Exploring mainly Heterodox Economics, Monetary Reform, Environmental Sustainability, and relevant Emerging Climate ChangeTechnologies. It is a resource of Internet articles, and also promotes awareness of a futuristic modern universal Paradigm known as TFE, or Transfinancial Economics which is arguably the most advanced, and most "scientific" form of Economics in the world. Modern Monetary Theory( MMT) which is similar to TFE is far less advanced .
I met the authoress Ellen Brown a long time ago in London. She has done much sterling work in the cause of Monetary Reform. I have also a appended a link to her Wikipedia bio at the end of the following article.
Several central banks, including the Bank of England, the People’s Bank of China, the Bank of Canada and the Federal Reserve, are exploring the concept of issuing their own digital currencies, using the blockchain technology developed for Bitcoin. Skeptical commentators suspect that their primary goal is to eliminate cash, setting us up for negative interest rates (we pay the bank to hold our deposits rather than the reverse).
But Ben Broadbent, Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, puts a more positive spin on it. He says Central Bank Digital Currencies could supplant the money now created by private banks through “fractional reserve” lending – and that means 97% of the circulating money supply. Rather than outlawing bank-created money, as money reformers have long urged, fractional reserve banking could be made obsolete simply by attrition, preempted by a better mousetrap. The need for negative interest rates could also be eliminated, by giving the central bank more direct tools for stimulating the economy.
The blockchain is a simple yet ingenious way of passing information from A to B in a fully automated and safe manner. One party to a transaction initiates the process by creating a block. This block is verified by thousands, perhaps millions of computers distributed around the net. The verified block is added to a chain, which is stored across the net, creating not just a unique record, but a unique record with a unique history. Falsifying a single record would mean falsifying the entire chain in millions of instances. That is virtually impossible.
In a speech at the London School of Economics in March 2016, Bank of England Deputy Governor Ben Broadbent pointed out that a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) would not eliminate physical cash. Only the legislature could do that, and blockchain technology would not be needed to pull it off, since most money is already digital. What is unique and potentially revolutionary about a national blockchain currency is that it would eliminate the need for banks in the payments system. According to a July 2016 article in The Wall Street Journal on the CBDC proposal:
[M]oney would exist electronically outside of bank accounts in digital wallets, much as physical bank notes do. This means households and businesses would be able to bypass banks altogether when making payments to one another.
Not only the payments system but the actual creation of money is orchestrated by private banks today. Nearly 97% of the money supply is created by banks when they make loans, as the Bank of England acknowledged in a bombshell report in 2014. The digital money we transfer by check, credit card or debit card represents simply the IOU or promise to pay of a bank. A CBDC could replace these private bank liabilities with central bank liabilities. CBDCs are the digital equivalent of cash.
Money recorded on a blockchain is stored in the “digital wallet” of the bearer, as safe from confiscation as cash in a physical wallet. It cannot be borrowed, manipulated, or speculated with by third parties any more than physical dollars can be. The money remains under the owner’s sole control until transferred to someone else, and that transfer is anonymous.
Rather than calling a CBDC a “digital currency,” says Broadbent, a better term for the underlying technology might be “decentralised virtual clearinghouse and asset register.” He adds:
But there’s no denying the technology is novel. Prospectively, it offers an entirely new way of exchanging and holding assets, including money.
Banking in the Cloud
One novel possibility he suggests is that everyone could hold an account at the central bank. That would eliminate the fear of bank runs and “bail-ins,” as well as the need for deposit insurance, since the central bank cannot run out of money. Accounts could be held at the central bank not just by small depositors but by large institutional investors, eliminating the need for the private repo market to provide a safe place to park their funds. It was a run on the repo market, not the conventional banking system, that triggered the banking crisis after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.
Private banks could be free to carry on as they do now. They would just have substantially fewer deposits, since depositors with the option of banking at the ultra-safe central bank would probably move their money to that institution.
That is the problem Broadbent sees in giving everyone access to the central bank: there could be a massive run on the banks as depositors moved their money out. If so, where would the liquidity come from to back bank loans? He says lending activity could be seriously impaired.
Perhaps, but here is another idea. What if the central bank supplanted not just the depository but the lending functions of private banks? A universal distributed ledger designed as public infrastructure could turn the borrowers’ IOUs into “money” in the same way that banks do now – and do it more cheaply, efficiently and equitably than through banker middlemen.
