Tag Archives: prospecting

Scientists Urge Caution On Underwater Mining

For years the ‘bad ones’ have poisoned rivers, devastated forests and displaced communities, and now massive companies are rushing to dig up the seabed for precious metals.

MIT: “The ocean’s deep-sea bed is scattered with ancient, potato-sized rocks called “polymetallic nodules” that contain nickel and cobalt — minerals that are in high demand for the manufacturing of batteries, such as for powering electric vehicles and storing renewable energy, and in response to factors such as increasing urbanization. The deep ocean contains vast quantities of mineral-laden nodules, but the impact of mining the ocean floor is both unknown and highly contested.”

Sledge From Sea Mining Operations
Sediment plumes following the wake of this deep sea mining ship.

And yet, only twenty-four people have the regulatory powers to stop this type of plunder in our planet’s most fragile places:  The International Seabed Authority.  You’ve likely never heard of them because this group attracts as little attention as an underwater mine miles offshore.

A few countries have agreed to full or partial bans, and leading scientists have appealed for a freeze on deep sea mining contracts.

Mining companies claim they can mine the seabed safely, but authorities in Namibia, Australia and New Zealand have blocked seabed mining projects.  Scientists point out that many deep water species are being discovered quite regularly, and that the ocean floor can take decades to recover from disturbances such as the creation of sediment plumes from deep sea floor bed mining.

There are limits to how deep Surface ships can reach- but is that enough to protect the deep of our Oceans?
There are technological limits to how deep Surface ships can reach- but is that enough to protect the deep of our Oceans? New technologies and techniques always lead to deeper mining.
Seabed Mining: The 30 People Who Could Decide the Fate of the — Oceans  Deeply
New technology allowing for deeper mining and intensified mining: A massive seafloor EV rover.

The International Seabed Authority has already issued licenses for exploratory mining across 1.2 million square kilometers of ocean floor. As mentioned earlier, this regulatory body is almost unknown, and its 24-person Legal and Technical Committee is solely responsible for the detailed scrutiny of proposals and environmental safeguards.

GreenPeace Graphic Deap Seabed Mining

Supplemental:

Deep sea mining: the new resource frontier? (Al-Arabiya)
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/world/2014/11/12/Deep-sea-mining-the-new-resource-frontier-.html

Marine mining: Underwater gold rush sparks fears of ocean catastrophe (The Guardian)
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/02/underwater-gold-rush-marine-mining-fears-ocean-th… 

New Interest in Seafloor Mining Revives Calls for Conservation (National Geographic)
http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2013/12/11/new-interest-in-seafloor-mining-revives-calls-for-co… 

Deep sea mining hopes hit by New Zealand decision (Financial Times)
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6edaeea8-b894-11e4-a2fb-00144feab7de.html#axzz3VFC8Wm1y 

Scientists call for temporary halt on new deep sea mining projects (Popular Science)
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/6edaeea8-b894-11e4-a2fb-00144feab7de.html#axzz3VFC8Wm1y

Shedding some light on the International Seabed Authority (University of Southampton)
http://moocs.southampton.ac.uk/oceans/2014/03/09/shedding-some-light-on-the-international-seabed-authority/

2022 And NOT Another Year Closer To Private company Asteroid Mining

It’s been eight years since an historic landing took place between an European Space Agency drone and a comet.(which looked suspiciously a lot like an asteroid to us!)

At that time a report from Deep Space Industries laid out their business plans up to 2020 and what they had committed to  sounded more like science fiction than fact.

But it wasn’t and they’d already secured investors.

A 2019 announcement from NASA stating that it would be the National Space Administration in the lead instead ( NASA will soon begin hunting a nickel laden asteroid ) spoke volumes about not only the possibility of asteroid prospecting- but also to its inevitability in the private sector.

DSI concept of “coming soon” asteroid mining.

And yet, things have changed…..again.

In early 2020 Deep Space Industries (along with the only other asteroid mining company, Planetary Resources) were purchased by Bradford Space Group and ConsenSys Group respectively and all plans for private asteroid mining were shelved indefinitely. Deep Space Industries is now focused on developing space propulsion systems and ConsenSys is now focused on developing blockchain  security applications for space technology. 

