On recycling scrap versus mining (was Re: Involving end users)
Paul D. Fernhout
> There are alternatives to having to buy tools. For instance, this is
> one interest in Gingery's machines, because he just started off with a
> bucket and going around finding some scrap aluminum to make his tools.
> And I think I even remember a story of him sharing his tools with
> others so that they could bootstrap their own further tools as well.
> It's unfortunate that he had to resort to scrap materials. :-( But he
> got it done nevertheless.
Bryan-
I want to respond on this point of using scrap somehow being "unfortunate".
It's been widely discussed how much of the early iron and other metals used
by humans came from meteorites. I doubt these early humans worried to much
about not digging deep mines.
If we live in a society practically smothering itself in metal waste from
empty tin cans, used cars, and so on, is it really that bad to talk about
recycling it into a new open society?
How much actual mass of various metals and such do people really need to
have an Earth-bound life in style? And metals don't disappear much in use
other than a teeny bit of loss in dust to wear and tear. So, I don't see we
need much mining in an advanced society that reuses matter. (In the Culture
Novel "The Use of Weapons", one of the characters is really annoyed that on
the big starship that there is nothing the Brains will say is "junk" which
he can shoot at for target practice -- there is only matter in use and
matter in storage. They provide him with tons of ice in a big block to shoot
at but he is still disappointed it is not "junk".)
It seems to me that if we had a self-replicating technology that just used
the waste of our current culture, we'd still be really far along to
something better.
Mining isn't very hard conceptually -- it's just hard to find the land or
get permission. Mining is just hard *socially*. I bet you could collect
literally a metric ton of metal on just your campus in an afternoon that
people didn't want anymore if you tried hard. But try to mine a ton of metal
and we'll be waiting a few years for you to get all the permits...
Imagine developing an open technology based mostly by mass around empty
aluminum cans, plastic drink bottles, glass bottles, newspaper, office
paper, thrown away meals, discarded appliances, obsolete computers, anything
else in a junkyard, and raw sewage. Isn't that still a great thing if it
worked? Sure, it won't work on the Moon or Mars or the Asteroids, but it
would work well on Earth for a while and solve a lot of environmental
problems right now. Surely if you could do that, making a few mining robots
could not be that hard an extra step, right?
Granted, such a technology using only recyclables is limited in scale. But
everything needs to start somewhere.
[Minor Spoiler alert for the sci-fi movie Moontrap.]
Look at the end of the movie "Moontrap" for some twisted inspiration:
"Moontrap (1988)"
http://www.learmedia.ca/product_info.php/products_id/973
"Robots with the ability to multiply and kill, steal the space-craft of two
agents sent to neutralise the threat. After the discovery of an ancient
woman who has been frozen in time, they are forced to fight for their lives,
and to save Earth from a planned invasion."
That robot at the end which lands in a junkyard isn't letting an abstraction
like "mining ores" get in its way of invading the Earth and completing its
mission. Maybe you shouldn't either. :-)
I guess I'm saying, don't get too hung up on mining new materials. Assume
you can mine the dumptrucks going to the landfills, and the recycling bins
before they go wherever they go, and the sewage trucks pumping septic
systems. And that, frankly, people will *pay* you to do that. :-) Why aren't
such things fair resources to draw on for a first open self-replicating
system? :-) Get that to work, and it's a short further step to mining ores.
But be able to only mine, and you still can't do the rest.
--Paul Fernhout
Bryan Bishop
> Bryan Bishop wrote:
> > There are alternatives to having to buy tools. For instance, this is
> > one interest in Gingery's machines, because he just started off with a
> > bucket and going around finding some scrap aluminum to make his
> > tools. And I think I even remember a story of him sharing his tools
> > with others so that they could bootstrap their own further tools as well.
> > It's unfortunate that he had to resort to scrap materials. :-( But he
> > got it done nevertheless.
>
> Bryan-
>
> I want to respond on this point of using scrap somehow being "unfortunate".
Truly scrap useage is unfortunate because it's dependent on the growth
of mining. You only have a finite amount of material within
circulation, and some greater amount of materials that could be in
circulation but aren't yet (stuff to mine). While an ecology might
have a maximum population size, to some extent we seem to be able to
extend ours, and by using recycled scrap we're not growing in terms of
material useage. Of course, the point isn't just to growth just for
the hell of it, it's really a technical point, simply that only so
much can be done with the available materials at one time.