Making Fractional Reserve Lending Obsolete
The Bank of England has confirmed that banks do not actually lend their depositors’ money. They do not recycle the money of “savers” but actually create deposits when they make loans. The bank turns the borrower’s IOU into “checkable money” that it then lends back to the borrower at interest. A public, distributed ledger could do this by “smart contract” in the “cloud.” There would be no need to find “savers” from whom to borrow this money. The borrower would simply be “monetizing” his own promise to repay, just as he does now when he takes out a loan at a private bank. Since he would be drawing from the bottomless well of the central bank, there would be no fear of the bank running out of liquidity in a panic; and there would be no need to borrow overnight to balance the books, with the risk that these short-term loans might not be there the next day.
To reiterate: this is what banks do now. Banks are not intermediaries taking in deposits and lending them out. When a bank issues a loan for a mortgage, it simply writes the sum into the borrower’s account. The borrower writes a check to his seller, which is deposited in the seller’s bank, where it is called a “new” deposit and added to that bank’s “excess reserves.” The issuing bank then borrows this money back from the banking system overnight if necessary to balance its books, returning the funds the next morning. The whole rigmarole is repeated the next night, and the next and the next.
In a public blockchain system, this shell game could be dispensed with. The borrower would be his own banker, turning his own promise to repay into money. “Smart contracts” coded into the blockchain could make these transactions subject to terms and conditions similar to those for loans now. Creditworthiness could be established online, just as it is with online credit applications now. Penalties could be assessed for nonpayment just as they are now. If the borrower did not qualify for a loan from the public credit facility, he could still borrow on the private market, from private banks or venture capitalists or mutual funds. Favoritism and corruption could be eliminated, by eliminating the need for a banker middleman who serves as gatekeeper to the public credit machine. The fees extracted by an army of service providers could also be eliminated, because blockchain has no transaction costs.
In a blog for Bank of England staff titled “Central Bank Digital Currency: The End of Monetary Policy As We Know It?”, Marilyne Tolle suggests that the need to manipulate interest rates might also be eliminated. The central bank would not need this indirect tool for managing inflation because it would have direct control of the money supply.
A CBDC on a distributed ledger could be used for direct economic stimulus in another way: through facilitating payment of a universal national dividend. Rather than sending out millions of dividend checks, blockchain technology could add money to consumer bank accounts with a few keystrokes.
Hyperinflationary? No.
The objection might be raised that if everyone had access to the central bank’s credit facilities, credit bubbles would result; but that would actually be less likely than under the current system. The central bank would be creating money on its books in response to demand by borrowers, just as private banks do now. But loans for speculation would be harder to come by, since the leveraging of credit through the “rehypothecation” of collateral in the repo market would be largely eliminated. As explained by blockchain software technologist Caitlin Long:
Rehypothecation is conceptually similar to fractional reserve banking because a dollar of base money is responsible for several different dollars of debt issued against that same dollar of base money. In the repo market, collateral (such as U.S Treasury securities) functions as base money. . . .
Through rehypothecation, multiple parties report that they own the same asset at the same time when in reality only one of them does—because, after all, only one such asset exists. One of the most important benefits of blockchains for regulators is gaining a tool to see how much double-counting is happening (specifically, how long “collateral chains” really are).
Blockchain eliminates this shell game by eliminating the settlement time between trades. Blockchain trades occur in “real-time,” meaning collateral can be in only one place at a time.
A Sea Change in Banking
Martin Hiesboeck concludes:
[B]lockchain won’t just kill banks, brokers and credit card companies. It will change every transactional process you know. Simply put, blockchain eliminates the need for clearinghouse entities of any kind. And that means a revolution is coming, a fundamental sea change in the way we do business.
Changes of that magnitude usually take a couple of decades. But the UK did surprise the world with its revolutionary Brexit vote to leave the EU. Perhaps a new breed of economists at the Bank of England will surprise us with a revolutionary new model for banking and credit.
_____________________
Ellen Brown is an attorney, founder of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including the best-selling Web of Debt. Her latest book, The Public Bank Solution, explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her 300+ blog articles are at EllenBrown.com. She can be heard biweekly on “It’s Our Money with Ellen Brown” on PRN.FM.
Based on known terrestrial reserves, and growing consumption in both developed and developing countries, key elements needed for modern industry and food production could be exhausted on Earth within 50–60 years.[2] These include phosphorus, antimony, zinc, tin, lead, indium, silver, gold and copper.[3] In response, it has been suggested that platinum, cobalt and other valuable elements from asteroids may be mined and sent to Earth for profit, used to build solar-power satellites and space habitats,[4][5] and water processed from ice to refuel orbiting propellant depots.[6][7][8]
Although asteroids and Earth accreted from the same starting materials, Earth's relatively stronger gravity pulled all heavy siderophilic (iron-loving) elements into its core during its molten youth more than four billion years ago.[9][10][11] This left the crust depleted of such valuable elements until a rain of asteroid impacts re-infused the depleted crust with metals like gold, cobalt, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, osmium, palladium, platinum, rhenium, rhodium, ruthenium and tungsten (some flow from core to surface does occur, e.g. at the Bushveld Igneous Complex, a famously rich source of platinum-group metals). Today, these metals are mined from Earth's crust, and they are essential for economic and technological progress. Hence, the geologic history of Earth may very well set the stage for a future of asteroid mining.
