We're running out of everything?

Thomas Lord

Wed Jul 02 10:29:00 -0700 2008

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A friend of mine observed, almost 20 years ago, that garbage dumps are effectively "gold mines" (mostly metaphorically) and predicted -- well, this is timely with the new Pixar film -- robotics to sort them out.

It's not all sweetness and light, though.

Mining looks for concentrated oar and then efficiently refines it.

Garbage heap mining has to pick stuff apart, very energy-intensively.

So, sure, there's a "conservation of elements" for some elements. It's all still "there". But it's a lot less accessible once it's passed through the mfg. / consumption / waste pipeline (not "cycle"). This is part of the reason there's so much interest in the moon and in "privatized" space travel. People are thinking of mining the moon and the asteroids.

You're right that a comparison to fossil fuels isn't quite right. Those are a (very slowly) renewed resource of big-ass hydrocarbons that we break apart. The gold remains gold no matter what. The comparison isn't quite wrong, either because when we mine some dense vein of a metal (or whatever) and then bust it up into lots of parts we're increasing entropy a lot and only the expenditure of a lot of energy can put humpty dumpty back together again.

Water's an interesting one, too. Not quite one or t'other but also similar. Water supply is constantly renewed. Conservation laws apply there, too. But, once again, we introduce a lot of entropy by spoiling water sheds, diverting water flows, etc. The net effect is that, though the cycle remains, the potable and irrigation supplies get more and more challenging. Zogger's "national H2O pipeline" fantasy is an example of, once again, a high-energy-consumption "plan" to reverse some of that entropy. (It'd never work.)

-t

We need a garbage-sorter

mengel

Wed Jul 02 12:02:45 -0700 2008

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So several folks I know and I were discussing this problem years ago over lunch in the Fermilab cafeteria (where particle beams are a natural approach to any problem :-) ) and we came up with the scheme of:

• Heating misc. garbage to a nice plasma to break all the chemical bonds
  
• Dropping it down a vertical tube at a vacuum, under force of gravity to form a particle beam (thus far like a ball bearing plant on steroids)
  
• ionizing the atoms in the beam
  
• Using electric fields to bend the beam

The interesting part of the idea is that the electric field should bend the beam proportionally to the mass of the particles; so the lighter elements would get bent the most, and the heavier ones less.  So then you should be able to put pipes at various points along the tube and siphon off pure streams of various elements. 

Now in this scheme, you can actually burn the garbage to heat it up initially, since you're going to sort out the combustion products as well as the ash.  And you can get some energy back from the byproducts (i.e. by burning some of the hydrogen and oxygen to get water).  And you get metals already purified, probably better than current smelting operations can do.    So the real question is, how much would it cost to build such a thing, and would it be worth it comparied to current smelting, etc.    But given a suitable scarcity of various metals which you could recover this way, it becomes cost effective eventually...

We need a garbage-sorter

Thomas Lord

Wed Jul 02 12:39:51 -0700 2008

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Cool. Thanks for the anecdote.

Of course, no need to tell you but let's spell it out: "cost effective eventually" means that it has a definite price and paying that price gives an ROI. That's all that it means. It specifically does not mean that the price, at that time, will actually be affordable (which is Guy's recent point).

-t

We need a garbage-sorter

President4242

Wed Jul 02 12:49:10 -0700 2008

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Price is related to money, and money is fungable to a certain extent.  If the value of the money is small enough in comparison to the value of the goods sold, it will become affordable.

To somebody.

We need a garbage-sorter

Thomas Lord

Wed Jul 02 13:05:09 -0700 2008

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If the value of the money is small enough in comparison to the value of the goods sold, it will become affordable.

To somebody.

So will you and I. :-)

-t

We need a garbage-sorter

President4242

Wed Jul 02 13:11:06 -0700 2008

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Probably before the plasma garbage sorter :-)

Although- I've got to mention that the Brooks, OR garbage incinerator uses a similar system for the recapture of heavy metals from the ash.

We need a garbage-sorter

Charles E Hill

Wed Jul 02 14:53:25 -0700 2008

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Spokane, WA has a garbage incinerator and they separate out and recycle the metals from the ash.

We need a garbage-sorter

Andrew Diseker

Wed Jul 02 14:03:27 -0700 2008

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Back about 10 or 20 years ago there was talk of building magnetohydrodynamic power plants which would basically do what you say, but with the original justification of producing electicity, with the potential of burning garbage and extracting pure elements from the plasma stream as a beneficial side effect.  I think the main difference was that the MHD generator would send the plasma stream orthogonal to the Earth's magnetic field, which would generate DC current "for free" due to the effect of moving a conductor through a magnetic field.  Obviously there was major environmental objection to such a thing.

E. Fermi beat you

rubycodez

Wed Jul 02 17:09:16 -0700 2008

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Steps 1 through 3 need modified, making a plasma is by definition making ionized gas so just need a proper particle accelerator to move plasma and magnet (which moving charged particle will feel as electric field) to sort beam.

Enrico Fermi proposed just that to seperate U-235 from natural uranium back in the day, but his method not used.

 

Rather energy intensive, to accelerate tons of material to atom smasher speeds.

We're running out of everything?

Charles E Hill

Wed Jul 02 12:24:49 -0700 2008

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I read this, then found the original source and a few related links.

One thing to consider is that some of the metals mentioned, like indium and gallium, aren't EVER mined directly.  Both are acquired as byproducts from other mining processes, most notably bauxite (alumina) and zinc.  It is just expensive.