> It's been widely discussed how much of the early iron and other metals used
> by humans came from meteorites. I doubt these early humans worried to much
> about not digging deep mines.
Not at all, because from these metals and ores they were able to build
the primitive tools to mine to begin with. Not bad at all, but the
point is that there's a sustained process there to grab more and more
metals from the earth as they become required. But at what point are
they required? Yes, this is an important question, but shouldn't be
confused with the technical point I mentioned above.
> If we live in a society practically smothering itself in metal waste from
> empty tin cans, used cars, and so on, is it really that bad to talk about
> recycling it into a new open society?
Yes, because those cars aren't going to be piling up forever. I could
list many old technologies that are no longer physically manufactured.
Temporarily, perhaps even as a way to bootstrap yourself to more
materials, perhaps that is fine. But suppose that you're a
metal-eating creature, and you have the materials of the earth to life
off of, but you consume 1/8th the supply of junk metal of the earth
each day (you're ridiculously large I guess?), and the 1/8th is with
respect to the original junk metal content. Clearly, you will run out
of materials. (And clearly this is a poorly designed monster. Oh well.
I think my point is getting across though.)
> How much actual mass of various metals and such do people really need to
> have an Earth-bound life in style? And metals don't disappear much in use
> other than a teeny bit of loss in dust to wear and tear. So, I don't see we
> need much mining in an advanced society that reuses matter. (In the Culture
Even advanced societies might experience growth and the need to pull
more materials into circulation, Paul.
> Novel "The Use of Weapons", one of the characters is really annoyed that on
> the big starship that there is nothing the Brains will say is "junk" which
> he can shoot at for target practice -- there is only matter in use and
> matter in storage. They provide him with tons of ice in a big block to shoot
> at but he is still disappointed it is not "junk".)
Heh.
> It seems to me that if we had a self-replicating technology that just used
> the waste of our current culture, we'd still be really far along to
> something better.
Assuming a replication cycle of 1 day, in 30 days you'd have far more
than a billion replicators. Now, from the looks of it, there might
actually be enough materials in current use or in current circulation
to support that; sure. But at some N, 2^N starts meaning there's not
that many materials already mined.
> Mining isn't very hard conceptually -- it's just hard to find the land or
> get permission. Mining is just hard *socially*. I bet you could collect
> literally a metric ton of metal on just your campus in an afternoon that
> people didn't want anymore if you tried hard. But try to mine a ton of metal
> and we'll be waiting a few years for you to get all the permits...
Yeah, I'm not too enchanted with mining on Earth at the moment, or at
least in developed nations that care to have permits, it's just
looking like a rather unfun uninteresting way to go about it. But this
isn't the only planet, and those meteorites you mention, they come
from somewhere. Why am I telling you this? You're more of a space
colony buff than I am, what's going on here?
> Imagine developing an open technology based mostly by mass around empty
> aluminum cans, plastic drink bottles, glass bottles, newspaper, office
> paper, thrown away meals, discarded appliances, obsolete computers, anything
> else in a junkyard, and raw sewage. Isn't that still a great thing if it
> worked? Sure, it won't work on the Moon or Mars or the Asteroids, but it
> would work well on Earth for a while and solve a lot of environmental
> problems right now.
I'm not too interested in quickfixes. And if you can come up with a
way to get those recycling initiatives to write up their dependency
loops in a computational format so that we can do large scale analysis
and ordering of raw materials (which, by the way, isn't happening yet
as it is (RFC's, RFQ's, etc. being done by hand (ugh))).
> Surely if you could do that, making a few mining robots could not be that
> hard an extra step, right?
Using recycled materials to go fetch more materials is always a great
thing, sure.
> Granted, such a technology using only recyclables is limited in scale. But
> everything needs to start somewhere.
No arguments there.
> That robot at the end which lands in a junkyard isn't letting an abstraction
> like "mining ores" get in its way of invading the Earth and completing its
> mission. Maybe you shouldn't either. :-)
That's fine, if you want to go get everybody who has a recycling
and/or mining operation to tie in to some abstract computational
network for the exchange of metadata and for requesting materials (and
such), go right ahead. I'm still pretty sure RosettaNet isn't doing
its job since it's all behind closed doors, and am not aware of other
opportunities. There are hundreds of these out there, including
GoodRelations, which just don't have the criticial mass. And this is
partly the problem with any commercial venture trying to do this
anyway, and thus why we see so many staggard attempts at a material
procurement website / database. Sigh.