In 2006, the Keck Observatory announced that the binary Jupiter trojan617 Patroclus,[12] and possibly large numbers of other Jupiter trojans, are likely extinct comets and consist largely of water ice. Similarly, Jupiter-family comets, and possibly near-Earth asteroids that are extinct comets, might also provide water. The process of in-situ resource utilization—using materials native to space for propellant, thermal management, tankage, radiation shielding, and other high-mass components of space infrastructure—could lead to radical reductions in its cost.[1] Although whether these cost reductions could be achieved, and if achieved would offset the enormous infrastructure investment required, is unknown.
Ice would satisfy one of two necessary conditions to enable "human expansion into the Solar System" (the ultimate goal for human space flight proposed by the 2009 "Augustine Commission" Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee): physical sustainability and economic sustainability.[13]
From the astrobiological perspective, asteroid prospecting could provide scientific data for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Some astrophysicists have suggested that if advanced extraterrestrial civilizations employed asteroid mining long ago, the hallmarks of these activities might be detectable.[14][15][16] Why extraterrestrials would have resorted to asteroid mining in near proximity to earth, with its readily available resources, has not been explained.
An important factor to consider in target selection is orbital economics, in particular the change in velocity (Δv) and travel time to and from the target. More of the extracted native material must be expended as propellant in higher Δv trajectories, thus less returned as payload. Direct Hohmann trajectories are faster than Hohmann trajectories assisted by planetary and/or lunar flybys, which in turn are faster than those of the Interplanetary Transport Network, but the reduction in transfer time comes at the cost of increased Δv requirements.[citation needed][clarification needed] Near-Earth asteroids are considered likely candidates for early mining activity. Their low Δv makes them suitable for use in extracting construction materials for near-Earth space-based facilities, greatly reducing the economic cost of transporting supplies into Earth orbit.[17]
The table above shows a comparison of Δv requirements for various missions. In terms of propulsion energy requirements, a mission to a near-Earth asteroid compares favorably to alternative mining missions.
An example of a potential target[18] for an early asteroid mining expedition is 4660 Nereus, expected to be mainly enstatite. This body has a very low Δv compared to lifting materials from the surface of the Moon. However it would require a much longer round-trip to return the material.
Multiple types of asteroids have been identified but the three main types would include the C-type, S-type, and M-type asteroids:
C-type asteroids have a high abundance of water which is not currently of use for mining but could be used in an exploration effort beyond the asteroid. Mission costs could be reduced by using the available water from the asteroid. C-type asteroids also have a lot of organic carbon, phosphorus, and other key ingredients for fertilizer which could be used to grow food.[19]
S-type asteroids carry little water but look more attractive because they contain numerous metals including: nickel, cobalt and more valuable metals such as gold, platinum and rhodium. A small 10-meter S-type asteroid contains about 650,000 kg (1,433,000 lb) of metal with 50 kg (110 lb) in the form of rare metals like platinum and gold.[19]
M-type asteroids are rare but contain up to 10 times more metal than S-types[19]
A class of easily recoverable objects (EROs) was identified by a group of researchers in 2013. Twelve asteroids made up the initially identified group, all of which could be potentially mined with present-day rocket technology. Of 9,000 asteroids searched in the NEO database, these twelve could all be brought into an Earth-accessible orbit by changing their velocity by less than 500 meters per second (1,800 km/h; 1,100 mph). The dozen asteroids range in size from 2 to 20 meters (10 to 70 ft).[20] Many authors[who?] have pointed out, however, the human error or technological failure might alter asteroid orbits to create disastrous asteroid strikes.
The B612 Foundation is a private nonprofitfoundation with headquarters in the United States, dedicated to protecting Earth from asteroid strikes. As a non-governmental organization it has conducted two lines of related research to help detect asteroids that could one day strike Earth, and find the technological means to divert their path to avoid such collisions.
The foundation's current goal is to design and build a privately financed asteroid-finding space telescope, Sentinel, to be launched in 2017–2018. The Sentinel's infrared telescope, once parked in an orbit similar to that of Venus, will help identify threatening asteroids by cataloging 90% of those with diameters larger than 140 metres (460 ft), as well as surveying smaller Solar System objects.[21][22][23]
Data gathered by Sentinel will be provided through an existing scientific data-sharing network that includes NASA and academic institutions such as the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Given the satellite's telescopic accuracy, Sentinel's data may prove valuable for other possible future missions, such as asteroid mining.[22][23][24]
Process it on-site to bring back only processed materials, and perhaps produce propellant for the return trip.
