A recent episode of a science fiction series introduced the discovery of an asteroid containing around 70,000 tons of iridium. Currently global iridium production is around 7 tons per year, so that’s around 10,000 years worth. However, it still isn’t an especially huge amount, representing less than one day’s worth of steel mass produced, for example. It is claimed that the iridium from the asteroid would trigger a technological revolution.
So–what are things we can we do with a “lump sum” of 70,000 tons of iridium that we can’t do because of the current rate of 7 tons per year. I’m thinking more revolutionary than more pen nubs and spark plugs.
Iridium is valuable because it is rare. This makes it not rare in a moment.
Best to sell it a little bit at a time over many years.
Given its rarity I can’t imagine there is a big market for it. Industry gets along fine without it so they will not be beating a path to your door for it.
That is the problem - until something is common enough, it’s hard to figure out what you would use it for if it was common. Metallic aluminum was a decorative metal before it was common enough for use in everything
Eh…I think material science is far enough along to know what uses they have for iridium.
Which, so far, amount to spark plugs and fountain-pen nibs. A few other things too. But, while valuable, I don’t think there is a massive market for it that would be happy to gobble up 70,000 tons in a day (or week or month or year).
Reading the Wikipedia article on iridium, its advantages seem to be corrosion resistance, hardness and heat resistance. So would it be useful as an exterior skin on buildings, or in vehicle production?
70,000 tons of iridium (doesn’t matter what type of ton you use for this back of the envelope stuff) is a sphere less than 60 feet in diameter. Or think of it as around a third of an ounce each for everyone on Earth. Not enough to use in lots of bulk in construction projects.
The Washington Monument is topped with aluminum, the top of the pyramidion is a large, marble capstone with a small aluminum pyramid at its apex, with inscriptions on all four sides. (Wikicite: third paragraph of a long article)
Confusing future Alvarezes is a worthy endeavour, but I guess 70,000 tons of iridium would be best put to use as catalizers. I guess it would be useful to make hydrogen.
If no one else wants it, I would take it. I think I know where to store it. It’s not like it would rust when exposed to the elements.
I remember a chemistry paper from the 90s talking about how one advantage of their iridium catalyst was that it was so much cheaper than palladium. That was definitely not the case when I was working on iridium catalysts 15 years later (PGM prices fluctuate wildly.)