> systems. And that, frankly, people will *pay* you to do that. :-) Why aren't
> such things fair resources to draw on for a first open self-replicating
> system? :-) Get that to work, and it's a short further step to mining ores.
> But be able to only mine, and you still can't do the rest.
Paul D. Fernhout
Interesting points, but I would maintain (by handwaving from a gut feel, no
proof) that we have more than enough metals and similar materials mined and
in circulation and in landfills already to rebuild our society in a
sustainable and open way, and even have some left over for launching space
habitation initiatives. :-) There's a lot out there.
The main reason people use mined materials are they are cheaper because the
industrial process lines are set up to use ores instead of recycle materials.
Really, how much matter does a person need to be highly structured around
them to be happy? Solar panel? Computer and network? Basic transportation?
Garden? House? Medical bot? (Or can that all be done with a little utility
fog someday? :-)
Anyway, I just don't see the need for more mining anytime soon. And I should
say *mining* (which is generally centralized) as I can see arguments to use
local resources as needed for convenience and to be part of natural cycles.
If we do need materials, crushed surface rock, seawater, air, and rain water
can supply us with plenty if we adapt our open technology to the proportions
of elements there (like living plants do). For example, what is diamondoid
made of?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamondoid
Carbon and Hydrogen (at least the simple ones). And where is there a lot of
carbon? The air. And hydrogen? The rain. So what exactly do you need to mine
on Earth? (Granted, space is another issue, but carbonaceous asteroids have
a lot of good stuff in them, likely almost as easily accessible as the air
and the rain once you are there.) And silicon for CPUs is available from
sand. That's also very common.
So, you want a few metals here and there. Metal scrap is often free. People
will even pay you to take it away. I've never really thought deeply about
this before, but as I reflect on it now, I feel a focus on mining makes
unnecessarily difficult the initial designs for (Earthly) sustainable
systems that have some degree of self-replicating closure.
But you need look no further than the biosphere for an example. Most of what
goes on in the biosphere is endlessly recycling nutrients. Even the
nutrients from fresh lava are mainly making up for the nutrients that turn
to sedimentary rocks in the oceans. The Earth is huge on a human scale (even
if it is small on a technospheric scale).
Anyway, I'm trying to convey that the existing physical technosphere is an
enormous playing field for conversion to something better, even without new
materials to be added to it.
And to make another suggestion, with better nanomaterials like diamondoid,
we might find that again the big problem is getting rid of all this excess
bulk we have laying around from obsolete cars and houses which use brute
matter for sturdiness instead of elegant patterning. :-) That was in part
the basis of Buckminster Fuller's design science revolution -- doing more
with less. Seriously, let's say I were to give you an (obsolete :-) 2060s
style 3D printer I had lying around (in 2080). You feed about one hundredth
of your current house and car into it and get a huge house ten times the
size of a typical US American house (which actually makes you money selling
solar power into the grid and producing oil) and an amazing hypercar. What
are you going to do with the other 99% of the material? Bury it? :-)
Granted you can do more with more someday, but the underdog with a new
project generally needs to be lean and efficient, and do more with less. :-)
--Paul Fernhout
Bryan Bishop
> Interesting points, but I would maintain (by handwaving from a gut feel, no
> proof) that we have more than enough metals and similar materials mined and
> in circulation and in landfills already to rebuild our society in a
> sustainable and open way, and even have some left over for launching space
> habitation initiatives. :-) There's a lot out there.
Have fun doing all the paperwork.
> The main reason people use mined materials are they are cheaper because the
> industrial process lines are set up to use ores instead of recycle materials.
Another big issue is that separation requires so much painful
overhead. Either you convince everybody to be perfect and recycle in
perfectly separated containers, or you go through elaborate separation
techniques on the industrial floor to plan for every single possible
type of material, every single type of possible phase separation
you'll have to employ, etc. etc. Unless you know of a simpler way?
> Really, how much matter does a person need to be highly structured around
> them to be happy? Solar panel? Computer and network? Basic transportation?
> Garden? House? Medical bot?