Transport the asteroid to a safe orbit around the Moon, Earth or to the ISS.[8] This can hypothetically allow for most materials to be used and not wasted.[5] Along these lines, NASA has proposed a potential future space mission known as the Asteroid Redirect Mission, although the primary focus of this mission is on retrieval. The House of Representatives recently deleted a line item for the ARP budget from NASA's FY 2017 budget request.
Processing in situ for the purpose of extracting high-value minerals will reduce the energy requirements for transporting the materials, although the processing facilities must first be transported to the mining site.
Mining operations require special equipment to handle the extraction and processing of ore in outer space.[17] The machinery will need to be anchored to the body,[citation needed] but once in place, the ore can be moved about more readily due to the lack of gravity. However, no techniques for refining ore in zero gravity currently exist. Docking with an asteroid might be performed using a harpoon-like process, where a projectile would penetrate the surface to serve as an anchor; then an attached cable would be used to winch the vehicle to the surface, if the asteroid is both penetrable and rigid enough for a harpoon to be effective.[25]
Due to the distance from Earth to an asteroid selected for mining, the round-trip time for communications will be several minutes or more, except during occasional close approaches to Earth by near-Earth asteroids. Thus any mining equipment will either need to be highly automated, or a human presence will be needed nearby.[17] Humans would also be useful for troubleshooting problems and for maintaining the equipment. On the other hand, multi-minute communications delays have not prevented the success of robotic exploration of Mars, and automated systems would be much less expensive to build and deploy.[26]
Technology being developed by Planetary Resources to locate and harvest these asteroids has resulted in the plans for three different types of satellites:
Arkyd Series 100 (The Leo Space telescope) is a less expensive instrument that will be used to find, analyze, and see what resources are available on nearby asteroids.[19]
Arkyd Series 200 (The Interceptor) Satellite that would actually land on the asteroid to get a closer analysis of the available resources.[19]
Arkyd Series 300 (Rendezvous Prospector) Satellite developed for research and finding resources deeper in space.[19]
Technology being developed by Deep Space Industries to examine, sample, and harvest asteroids is divided into three families of spacecrafts:
FireFlies are triplets of nearly identical spacecraft in CubeSat form launched to different asteroids to rendezvous and examine them.[27]
DragonFlies also are launched in waves of three nearly identical spacecraft to gather small samples (5–10 kg) and return them to Earth for analysis.[27]
Harvestors voyage out to asteroids to gather hundreds of tons of material for return to high Earth orbit for processing.[28]
Asteroid mining could potentially revolutionize space exploration. The C-type asteroids's high abundance of water could be used to produce fuel by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. This would make space travel a more feasible option by lowering cost of fuel, although cost of fuel is a relatively insignificant factor in the overall cost of a manned space mission.
On some types of asteroids, material may be scraped off the surface using a scoop or auger, or for larger pieces, an "active grab."[17] There is strong evidence that many asteroids consist of rubble piles,[29] making this approach possible.
A mine can be dug into the asteroid, and the material extracted through the shaft. This requires precise knowledge to engineer accuracy of astro-location under the surface regolith and a transportation system to carry the desired ore to the processing facility.
The nickel and iron of an iron rich asteroid could be extracted by the Mond process. This involves passing carbon monoxide over the asteroid at a temperature between 50 and 60 °C, then nickel and iron can be removed from the gas again at higher temperatures, perhaps in an attached printer, and platinum, gold etc. left as a residue.[32]
A 1980 NASA study entitled Advanced Automation for Space Missions proposed a complex automated factory on the Moon that would work over several years to build a copy of itself.[33] Exponential growth of factories over many years could refine large amounts of lunar (or asteroidal) regolith. Since 1980 there has been major progress in miniaturization, nanotechnology, materials science, and additive manufacturing, so the self-replicating "factory" might be as small as a 3-D printer.
