Lanthanum mining
- Thread starter Hemdian
- Start date
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
I used to by various metals and metal shapes by the truckload for manufacturing stuff for years. The big mills all have contracts with their raw material suppliers. If you were some smalltime mining outfit, you'd first have to find a buyer for your refined metal. It's more likely you'd have to just sell the ore to the refinery / smelter, and they'd then mix yours in with their other sources. A single asteroid even with say hundreds of thousands of tons of raw ore that would produce thousands of tons of metal when refined, is going to take quite a while to mine out.
The smelter / refinery would then sell ingots or whatever the base unit is to a company that produces shapes. Let's say the Lanthanum has to be shaped as seamless tubing. There'd be some company that takes the ingots and turns them into tubing. Then they would sell that tubing to wholesalers who people like me would buy from. To go direct to the tubing manufacturer you need to be buying railcar loads or greater of that material / shape.
Each layer adds cost to the final product.
Refining Lanthanum is a pretty involved process if you look it up. But Lanthanum isn't all that rare. On Earth it is about three times more abundant than lead. Most of the cost in getting it into metal form is taken up with the refining process that involves multiple chemical extraction processes.
The smelter / refinery would then sell ingots or whatever the base unit is to a company that produces shapes. Let's say the Lanthanum has to be shaped as seamless tubing. There'd be some company that takes the ingots and turns them into tubing. Then they would sell that tubing to wholesalers who people like me would buy from. To go direct to the tubing manufacturer you need to be buying railcar loads or greater of that material / shape.
Each layer adds cost to the final product.
Refining Lanthanum is a pretty involved process if you look it up. But Lanthanum isn't all that rare. On Earth it is about three times more abundant than lead. Most of the cost in getting it into metal form is taken up with the refining process that involves multiple chemical extraction processes.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Metal extraction from ore is trivial once you have TL9 - cheap fusion power and gravity control.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
Lanthanum is extracted chemically, as are many other metals. In some cases, it is a necessity to do it that way, in others, it's cheaper, cleaner, and easier than smelting.
For example, low grade copper ore is extracted chemically using sulphuric acid. So, regardless of tech level, smelting becomes less desirable in many cases making cheap energy irrelevant to the process.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
It is only necessary to do it by chemical extraction because we don't have TL9 cheap fusion produced electricity for the electrolysis of the molten ore and the ability to manipulate gravity to make the fractional distillation of molten metals trivial.
I know all about chemical extraction as it is used here in the TL7 real world - my point is that low cost fusion based electricity would make electrolysis of the molten ore the method of choice. No nasty chemicals, separation achieved by simple fractional distillation of molten metals and a lot cheaper.
There is no scientific or engineering requirement for chemical extraction, the main reason for utilising chemical extraction is simple economics - which method is cheapest.
I know all about chemical extraction as it is used here in the TL7 real world - my point is that low cost fusion based electricity would make electrolysis of the molten ore the method of choice. No nasty chemicals, separation achieved by simple fractional distillation of molten metals and a lot cheaper.
There is no scientific or engineering requirement for chemical extraction, the main reason for utilising chemical extraction is simple economics - which method is cheapest.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Early fusion reactor is technological level eight.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
So are nullgrav modules - TL9 gets you the maneuver drive so you can more easily exploit the asteroids you wish to mine.
The Characters would be getting the raw ore prices.
Now, if their ship has a refinery on board, or they own a refinery, they could get the refined ore prices.
If the Characters don't know how to mine the ore, let alone refine it, then they sell the location of the asteroid for a price based on how much raw ore the asteroid can produce.
Now, if their ship has a refinery on board, or they own a refinery, they could get the refined ore prices.
If the Characters don't know how to mine the ore, let alone refine it, then they sell the location of the asteroid for a price based on how much raw ore the asteroid can produce.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
Not in the case of many metals and elements. Lanthanum is almost always found mixed with several other rare earth elements. Chemical separation using acid is far more efficient than simply heating the ore to extract the metals. This is because you can extract the other elements along with the Lanthanum chemically then separate each for processing into an end product.
Since the chemical process takes place at low temperatures, it makes it easier to manage, and the acid used is recoverable and reusable. It can also be varied to make a selection of metal alloys and oxides that have applications in industry.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Chemical extraction requires you to have the chemicals, a fusion power plant can heat the ore using a laser, trap the gas in a gravitational field, then separate by fractional distillation.
You could even just use vast solar panels to generate the electricity to melt and then electrolise the asteroid. Simple separation of the various metals is then trivial using a variety of possible electro-magnetic-gravitic techniques.
Much cheaper than manufacturing all those nasty chemicals and moving them around a system.
You could even just use vast solar panels to generate the electricity to melt and then electrolise the asteroid. Simple separation of the various metals is then trivial using a variety of possible electro-magnetic-gravitic techniques.
Much cheaper than manufacturing all those nasty chemicals and moving them around a system.
Don’t forget the third major tech, nuclear force manipulation.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
So technological level tree availability has an effect on efficiency.
Thanks for all the ideas. I think between this thread, posing the same question on FB, some MgT books, and the trade tables on David Jaques-Watson's site, I think I have my answer. Since this is a T5 campaign, the MgT material will need some converting but, from what I've read so far, that looks to be trivial.
Some of you suggested I throw some spanners in the works. Here's what I'm doing:
The players are Traveller newbies and the game is set in the Regina subsector at the end of 1106. The asteroid is in the 871-438 system (Jewell subsector) and for 'reasons', they won't be able to act on this until early 1108 ... and they have no idea the 5FW is about to start. In other words, it's going to be behind enemy lines during a war. Currently, they have an unarmed detached duty Type-S (no mining equipment and a really small cargo hold) and none of the PCs have any experience mining. Plus, of course, they'll almost certainly be re-drafted once the war starts. Is that enough spanners?
Obviously, the logical solution would be to just sell the claim (and before the war starts) but that's not their plan right now. So I'm thinking of introducing them to a small mining outfit they could team up with. That should make them happy until the other shoe drops.
Some of you suggested I throw some spanners in the works. Here's what I'm doing:
The players are Traveller newbies and the game is set in the Regina subsector at the end of 1106. The asteroid is in the 871-438 system (Jewell subsector) and for 'reasons', they won't be able to act on this until early 1108 ... and they have no idea the 5FW is about to start. In other words, it's going to be behind enemy lines during a war. Currently, they have an unarmed detached duty Type-S (no mining equipment and a really small cargo hold) and none of the PCs have any experience mining. Plus, of course, they'll almost certainly be re-drafted once the war starts. Is that enough spanners?
Obviously, the logical solution would be to just sell the claim (and before the war starts) but that's not their plan right now. So I'm thinking of introducing them to a small mining outfit they could team up with. That should make them happy until the other shoe drops.
Last edited:
I haven't needed to go into detail in game yet (but soon will) so I'm still playing around with the figures. But I thinking of a 10K dtons asteroid. Not sure about the type, but it has an abnormally high lanthanum content. Maybe a [4D]% overall yield with the proportion of that that is precious metals (ie. lanthanum) being 4 times standard (thus the other stuff being correspondingly less)?
Similar threads