"Sorry sir, you're to happy. Time to stop you from doing stuff." ??
You're scaring me, Paul.
> Anyway, I just don't see the need for more mining anytime soon. And I should
> say *mining* (which is generally centralized) as I can see arguments to use
> local resources as needed for convenience and to be part of natural cycles.
> If we do need materials, crushed surface rock, seawater, air, and rain water
> can supply us with plenty if we adapt our open technology to the proportions
> of elements there (like living plants do).
Because nobody has set up an open access system for stamping the
identification of materials from "ground zero", and so on. And I'm not
about to sit behind a console for the rest of my life doing data entry
on recyclable materials, or doing data entry so that a material can be
more readily sorted, etc., or otherwise spending significants amount
of overhead on things that these mining operations should have already
covered decades (centuries) ago.
> So, you want a few metals here and there. Metal scrap is often free. People
> will even pay you to take it away. I've never really thought deeply about
{{citation needed}}. Where I live, I can hardly get my hands on
significant portions of metals to do anything, or any other
specialized material. The scrap metal pile in the student machine shop
is ridiculously small and dwindles constantly. I guess there are sites
like this one:
http://www.metalprices.com/
.. showing that on average the prices are now way down, but that
doesn't mean it's free, and I'd really much prefer to see your
citation and where I can sic my scripts to auto order my materials
please please please?
> this before, but as I reflect on it now, I feel a focus on mining makes
> unnecessarily difficult the initial designs for (Earthly) sustainable
> systems that have some degree of self-replicating closure.
Just because materials are in circulation doesn't mean that they
contribute to self-replication; so far we have only seen one "boot up"
of our civilizations. Multiple colonization projects across the
continents do not count since they usually rely on incremental trading
mechanisms to get them the needed supplies. Projects like Biosphere
and so on might qualify as an attempt to do a bootup/bootstrapping,
but not entirely.
> But you need look no further than the biosphere for an example. Most of what
> goes on in the biosphere is endlessly recycling nutrients. Even the
> nutrients from fresh lava are mainly making up for the nutrients that turn
> to sedimentary rocks in the oceans. The Earth is huge on a human scale (even
> if it is small on a technospheric scale).
The long tails are a bit different when dealing with the ecosystem
versus the big hunk of materials you'd need to do sculpting, like out
of an ice block, except maybe made out of keratin or chitosan. It
takes the elephant many years to grow its tusks, the collection and
such of those nutrients. A liquid-based growth system might work, if
you could grow a keratin farm on a river I guess. How easy is it to
sculpt keratin and chitosan, and their relative disadvantages to metal
alloys? I do know that elephant tusks used to be -- and probably still
are -- used to sculpt beautiful artifacts. You know, except for the
elephant hunting part.
> Anyway, I'm trying to convey that the existing physical technosphere is an
> enormous playing field for conversion to something better, even without new
> materials to be added to it.
Meanwhile I just see ridiculous regulations and corporate culture
behind it all, even when it's really not corporate infrastructure to
begin with. I don't want to have to deal with this, and I also don't
want to have to investigate every time my material feed shuts off just
because somebody forgot to regularly recycle their precious material;
that's why automated mining is important, and why it should be there
to begin with so that I don't have to get annoyed when suddenly
something breaks because "I told you so".
> And to make another suggestion, with better nanomaterials like diamondoid,
> we might find that again the big problem is getting rid of all this excess
> bulk we have laying around from obsolete cars and houses which use brute
> matter for sturdiness instead of elegant patterning. :-) That was in part
> the basis of Buckminster Fuller's design science revolution -- doing more
> with less. Seriously, let's say I were to give you an (obsolete :-) 2060s
> style 3D printer I had lying around (in 2080). You feed about one hundredth
> of your current house and car into it and get a huge house ten times the
> size of a typical US American house (which actually makes you money selling
> solar power into the grid and producing oil) and an amazing hypercar. What
> are you going to do with the other 99% of the material? Bury it? :-)
No, there are many projects that I'd like to have a go at:
* powered exoskeletons
* brain implants
* rockets
* microprocessors
* HUDs
* jets
* automated kitchens :-)
Uh, that's not as random as you might think.
> Granted you can do more with more someday, but the underdog with a new
> project generally needs to be lean and efficient, and do more with less. :-)
"Doing more with less until I can do everything with nothing at all."