On April 24, 2012 a plan was announced by billionaire entrepreneurs to mine asteroids for their resources. The company is called Planetary Resources and its founders include aerospace entrepreneurs Eric Anderson and Peter Diamandis. Advisers include film director and explorer James Cameron and investors include Google's chief executive Larry Page and its executive chairman Eric Schmidt.[1][34] They also plan to create a fuel depot in space by 2020 by using water from asteroids, splitting it to liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen for rocket fuel. From there, it could be shipped to Earth orbit for refueling commercial satellites or spacecraft.[1] The plan has been met with skepticism by some scientists, who do not see it as cost-effective, even though platinum and gold are worth nearly £35 per gram (approximately $1,800 per troy ounce).[when?] Platinum and gold are raw materials traded on terrestrial markets, and it is impossible to predict what prices either will command at the point in the future when resources from asteroids become available. For example, platinum, which was trading at $1800/ounce 9 years ago trades in a range between $900/1000/ounce currently, and since the primary use of platinum is as the catalyst in catalytic converters from internal combustion engine exhaust, the long term demand for platinum may well decrease. The ongoing NASA mission OSIRIS-REx, which is planned to return just a minimum amount (60 g; two ounces) of material but could get up to 2 kg from an asteroid to Earth, will cost about US$1 billion.[1][35]
Planetary Resources says that, in order to be successful, it will need to develop technologies that bring the cost of space flight down. Planetary Resources also expects that the construction of "space infrastructure" will help to reduce long-term running costs. For example, fuel costs can be reduced by extracting water from asteroids and split it to hydrogen using solar energy. In theory, hydrogen fuel mined from asteroids costs significantly less than fuel from Earth due to high costs of escaping Earth's gravity. If successful, investment in "space infrastructure" and economies of scale could reduce operational costs to levels significantly below NASA's ongoing (OSIRIS-REx) mission.[36][non-primary source needed]This investment would have to be amortized through the sale of commodities, delaying any return to investors. There are also some indications that Planetary Resources expects government to fund infrastructure development, as was exemplified by its recent request for $700,000 from NASA to fund the first of the telescopes described above. The British Company, Asteroid Mining Corporation, has already announced its plans to seek government funding (see below).
Another similar venture, called Deep Space Industries, was started by David Gump, who had founded other space companies.[37] The company hopes to begin prospecting for asteroids suitable for mining by 2015 and by 2016 return asteroid samples to Earth.[38] By 2023 Deep Space Industries plans to begin mining asteroids.[39]
At ISDC-San Diego 2013,[40] Kepler Energy and Space Engineering (KESE,llc) also announced it was going to mine asteroids, using a simpler, more straightforward approach: KESE plans to use almost exclusively existing guidance, navigation and anchoring technologies from mostly successful missions like the Rosetta/Philae, Dawn, and Hyabusa's Muses-C and current NASA Technology Transfer tooling to build and send a 4-module Automated Mining System (AMS) to a small asteroid with a simple digging tool to collect ~40 tons of asteroid regolith and bring each of the four return modules back to low Earth orbit (LEO) by the end of the decade. Small asteroids are expected to be loose piles of rubble, therefore providing for easy extraction.
In September 2012, the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) announced the Robotic Asteroid Prospector project, which will examine and evaluate the feasibility of asteroid mining in terms of means, methods, and systems.[41]
In February 2016, the British-based Asteroid Mining Corporation was established by Mitch Hunter-Scullion with the intentions of lobbying the British Government for a regulatory framework and start up investment in Asteroid Mining.[42] Mission plans and potential system usages are being designed currently with future plans aiming to use a prospecting satellite launched aboard a reusable Falcon 9 from SpaceX or by Skylon when it becomes operational to rendezvous with a near-Earth object and collect several kilograms of Platinum group materials which will then be returned to low Earth orbit and recovered by at a later date to be sold on at a premium.[43] The Asteroid Mining Corporation aims to raise funds through crowdfunding, in a radically different and novel approach in industrial financing to allow a wide cross section of society to benefit from the riches of space, to this end an Indiegogo appeal is being launched on July 12, 2016.[44]
Being the largest body in the asteroid belt, Ceres could become the main base and transport hub for future asteroid mining infrastructure,[45] allowing mineral resources to be transported to Mars, the Moon, and Earth. Because of its small escape velocity combined with large amounts of water ice, it also could serve as a source of water, fuel, and oxygen for ships going through and beyond the asteroid belt.[45] Transportation from Mars or the Moon to Ceres would be even more energy-efficient than transportation from Earth to the Moon.[46]
Currently, the quality of the ore and the consequent cost and mass of equipment required to extract it are unknown and can only be speculated. Some economic analyses indicate that the cost of returning asteroidal materials to Earth far outweighs their market value, and that asteroid mining will not attract private investment at current commodity prices and space transportation costs.[48][49] Other studies suggest large profit by using solar power.[50][51] Potential markets for materials can be identified and profit generated if extraction cost is brought down. For example, the delivery of multiple tonnes of water to low Earth orbit for rocket fuel preparation for space tourism could generate a significant profit if space tourism itself proves profitable, which has not been proven.[52]
In 1997 it was speculated that a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1.6 km (1 mi) contains more than US$20 trillion worth of industrial and precious metals.[7][53] A comparatively small M-type asteroid with a mean diameter of 1 km (0.62 mi) could contain more than two billion metric tons of iron–nickel ore,[54] or two to three times the world production of 2004.[55] The asteroid 16 Psyche is believed to contain 7019170000000000000♠1.7×1019 kg of nickel–iron, which could supply the world production requirement for several million years. A small portion of the extracted material would also be precious metals.
