For more on supply and demand and new sources see yesterday's "Another Post On Glass, This Time With "The Alchemist's Fallacy" (And Professor Nordhaus)"
Anyhoo, here's platinum over the last year:
An asteroid said to contain up to $5.4 trillion worth of platinum reserves will be making a close approach to planet Earth this evening, July 19th.
At half a kilometre across, asteroid 2011 UW-158 is too small to be spotted by the human eye, even though it will come 30 times closer to Earth – about 1.5 million miles away – than Mars, the nearest planet. Astronomers will be searching for the valuable space rock through telescopes tonight.
"What makes this unusual is the large amount of platinum believed to be lurking in the body of this space visitor. Can it be mined someday, perhaps not too far in the future?" said Bob Berman of Sloosh Community Observatory, which links telescopes to the Internet thus making viewing accessible to anyone with a Web browser.
Scientists believe the asteroid could contain up to 90 million tonnes of platinum and other precious metals.
The appearance of the asteroid comes just three days after asteroid mining company Planetary Resources successfully deployed Thursday its first spacecraft from the International Space Station’s (ISS) Kibo airlock, beginning a 90-day mission aimed to test extraterrestrial prospecting technology.
The Arkyd 3 Reflight (A3R), launched to the ISS onboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 last April, will spend its three-month orbiting mission sending back data to a group of scientists based at the firm’s headquarters in Redmond, WA.
According to Sloosh, Planetary Resources has categorized 2011 UW-158 as an "X-type" asteroid that is suitable for mining. The company is interested in exploiting the asteroid for platinum and possibly water....MORE
"The Price of Gold in the Year 2160"