Paul D. Fernhout
> Another big issue is that separation requires so much painful
> overhead. Either you convince everybody to be perfect and recycle in
> perfectly separated containers, or you go through elaborate separation
> techniques on the industrial floor to plan for every single possible
> type of material, every single type of possible phase separation
> you'll have to employ, etc. etc. Unless you know of a simpler way?
Eventually, and this works best in zero-G, but you can heat things up to an
ionized plasma and separate them essentially by a huge industrial sized mass
spectrometer (first read about it in James P. Hogan's Voyage From Yesteryear).
But. more down to Earth and probably more proven, "Advanced Automation for
Space Missions" has a diagram about a Hydrofluoric Acid leach process for
lunar ore.
http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/AASM5E.html#f541
Now, HF is very nasty acid, not to play around with,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofluoric_acid
but you could imagine an automated system that worked with it -- perhaps in
a microchemistry kind of way.
http://www.answers.com/topic/microchemistry
"Chemistry that deals with minute quantities of materials, frequently less
than one milligram in mass or one milliliter in volume."
But sure, robotic separation of things first might make the chemistry more
efficient. And we can't have automated recycling centers because? :-)
" Results 1 - 10 of about 445,000 for automated recycling center."
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=automated+recycling+center
Example:
http://www.strauss-ind.com/automatic.html
"Imagine a full-size Chevy reduced to pieces the size of your fist in 50
seconds. Shredding about 150,000 tons per year, Automatic Recycling turns
cars, trucks, buses, appliances and other scrap into material that steel
mills use in manufacturing their products."
So, just make a system that processes arbitrary fist-sized pieces of Chevy
cars. :-)
>> Really, how much matter does a person need to be highly structured around
>> them to be happy? Solar panel? Computer and network? Basic transportation?
>> Garden? House? Medical bot?
>
> "Sorry sir, you're to happy. Time to stop you from doing stuff." ??
> You're scaring me, Paul.
No, I'm trying to help you get more traction on the ground. How much money
is currently directly spent on extropian issues? Millions? How much money is
spent on recycling and waste disposal? Trillions? Which funding source is
more likely to leak a few million dollars to fund you thinking and
researching (physically) about open manufacturing related issues that touch
on material processing?
But yes, I think in general, human happiness in relation to material
acquisition is a deep issue for reflection. Check out the chapter in "Midas
World" about "The Man Who Ate the World":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midas_World
"The Man Who Ate the World" (originally published in Galaxy in 1956) tells
the story of Anderson Trumie who had a scarring experience in his childhood,
before Morey Fry changed the world. All he wants is a teddy bear, but his
parents' lifestyle of frantic consumption won't allow him to have one
anymore. As an adult, he is a compulsive consumer. He has taken over North
Guardian Island and he is putting a burden on the local infrastructure. A
psychist, Roger Garrick, with the help of Kathryn Pender, find a way to heal
Anderson and end his exorbitant consumption."
> Because nobody has set up an open access system for stamping the
> identification of materials from "ground zero", and so on. And I'm not
> about to sit behind a console for the rest of my life doing data entry
> on recyclable materials, or doing data entry so that a material can be
> more readily sorted, etc., or otherwise spending significants amount
> of overhead on things that these mining operations should have already
> covered decades (centuries) ago.
Working from pure material is just more energy efficient. It isn't essential.
You're willing to talk about mining raw ores, which are mixtures of stuff.
Well, adapt that planning to using fist-sized pieces of used Chevys coming
out of your "mine". :-)
>> So, you want a few metals here and there. Metal scrap is often free. People
>> will even pay you to take it away. I've never really thought deeply about
>
> {{citation needed}}. Where I live, I can hardly get my hands on
> significant portions of metals to do anything, or any other
> specialized material. The scrap metal pile in the student machine shop
> is ridiculously small and dwindles constantly. I guess there are sites
> like this one:
>
> http://www.metalprices.com/
> .. showing that on average the prices are now way down, but that
> doesn't mean it's free, and I'd really much prefer to see your
> citation and where I can sic my scripts to auto order my materials
> please please please?
