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Comment by whatshisface | Hacker News Reader

Increased material availability would lead to economic growth and increasing demand. Consequently, although not all of the metal would sell for market value on the first day (in any case, it wouldn't even all arrive on the first day), you might get closer to the posted value than you're supposing.

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> Increased material availability would lead to economic growth and increasing demand.

Not for iron and nickel. Iron is the most abundant element on earth and the 4th most abundant in the crust. It's practically everywhere. Almost all of the cost comes from processing and transporting it. Even if there ever were a shortage, it'd almost certainly be more economical to mine it from the mantle or crust than fly to the asteroid belt and bring it back. Iron is really far down the list of elements we need to worry about running out of.

The article's kind of silly, TBH.

You hit the nail on the head there. As you say, the value is in it's location (specifically the cost of transportation of iron to that bit of space). We could use it in situ to manufacture spacecraft.

The material, when you sell it next year, has a lower net present value than when you sell it today. If you spread out bringing the stuff to market for decades or centuries, that will have a marked effect on the posted value.

Then the solution is simple, spread out the mining operation.

No it wouldn't, especially if energy to convert it skyrocket.

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