There is a LOT of aluminum in the crust, as it is the third most common element by weight.  As the price of indium and gallium rise, then the refining processers are more willing to spend money on extracting the byproducts.  I don't really see a physical shortage, if it really is tied so heavily with aluminum.

I don't know the situation with zinc, other than I know it is very useful and popular.

Copper and silver are very recyclable.  As the price of the base metals rise, more and more things will be transitioned to alternatives such as PVC or PEX pipe and aluminum wires.  Also, more effort will be put into recycling all those wires, pipes, coins and electronics.

For a couple years I lived in Idaho's Silver Valley.  Between 1884 and 2006, the Silver Valley produced 1.202 BILLION OUNCES OF SILVER. In 2006, 5.0 million ounces were produced. Production continues to increase as the price of silver continues to rise and more Silver Valley mines are reopened  using environmentally friendly methods.

The record-setting Sunshine Silver Mine, discovered up Big Creek in 1884 by two displaced Maine farm boys on a fishing trip, is back in operation after a six year hiatus during which time its new owners refurbished the workings. Production is estimated to be 2.8 million Troy ounces of .999 fine silver in 2008. In 1937, the Sunshine produced 12.1 million ounces and became the largest producer of silver from any one mine in the world.

I know lots of people in the silver mining business, and they all say the same thing -- "What shortage?"  They had shut things down because silver was < $5 per ounce for years.  There was plenty in the ground, it just wasn't worth extracting.  $5 per ounce is about break-even for those guys.  $6 and they're happy.  At $18 they're trying to invest as fast as they can in new capital projects like equipment, shafts, training, etc.  One time costs that can be amortized out over a decade in case it decides to come down.

It will only take one rich guy....

zogger

Wed Jul 02 13:59:59 -0700 2008

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..just one..running through paper shell accounts all over to grab all the available *deliverable* silver within a few days, then we could see 50 buck silver. Theoretical silver on paper is already well oversold, I wouldn't trust it really. It will happen most likely as well. gold is probably a different story, harder to get all of it and takes a lot more money. Silver is the best poor guys investment out there, after steel tools and garden seeds (IMO).

It will only take one rich guy....

Charles E Hill

Wed Jul 02 14:42:47 -0700 2008

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You are talking about the Hunt Brothers.

 

Beginning in the early 1970s, Nelson Bunker Hunt and his brother William Herbert Hunt began accumulating large amounts of silver. By 1979, they had nearly cornered the global market.^[4] In the last nine months of 1979, the brothers earned an estimated $2 billion to $4 billion in silver speculation, with estimated silver holdings of 100 million oz.^[5]

During the Hunt brothers' accumulation of the precious metal, prices of silver futures contracts and silver bullion during 1979 and 1980 silver prices rose from $11 an ounce in September 1979 to $50 an ounce in January 1980. Silver prices ultimately collapsed to below $11 an ounce two months later.^[1]

In 1989 in a settlement with the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Nelson Bunker Hunt was fined US$10 million and banned from trading in the commodity markets as a result of charges stemming from his attempt to corner the market in silver, leading to a commodity crash known as Silver Thursday.^[1] This was in addition to a multimillion-dollar settlement to pay back taxes, fines and interest to the Internal Revenue Service for the same period.^[1]

Hunt filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code in September 1988, largely due to lawsuits incurred as a result of his silver speculation.

those useful elements

rubycodez

Wed Jul 02 14:51:17 -0700 2008

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those two metals are used for the major types of solar cells too, the alternatives aren't as efficient (yet)

there is a supply pinch of the metals used to make stainless steel - molybdenum, chromium, nickel, that's a bummer for most other types of energy production and most internal and external combustion engines.

cobalt shortage -  tooling and superalloys for jet engines

helium shortage - cryogenics, welding, rocket fuel tank pressurization

this is the stuff that our technology and civilization rely, and which our supposed solutions to energy crunch rely on also

those useful elements

GuyFawkes

Wed Jul 02 15:30:01 -0700 2008

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and this is precisely what I have been trying to explain to people who think that solar PV or some other magic pixie dust is a possible solution to an energy crisis.

nobody listens because everyone thinks science and engineering is like some kids television show, and next week we will show you how to end world hunger and bring about peace.... by feeding everyone... by growing more food....

we LOST a crapload of abilities when the roman empire collapsed, not the knowledge, not the materials, not the demand, the ABILITY.

Where DO people think all the folk tales like the hole in my bucket come from, and what purpose they serve race memory.

you do know, don't you?

Thomas Lord

Wed Jul 02 19:07:16 -0700 2008

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People are starting to get it around t-crat. Not to the point of action, yet, but they are.

Good job.

-t

those useful elements

cowardly dragon

Thu Jul 03 08:58:38 -0700 2008

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1) Set up a Project Orion ship, large scale loaded with mining equipment

2) Send it to near-earth orbiting asteroids

3) Profit

Sure it's a hell of a startup cost. But is it more than the Iraq War? Don't think so. And that was all over oil.

Orion pulse-nuke ships can put huge ships into space, and we could use existing weapon stockpiles as fuel. Of course there's the problem of fallout from the couple of bombs used to get out of orbit..., but once you get a critical mass of equipment that can build other equipment, and you get a solar array for power generation, and maybe a hydrogen collector, and mine some Helium-3 from the moon...