[Rockhounds] How ending mining would change the world

[Neal Hazen]

Hi Tim, 
Re: The Expanse
What you say about the series is true. Truly enjoyed it. One thing to mention, though. Using asteroids as weapons was also featured on the earlier series, "Babylon 5".The Centauri used "mass drivers", which had been outlawed, to hurl asteroids at Narn - with predictably terrible consequences.
Even though NASA has experimented with capturing asteroids and moving them into Earth's orbit for study and mining purposes, I can't see it as practical until some time after we develop a better energy source (i.e. nuclear fusion) for space propulsion. Practically, the ongoing research into better ways of reclaiming REEs from waste is the only way to go. Also, all developed countries have enormous stockpiles of waste, whereas only a few countries have REEs in abundance. Might be a less political way to do things.
Neal Hazen

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android 
 
  On Sat, Apr 16, 2022 at 1:23 PM, Tim Fisher<nospam at orerockon.com> wrote:   George Martin's books are all excellent, the Expanse stands out. The adaptation is an insanely good series, (mostly) based on reality (except for spaceships that seem to travel awful darn fast). Asteroids feature prominently, some of the mining of course but the depiction of the Ceres colony is very cool. And flinging asteroids at Earth as a weapon is a very cool concept. As far as I can tell they're done, unless some other streaming service picks them up. We haven't seen any other streaming/subscription series in its league with the possible exception of the alternate history series The Man in the High Castle (based on a Philip K Dick novel). 

Tim Fisher
Http://OreRockOn.com 
Email nospam at orerockon.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Rockhounds [mailto:rockhounds-bounces at rockhounds.drizzle.com] On Behalf Of axel.emmermann at telenet.be
Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2022 6:00 AM
To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] How ending mining would change the world

Logically thinking: asteroid mining is the next big thing.

On earth, all the chemical elements have gravitationally segregated. All or nearly all the interesting stuff (REE) have settled in the earth's mantle, ten of miles outside our reach.
Asteroids are not gravitationally segregated.
The TV-series "The Expanse" tells a story that is set against that situation. If you haven't yet: binge it! Very entertaining and aside of the "blue stuff", quite realistic. 

CHeers
Axel


----- Oorspronkelijk bericht -----
Van: "Kreigh Tomaszewski" <kreigh at gmail.com>
Aan: "Rockhounds at drizzle.com" <rockhounds at rockhounds.drizzle.com>
Verzonden: Zaterdag 16 april 2022 14:25:54
Onderwerp: [Rockhounds] How ending mining would change the world

Mining fuels the modern world, but it also causes vast environmental damage. What would happen if we tried to do without it?

"If you can't grow it, you have to mine it" goes the miner's credo. The extraction of minerals, metals and fuels from the ground is one of humankind's oldest industries. And our appetite for it is growing.

Society is more dependent on both greater variety and larger volumes of mined substances than ever before. If you live in a middle-income country, every year you use roughly 17 tonnes <https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2019/goal-12/> of raw materials – equivalent to the weight of three elephants and twice as much as 20 years ago. For a person in a high-income country, it is 26 tonnes – or four and a half elephants' worth.

Extracting new materials continues to be cheaper than re-use for many substances, leading some experts to sound the warning <https://ipbes.net/global-assessment> about the increasing pressure of mines on the natural world. A growing chorus is concerned that environmental toll of mine-caused pollution and biodiversity loss, as well as the social impacts caused to local communities, could sometimes outweigh the benefits of mining.

But what if we stopped extraction of fossil fuels and minerals entirely?
What if, in order to better protect the environment, humanity decided the contents of the Earth's crust were off limits?


https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220413-how-ending-mining-would-change-the-world
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