Not all mined materials from asteroids would be cost-effective, especially for the potential return of economic amounts of material to Earth. For potential return to Earth, platinum is considered very rare in terrestrial geologic formations and therefore is potentially worth bringing some quantity for terrestrial use. However, platinum from asteroids would have to be processed in orbit, since it requires 20 tons of high grade platinum oar - the equivalent of a Shuttle load - to produce an ounce of refined platinum worth +- $1000. The cost of refining in orbit is unknown, but undoubtedly man multiples of mining/refining costs within the atmosphere. Nickel, on the other hand, is quite abundant and being mined in many terrestrial locations, so the high cost of asteroid mining may not make it economically viable.[56]
Although Planetary Resources says platinum from a 30-meter-long (98 ft) asteroid is worth US$25–50 billion,[57] an economist remarked any outside source of precious metals could lower prices sufficiently to possibly doom the venture by rapidly increasing the available supply of such metals.[58]
Development of an infrastructure for altering asteroid orbits could offer a large return on investment.[59] However, astrophysicists Carl Sagan and Steven J. Ostro raised the concern altering the trajectories of asteroids near Earth may pose a collision hazard. They concluded orbit engineering has both opportunities and dangers: If controls instituted on orbit-manipulation technology were too tight, future spacefaring could be hampered, but if they were too loose, human civilization would be at risk.[59][60][61]
Scarcity is a fundamental economic problem of humans having seemingly unlimited wants in a world of limited resources. Since Earth's resources are not infinite, the relative abundance of asteroidal ore gives asteroid mining the potential to provide nearly unlimited resources, which could practically eliminate scarcity for those materials.[citation needed]
The idea of exhausting resources is not new. In 1798, Thomas Malthus wrote, because resources are ultimately limited, the exponential growth in a population would result in falls in income per capita until poverty and starvation would result as a constricting factor on population.[62] It should be noted that 1798 is 218 years ago, and no sign has yet emerged of the Malthus affect regarding raw materials.
Proven reserves are deposits of mineral resources that are already discovered and known to be economically extractable under present or similar demand, price and other economic and technological conditions.[62]
Conditional reserves are discovered deposits that are not yet economically viable.[citation needed]
Indicated reserves are less intensively measured deposits whose data is derived from surveys and geological projections. Hypothetical reserves and speculative resources make up this group of reserves. Inferred reserves are deposits that have been located but not yet exploited.[62]
Continued development in asteroid mining techniques and technology will help to increase mineral discoveries.[63] As the cost of extracting mineral resources, especially platinum group metals, on Earth rises, the cost of extracting the same resources from celestial bodies declines due to technological innovations around space exploration.[62] However, it should be noted that the "substitution effect", i.e. the use of other materials for the functions now performed by platinum, would increase in strength as the cost of platinum increased. New supplies would also come to market in the form of jewelry and recycled electronic equipment from itinerant "we buy platinum" businesses like the "we buy gold" businesses that exist now.
There are 711 known asteroids which value exceeds 100 trillion USD.[64]
Space ventures are high-risk, with long lead times and heavy capital investment, and that is no different for asteroid-mining projects. These types of ventures could be funded through private investment or through government investment. For a commercial venture it can be profitable as long as the revenue earned is greater than total costs (costs for extraction and costs for marketing).[65] The costs involving an asteroid-mining venture have been estimated to be around $100 billion US.[65]
There are six categories of cost considered for an asteroid mining venture:[65]
Research and development costs
Exploration and prospecting costs
Construction and infrastructure development costs
Operational and engineering costs
Environmental costs
Time cost
Determining financial feasibility is best represented through net present value.[65] One requirement needed for financial feasibility is a high return on investments estimating around 30%.[65] Example calculation assumes for simplicity that the only valuable material on asteroids is platinum. On September 5, 2008 platinum was valued at US$1,340 per ounce, or US$43,000 per kilogram. On August 16, 2016 is $1157. or $37,000 per kilogram. At the $1,340. price, for a 10% return on investment, 173,400 kg (5,575,000 ozt) of platinum would have to be extracted for every 1,155,000 tons of asteroid ore. For a 50% return on investment 1,703,000 kg (54,750,000 ozt) of platinum would have to be extracted for every 11,350,000 tons of asteroid ore. This analysis assumes that doubling the supply of platinum to the market (5.13 million ounces in 2014) would have no affect on the price of platinum. A more realistic assumption is that increasing the supply by this amount would reduce the price 30-50%.
