly viable applications are found. What will these applications be? We can only guess.

[Buttons840]

What are the properties of Nickel? Would we have Nickel pipes and faucets, and Nickel covered cars?

[clord]

We already do. Several grades of stainless steel use a lot of nickel, and these are used in many applications. Also it is quite expensive which prevents it from being used generally.

[TMWNN]

>Surely something comparable has happened in the past where a big reserve of some rare mineral has been found and monopolized, and its price didn't go to zero.

Aluminum. Initially so expensive that the tip of the Washington Monument was made with it, then price plummetted after new refining methods.

[1MachineElf]

With concerns about there being so much Fe and Ni that the market would be completely destabilized, it makes me wonder what it would cost to mine and smelt it all into raw materials. It must require a staggering amount of energy.

[jonplackett]

There's plenty of diamonds around and they're still doing OK. I guess it depends on someone's ability to drip feed it into the market and fix the prices. Kinda like bitcoin whales too.

[lumberingjack]

When the king of Mali would go on sabbatical their country was so much more wealthy than everywhere else that they would spread so much wealth they would topple whole monetary systems.

[sliken]

Not to mentioning the costs of mining and transportation in space will put a floor on the price.

[boibombeiro]

The concept of inflation was created in the 1500s with the discovery of gold in the Americas.