What could have been- Deep Space Industries ambitious plan before the take over

Their plan was to send an entire fleet of prospector spaceships to Near-Earth asteroids in order to harvest them for precious metals and other undisclosed resources. (space rubies anyone?). Starting in 2015, Deep Space Industries were to begin their operation by sending three small spacecraft called FireFlies to selected asteroids near earth for sample taking and photo reconnaissance. One year later, bigger craft called DragonFlies were to leave on four year missions to retrieve asteroid samples and bring them back to Earth. An ambitious project to be sure and not surprisingly, the timeline had been regularly pushed back.

dsi timeline mission planning

This press release from DSI said a precursor mission was scheduled to launch in 2017: “Recently, Deep Space Industries and its partner, the government of Luxembourg, announced plans to build and fly Prospector-X™, an experimental mission to low-Earth orbit that will test key technologies needed for low-cost exploration spacecraft. This precursor mission is scheduled to launch in 2017. Then, before the end of this decade, Prospector-1 will travel beyond Earth’s orbit to begin the first space mining exploration mission.”

daniel faber ceo deep space industries

Valuable materials exist in abundance in space and have strong economic potential. Using their tested indicators as investment attractors, Deep Space will move towards securing a commercial space operation and start into the next phase of its business plan. This involves concentrating firstly on processing rocket fuel from asteroid-harvested water.

This fuel, harvested and processed in space will save millions of dollars, since existing communications satellites will no longer be ‘thrown away’ when their fuel supply has been used up. (Satellites that can longer ‘move’ and stay in orbit by using their rocket engines are left to slowly fall towards earth and burn up in the atmosphere ).

Deep Space Industries past-CEO David Gump estimated that a satellite ‘refueled’ and saved from burn up is worth up to $8,000,000 per month. Those figures start to add up when you factor in the number of satellites in use and being launched every year. Another plan during this phase of their business operations is to return precious group metals such as platinum and gold back to earth.

After all, if you’re splitting up asteroids and discover metal commodities, why not bring it back down to earth?

Deep Space believed that other metals harvested from asteroids also have an in-orbit value. They are developing the Microgravity Foundry- a type of 3D printer that will be used to fabricate and machine metal parts in space from pure asteroid metal such as high strength nickel parts.

Deep Space cgi mockup of their planned 3D space printer.
Deep Space cgi mockup of their planned 3D space printer.

Since this factory will operate in space and in zero gravity and produce parts in space, the idea of permanent space development and human habitation is economically feasible. Stephen Covey co-founder of Deep Space Industries and inventor of the Microgravity Foundry process: “What’s cool about the [3D] printer is that it can take its own parts, grind them up, and recycle them into new parts.”

Stephen Covey- inventor of the Microgravity Foundry process
Stephen Covey- inventor of the Microgravity Foundry process

Deep Space Industries past-CEO David Gump: “Using resources harvested in space is the only way to afford permanent space development. More than 900 new asteroids that pass near Earth are discovered every year. They can be like the Iron Range of Minnesota was for the Detroit car industry last century- a key resource located near where it is needed. In this case, metals and fuel from asteroids can expand the in-space industries of this century. That is our strategy.” Company estimates place a value of 1 ton of raw asteroid material at a worth of $1,000,000 [usd] in orbit.

Buy outs over the last few years have all but ended the dream and it will be the various space agencies such as NASA and ESA that will fulfill Deep Space Industries abandoned plan. For the Silo, Jarrod Barker.

Supplemental: http://www.businessinsider.com/deep-space-industries-asteroid-mining-plans-2013-1#ixzz2Io8Qg8uc

Updates: Deep Space Industries aligns with Luxembourg Government, applauds space commercialization policy.

Mexican commercial space company MXSpace partners with Deep Space Industries.

NASA hunting nickel 16 Psyche asteroid worth quadrillions of dollars.

Artificial Intelligence Or AI Is Set To Take Over Many Industries

Is there any question that Artificial Intelligence, or “AI”, is going to play a huge role in the future? The short answer is no- it’s already playing a large part today, so let’s delve into this new tech and look at how it is benefiting the energy sector and what we can expect to see from this AI phenomenon in the not so distant future.

AI In Energy Sector

Asteroid Prospecting And Mining Nearing

Have you ever wondered how you’d mine an asteroid? Not many people have. But you may be interested to discover that scientists are actually attempting to achieve this, seemingly impossible, feat. You may even remember reading about an asteroid mining company here at The Silo. That company is still in business.

Why? Well, an asteroid can hold many materials that are considered to be very valuable back here on earth. And, bearing in mind how many asteroids there are, asteroid mining could turn into being a far more “earth-friendly” way to gather resources.

So, check out this infographic from our friends at fuelfighter.co.uk and discover how scientists are planning on mining Asteroids and how much it could cost in US dollars/British pounds to do so.

Asteroid Mining Infographic