It's possible gold has twenty years or less of being high value left.
In 20 years florida and NYC may be underwater.
this post was submitted on 01 Jun 2025
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In 20 years Flordians won't have teeth.
They can replace them with gold teeth for rock bottom prices!
But the plummeting price of gold from the abundance would make the asteroid mining commercially nonviable. As an aside, only 7.16% of the gold demand in the world is actually for technology: https://www.statista.com/statistics/299609/gold-demand-by-industry-sector-share/
There are many many more materials than just gold that could be extracted from asteroids.
But sure, establishing the infrastructure to make it commercially viable is a huge investment and won't be commercially viable for a while. (Think about missions like Hayabusa that cost hundreds of millions to bilLions, but retrieved "just" a couple of gram of material.)
I suspect asteroid mining won't be profitable unless we are able to use the materials to build stuff in space. It costs so much to launch stuff into space that a ton of say iron is going to be worth much more there than on earth. Whether we'll ever reach that stage is anyone's guess but I hope so.
Time to make Space Elevators real.
Just need to make sure the mining machine is durable enough and can launch itself from asteroids, because launching from asteroids with their low gravity is a lot easier than from earth, so a single earth launch can mine from multiple asteroids and send stuffs back.
If the price of gold plunges one day, it should already plunge today. In other words, the probability for success of those mining operations is low.
Are they able to lab grow the same kind of gem quality diamonds that you usually think about when it comes to jewelry, or is it still mostly industrial applications (such as diamond tipped drill bits)?
Lab grown diamonds are much better quality than natural diamonds. So now natural diamond companies are moving to the "imperfections is what make a diamond perfect" strategy. But nothing's stopping labs from growing diamonds with imperfections if that's what the people are after.
All in all, diamonds have always been mostly a scam and it's showing more and more.
I've heard that lab grown are actually better across each measurement (clarity,shine, whatever), than natural diamonds, now.
I'm skeptical about the feasibility of transporting heavy metals through space. Also, diamond were never scarce, it was all literally market manipulation.
Yes, if diamonds were rare I wouldn't have a diamond tipped drillbit set and several diamond saws. "Blah blah" quality ... sure ... but rare is rare.
Eh they are already moving a good clip relative to the earth, nudging them in this direction would be the easier part of the equation. Stopping them when they get here is probably where you want to focus your energy... No pun intended
I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
They are talking about not returning mined material from asteroids but about changing the trajectory of asteroids so that they collide with Earth. But if you do so, the asteroid would likely be destroyed, leaving little to mine, so it would have to be stopped (or slowed down) before reaching the ground.
It's good to see diamond mining being replaced by artificial diamond manufacturing, which appears to be better envitonmentally and socially.
But I wouldn't compare diamonds to gold. Because gold is an element that can't be manufactured (without a particule accelerator and an insane amount of energy).
Asteroid mining is still science fiction.
Asteroid mining would collapse the markets for most minerals, except perhaps the higher volume stuff like iron.
Beltalowda
Excellent. One of Israels biggest exports is finished gemstones. I hope they are crushed.
they don't mine them. just process them. not sure it's lowering the cost of raw diamonds will change the processing cost.
its morning and haven't had my coffee, so I'm on instinct. I feel like it would lower the cost.
The processing cost is negligible compared the sales prices. Same as the cost of raw diamonds.
Diamonds are mostly a scam to part people from their money for literally a shiny rock.
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