Have you asked these people?
http://www.utexas.edu/facilities/services/recycle.html
http://www.utexas.edu/facilities/services/surplus.html
http://www.utexas.edu/facilities/services/waste.html
Or check out the Austin dump: :-)
"The Joy of Hauling Junk to the South Austin Dump"
http://localism.com/blog/tx/austin/posts/47554/The-Joy-of-Hauling
"The dump of my childhood was just a long row of piles dumped onto the dirt
ground, until the bulldozer came to push it all over a cliff. Today, the
dump in South Austin is organized and fairly clean, though it still smells.
Items are tossed not on the dirt to be bulldozed, but into big roll-off
dumpsters below the drop-off area. Everything metal that can be recycled is
tossed on the ground, taken away by the workers to the metal crusher nearby.
Branches and limbs go to the mulching area. Items that are "junk" but maybe
not necessarily "trash", such as the 20 year old particle board TV stand
with plastic caster rollers, are set aside to be taken to the "resale" area
- a sort of a mini flea market where dump shoppers can find perfectly good
bbq grills, lawn mowers, bowling balls, lamps, and all sorts of other things
which were junk to their former owners."
Or what about these people:
http://www.imagemicro.com/
"Image Microsystems works closely in collaboration with Texas Tech
University to research best practices in recycling technology."
>> this before, but as I reflect on it now, I feel a focus on mining makes
>> unnecessarily difficult the initial designs for (Earthly) sustainable
>> systems that have some degree of self-replicating closure.
>
> Just because materials are in circulation doesn't mean that they
> contribute to self-replication; so far we have only seen one "boot up"
> of our civilizations. Multiple colonization projects across the
> continents do not count since they usually rely on incremental trading
> mechanisms to get them the needed supplies. Projects like Biosphere
> and so on might qualify as an attempt to do a bootup/bootstrapping,
> but not entirely.
People used to boot up civilizations whenever a bunch of them got on a raft
to go somewhere else.
Anyway, there is a lot of materials lying around being used inefficiently.
Why, if you put your mind to it, you could probably get the entire
university you are at to function more efficiently on half the mass. :-)
And that would leave a lot left over for playing with. :-)
> The long tails are a bit different when dealing with the ecosystem
> versus the big hunk of materials you'd need to do sculpting, like out
> of an ice block, except maybe made out of keratin or chitosan. It
> takes the elephant many years to grow its tusks, the collection and
> such of those nutrients. A liquid-based growth system might work, if
> you could grow a keratin farm on a river I guess. How easy is it to
> sculpt keratin and chitosan, and their relative disadvantages to metal
> alloys? I do know that elephant tusks used to be -- and probably still
> are -- used to sculpt beautiful artifacts. You know, except for the
> elephant hunting part.
Well, if we're talking biotech, all you need is sunlight, rain, dirt, and
air. You're telling me that is not enough to make synthetic ivory? :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory
"The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mammals is the same
regardless of the species of origin. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dentine
"By weight, seventy percent of dentin consists of the mineral
hydroxylapatite, twenty percent is organic material and ten percent is water"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroxylapatite
"Hydroxylapatite, also called hydroxyapatite, is a mineral. It is a
naturally occurring form of calcium apatite with the formula Ca5(PO4)3(OH)"
So, Hydrogen and Oxygen from water and air, then you need some calcium and
phosphorus. Graze some cows or just buy some milk. :-)
See also, for an easier way to grow it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_ivory
"Vegetable ivory, also known as corozo, is a name used for the tagua nut in
the South American rainforest. When dried out, it can be carved as an ivory
replica."
>> Anyway, I'm trying to convey that the existing physical technosphere is an
>> enormous playing field for conversion to something better, even without new
>> materials to be added to it.
>
> Meanwhile I just see ridiculous regulations and corporate culture
> behind it all, even when it's really not corporate infrastructure to
> begin with. I don't want to have to deal with this, and I also don't
> want to have to investigate every time my material feed shuts off just
> because somebody forgot to regularly recycle their precious material;
> that's why automated mining is important, and why it should be there
> to begin with so that I don't have to get annoyed when suddenly
> something breaks because "I told you so".
Rock from the Earth is somewhat unpredictable too.