Space law involves a specific set of international treaties, along with national commercialization laws. The system and framework for international and domestic laws were established through the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.[66] The rules, terms and agreements that considered by space law authorities to be part of the active body of international space law are the five international space treaties and five UN declarations. Approximately 100 nations and institutions were involved in negotiations. The space treaties cover many major issues such as arms control, non-appropriation of space, freedom of exploration, liability for damages, safety and rescue of astronauts and spacecraft, prevention of harmful interference with space activities and the environment, notification and registration of space activities, and the settlement of disputes. In exchange for assurances from the space power, the nonspacefaring nations acquiesced to U.S. and Soviet proposals to treat outer space as a commons (res communis) territory which belonged to no one state.
Asteroid mining in particular is regulated, among others, by the Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Agreement.
Varying degrees of criticism exist regarding international space law. Some critics accept the Outer Space Treaty, but reject the Moon Agreement. Therefore, it is important to note that even the Moon Agreement with its common heritage of mankind clause, allows space mining, extraction, private property rights and exclusive ownership rights over natural outer space resources, if removed from their natural place. The Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Agreement allow private property rights for outer space natural resources once removed from the surface, subsurface or subsoil of the moon and other celestial bodies in outer space. Thus, international space law is capable of managing newly emerging space mining activities, private space transportation, commercial spaceports and commercial space stations/habitats/settlements. Space mining involving the extraction and removal of natural resources from their natural location is without question allowable under the Outer Space Treaty and the Moon Agreement. Once removed, those natural resources can be reduced to possession, sold, traded and explored or used for scientific purposes. International space law allows space mining, specifically the extraction of natural resources. It is generally understood within the space law authorities that extracting space resources is allowable, even by private companies for profit. However, international space law prohibits property rights over territories and outer space land.
After ten years of negotiations between nearly 100 nations, the Outer Space Treaty opened for signature on January 27, 1966. It entered into force as the constitution for outer space on October 10, 1967. The Outer Space Treaty was well received; it was ratified by ninety-six nations and signed by an additional twenty-seven states. The outcome has been that the basic foundation of international space law consists of five (arguably four) international space treaties, along with various written resolutions and declarations. The main international treaty is the Outer Space Treaty of 1967; it is generally viewed as the “Constitution" for outer space. By ratifying the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, ninety-eight nations agreed that outer space would belong to the “province of mankind”, that all nations would have the freedom to “use” and “explore” outer space, and that both these provisions must be done in a way to “benefit all mankind.” The province of mankind principle and the other key terms have not yet been specifically defined (Jasentuliyana, 1992). Critics have complained that the Outer Space Treaty is vague. Yet, international space law has worked well and has served space commercial industries and interests for many decades. The taking away and extraction of Moon rocks, for example, has been treated as being legally permissible.
The framers of Outer Space Treaty initially focused on solidifying broad terms first, with the intent to create more specific legal provisions later (Griffin, 1981: 733-734). This is why the members of the COPUOS later expanded the Outer Space Treaty norms by articulating more specific understandings which are found in the “three supplemental agreements” – The Rescue and Return Agreement of 1968, the Liability Convention of 1973, and the Registration Convention of 1976 (734).
Hobe (2006) explains that the Outer Space Treaty “explicitly and implicitly prohibits only the acquisition of territorial property rights” – public or private, but extracting space resources is allowable.
The Moon Agreement (1979-1984) is often treated as though it is not a part of the body of international space law, and there has been extensive debate on whether or not the Moon Agreement is a valid part of international law. It entered into force in 1984, because of a five state ratification consensus procedure, agreed upon by the members of the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS). Still today very few nations have signed and/or ratified the Moon Agreement. In recent years this figure has crept up to a few more than a dozen nations who have signed and ratified the treaty. The other three outer space treaties experienced a high level of international cooperation in terms of signage and ratification, but the Moon Treaty went further than them, by defining the Common Heritage concept in more detail and by imposing specific obligations on the parties engaged in the exploration and/or exploitation of outer space. The Moon Treaty explicitly designates the Moon and its natural resources as part of the Common Heritage of Mankind.
After The Rescue and Return Agreement of 1968, the Liability Convention of 1973, and the Registration Convention of 1976 (734) were enacted, key actors involved in space law negotiations, set out to establish and confirm a few more legal norms which were to be embodied in the Moon Agreement, since important issues such as the environment, public health and sharing to benefit all mankind were left open. Many of the terms written into the Moon Treaty were sticking points during early negotiations.[citation needed]
The Moon Agreement allows space mining, specifically the extraction of natural resources. The treaty specifically provides in Article 11, paragraph 3 that:
Neither the surface nor the subsurface of the Moon, nor any part thereof or natural resources in place [emphasis added], shall become property of any State, international intergovernmental or non-governmental organization, national organization or non-governmental entity or of any natural person. The placement of personnel, space vehicles, equipment, facilities, stations and installations on or below the surface of the Moon, including structures connected with its surface or subsurface, shall not create a right of ownership over the surface or the subsurface of the Moon or any areas thereof.
This provision was negotiated into the Moon Agreement by the United States in order to make sure that natural resources extracted from the Moon were legally permissible to take.[according to whom?] Taking natural resources out of their location, from the surface or subsurface, has been interpreted by space law authorities[who?] as meaning that those resources are no longer tied to the “in place” restrictions against ownership.[citation needed]
Christol (1980) in The Moon Treaty: Fact and Fiction explains this legal distinction. He states that the Moon Treaty “ … does allow for the removal from the Moon and other celestial bodies of their natural resources”.
Some nations are beginning to promulgate legal regimes for extraterrestrial resource extraction. For example, the United States "SPACE Act of 2015"—facilitating private development of space resources consistent with US international treaty obligations—passed the US House of Representatives in July 2015.[67][68] In November 2015 it passed the United States Senate.[69] On 25 November US-President Barack Obama signed the H.R.2262 - U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act into law.[70] The law recognizes the right of U.S. citizens to own space resources they obtain and encourages the commercial exploration and utilization of resources from asteroids. According to the article § 51303 of the law:[71]
A United States citizen engaged in commercial recovery of an asteroid resource or a space resource under this chapter shall be entitled to any asteroid resource or space resource obtained, including to possess, own, transport, use, and sell the asteroid resource or space resource obtained in accordance with applicable law, including the international obligations of the United States
In February 2016, the Government of Luxembourg announced that it would attempt to "jump-start an industrial sector to mine asteroid resources in space" by, among other things, creating a "legal framework" and regulatory incentives for companies involved in the industry.[72][73] By June 2016, announced that it would "invest more than US$200 million in research, technology demonstration, and in the direct purchase of equity in companies relocating to Luxembourg."[74]
The first mention of asteroid mining in science fiction is apparently Garrett P. Serviss' story Edison's Conquest of Mars, New York Evening Journal, 1898.[76][77]
The 1979 film Alien, directed by Ridley Scott, is about the crew of the Nostromo, a commercially operated spaceship on a return trip to Earth hauling a refinery and 20 million tons of mineral ore mined from an asteroid. C. J. Cherryh's novel, Heavy Time focuses on the plight of asteroid miners in the Alliance-Union universe, while Moon is a 2009 British science fiction drama film depicting a lunar facility that mines the alternative fuel helium-3 needed to provide energy on Earth. It was notable for its realism and drama, winning several awards internationally.[78][79][80]
In several science fiction video games, asteroid mining is a possibility. For example, in the space-MMO, EVE Online, asteroid mining is a very popular career, owing to its simplicity.[81][82][83]
In Star Citizen, the mining occupation supports a variety of dedicated specialists, each of which has a critical role to play in the effort.[84]
Jump up ^BRIAN O'LEARY; MICHAEL J. GAFFEY; DAVID J. ROSS & ROBERT SALKELD (1979). "Retrieval of Asteroidal Materials". SPACE RESOURCES and SPACE SETTLEMENTS,1977 Summer Study at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. NASA.
^ Jump up to: abJohn Brophy; Fred Culick; Louis Friedman; et al. (12 April 2012). "Asteroid Retrieval Feasibility Study"(PDF). Keck Institute for Space Studies, California Institute of Technology, Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Jump up ^David L. Kuck, "Exploitation of Space Oases", Proceedings of the Twelfth SSI-Princeton Conference, 1995.
Jump up ^Jenniskens, Peter; Damer, Bruce; Norkus, Ryan; Pilorz, Stuart; Nott, Julian; Grigsby, Bryant; Adams, Constance; Blair, Brad R. (2015). "SHEPHERD: A Concept for Gentle Asteroid Retrieval with a Gas-Filled Enclosure". New Space. 3 (1): 36–43. doi:10.1089/space.2014.0024. ISSN2168-0256.
Jump up ^"Luxembourg plans to pioneer asteroid mining". ABC News. 2016-02-03. Retrieved 2016-02-08. The Government said it planned to create a legal framework for exploiting resources beyond Earth's atmosphere, and said it welcomed private investors and other nations.