If you're worried about social issues, your mines and the service roads or
utilities to them can be shut down just as easily if the government wants
to. Frankly, for the foreseeable future, they'll have the better robot
warriors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_robot
http://science.howstuffworks.com/military-robot.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruise_missile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predator_drone
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek
And that's just what is public and works now. (OK, the Dalek stuff isn't
ready for prime time yet, thankfully, forget about that. :-) Some of the
people who are in charge of these "toys" live for an excuse to use this
stuff. Not all, probably not even most, but some.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_Siege
And here is what is in the public pipeline:
"Carnegie Mellon gets $14.4 million to build robo-tank"
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/22458
"Ultimately unmanned ground vehicles would be outfitted with anti-tank or
anti-aircraft missiles and anti-personnel weapons to make them lethal. Part
of the new award budget is also slated to help the university prove that
autonomous ground vehicles are feasible in future combat situations."
So, I just don't see mines being operational unless you adhere to all
governmental regulations, sorry. And seismologists are probably going to
note anything out of the ordinary going on underground eventually.
Besides, if society fails, junk tends to be the first thing to pile up as
trash services stop. So, your operation would be secure even in an economic
or natural catastrophe. :-)
Example:
"Katrina's garbage rates a Category 5"
http://www.envrecycling.com/news_tribune_garbage.html
"NEW ORLEANS -- One of the best views of New Orleans these days is from just
east of town, on top of a mountain of garbage that provides a commanding
view of the skyline. The once-closed Old Gentilly landfill is humming with
activity, and in the four months since Hurricane Katrina laid waste to the
Gulf Coast, it has grown about 100 feet higher. So much garbage was left
behind by the storm that the federal government estimates that if stacked in
1-yard cubes, it would wrap around the Earth more than once. And the crews
that are picking up the trash aren't close to being finished."
One yard cubes of junk wrapped around the Earth, just from one storm. And
they don't want it. And they would likely pay you to take it away. And you
want to mine more stuff out of the ground sometime soon, because? :-)
So, I just don't see any shortage of materials on any conceivable time frame
or scale you would realistically be involved in during the next, say, ten
years. :-)
After that, sure, think about mining. Preferably in space. :-)
http://www.permanent.com/
Anyway, there is a lot of possible synergy from environmental and extroprian
goals, if you can build on it.
>> What
>> are you going to do with the other 99% of the material? Bury it? :-)
>
> No, there are many projects that I'd like to have a go at:
> * powered exoskeletons
> * brain implants
> * rockets
> * microprocessors
> * HUDs
> * jets
> * automated kitchens :-)
>
> Uh, that's not as random as you might think.
I just can't see these taking much materials. In the USA there is already
about a car per person. That's more than a ton of metal and glass. And then
there are the inefficient roadways and industrial infrastructure. And the
inefficient buildings. So, overall, I just don't see we need more matter on
the surface of the Earth than we are already using. None of these except
rockets take much matter per person. And laser launch systems are more
efficient at using materials than rockets.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_propulsion
Anyway, I probably might not think along these lines myself if I hadn't used
to have been a fan of "Asteroid Mining" to "Bring in the Steel" and
eventually realized and read about:
"Mining The Sky: Untold Riches From The Asteroids, Comets, And Planets"
by John S. Lewis
http://www.amazon.com/Mining-Sky-Untold-Asteroids-Planets/dp/0201328194
how there was enough stuff mined already on Earth, because, basically,
almost all metals are easily recyclable. So I learned that the place to use
space materials is in space.
>> Granted you can do more with more someday, but the underdog with a new
>> project generally needs to be lean and efficient, and do more with less. :-)
>
> "Doing more with less until I can do everything with nothing at all."
Good strategy. Lots of energy and matter can be mined out of nothing: :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-point_energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect
And probably will. Who needs all the mess and fuss (and paperwork :-) of
mining asteroids and planet and stars and galaxies and such and transporting
all that stuff when you can just make energy and matter out of zero-point
energy directly wherever you want? :-) And when you are done, just send the
matter and energy back into the structure of space where it came from. "Any
sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" -- Arthur
C Clarke.
Maybe someday. :-)
I thought about writing a sci-fi story about that once. I'm wondering if the
electrostatic and thermal forces and internal propulsion/repulsion could
balance the internal gravity of such a civilization developing in the middle
of empty space using zero-point energy. Or if it would all collapse in a
black hole? We'll probably find out galaxies are all examples of someone
doing that with some funky self-replicating devices they shipped out for
some religious or aesthetic reason. :-)
--Paul Fernhout