 | The Bullroarer - Tuesday 12 August 2008 | The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand | National Energy Essay Competition |  |
68 comments on The Hydrogen Economy and Peak Platinum
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
68 comments on The Hydrogen Economy and Peak Platinum
Comments can no longer be added to this story.
| Show without comments | PDF version
User login
Contact
- anz at theoildrum dot com
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Archives
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
GAIA Host Collective
A related article from the SMH today - Platinum shortfall expected to increase
I don't work in PGMs, but it seems to me that significant platinum production comes from Layered Mafic Intrusions(LMIs). LMIs were all emplaced back in the Archean, and Mother Nature "don't make them anymore". Unless you have very old continental shield basement exposed, you just don't have LMI's.
The exploration model for LMI's is pretty advanced and the places available to look for LMI's are pretty limited. I could be wrong, but I think Stillwater in Montana, USA was the last major new LMI platinum deposit discovered/put into production.
There are Alaskan/Ural-type ultramafic intrusive platinum deposits, but again there is a fairly well-understood exploration model. I wonder just how much potential there is to expand platinum production. Arctic Canada and arctic Siberia are tough places to operate mines. Exploration for platinum underway in the arctic of Finland demonstrates some of the difficulties.
So aside from hydrogen's thermodynamic problems, I have doubts about the capacity of the world's platinum miners to maintain production, especially in the face of dramatically higher fuel and equipment costs.
"I don't work in PGMs, but it seems to me that significant platinum production comes from Layered Mafic Intrusions(LMIs). LMIs were all emplaced back in the Archean, and Mother Nature "don't make them anymore"."
They would have that in common with a lot of geological features. I can assure you that they are out there and they are still being discovered and explored. I'm a shareholder in a company (Magma Metals) which is exploring for PGM in Canada. They are finding plenty of platinum but little investor interest due to the falling platinum price. If the market senses low demand then the price drops and resource companies will shelve their projects (and vice versa). Its not a matter of there being an arbitrary limit to discoveries or production its simple economics. If Magna does not prove up a reserve or enter production it will be because the economics aren't good - not because the platinum isn't there.
As with all minerals, higher prices lead to greater supply through:
-increased investment in exploration
-increased investment in production
-production from lower grade sources which may previously have been un-economic.
-recycling of metal (which may have previously been uneconomic)
they also lead to lower demand through:
-substitution (e.g. with palladium)
-technological innovation to reduce platinum requirements(e.g Nissan this week announced it had halved the amount of platinum used in its fuel cell stack).
-technological developments to replace platinum (as several R&D teams have recently announced).
I would add that the same arguments being raised against platinum are also being leveled at lithium and the same economic counter-arguments apply.
Like Bryant, I'm a geologist, and also like him, I don't work in platinum (or platinum group elements, PGE, which include palladium and several similar metals). I'd probably agree with both of you, though. As has been discussed previously on TOD, you can always extract more metals from low grade or small deposits, or from tailings, or (unlike oil) via recycling, given sufficient need and the right price. Ultimately, however, this will probably boil down into an energy cost, and the total amounts are still limited by geology, which is Bryant's point.
As you state, lots of platinum remains, at the proper price, and substitution is possible if the price gets too high. Not mentioned yet is, e.g., the huge Dufek layered mafic intrusion in Antarctica, which LMI is presumed to contain much platinum (e.g. Maarten De Wit's 1985 book "Minerals and Mining in Antarctica"). Far more speculatively, the Moon is presumed to contain abundant platinum in either LMI's or dissolved in the iron of fallen meteorites (e.g., "Moonrush by Dennis Wingo, 2004). Slightly (but not much) more reasonably, metallic asteroids presumably would contain practically infinite amounts of recoverable platinum, if they could be placed in low Earth orbit before mining (see "Mining the Sky" by John S. Lewis, 1997). Of course, these "far out" proposals assume both that demand resulting from a runaway hydrogen economy will keep platinum prices literally "sky-high" and that cheap access to space will some day become possible. I won't defend either assumption.
To summarize, whatever valid (practical and thermodynamic) arguments might be raised against the so-called hydrogen economy, an immediate (or ultimate) shortage of catalytic platinum is probably not one of them. On the other hand, if this cornucopian statement sounds just as silly as stating there are more-than-sufficient amounts of recoverable hydrocarbons in oil shales and tar sands (or on Titan), it probably should.
Hydrocarbon fuels consist of complex molecules that have formed under special conditions over geological time scales. Once consumed they are gone for ever (for our purposes). Platinum (and lithium) are simple elements that exist in varying concentrations in the earth's crust but can't really be destroyed.
The pattern of consumption is very different too. Oil and other fossil fuels are energy sources which are burnt (destroyed) in order to do work. Lithium is more analogous to a fuel tank, and platinum to a filter - they aren't the source of the energy. They are consumed as more vehicles are put on the road, rather than miles traveled or work done - so demand for them follows a very different pattern and isn't infinite (unlike demand for energy). Also unlike oil (and other hydrocarbons) they aren't destroyed in their use so may be recycled (if that is economic).
Minerals of all varieties are important to all aspects of daily life. Just because demand exceeds supply from time to time doesn't make a case for it being "peak".
As a side note I have even heard of "peak water" recently. Sure there are regions where supplies of potable water are endangered, but as for the planet running out of the stuff - not likely. The problems and solutions are of an economic and engineering nature. They aren't caused by basic laws of science and the "p" word is once again being abused.
And we won't ever run out of oil, either. I mean, even when oil fields are "dry", 65% or so of the oil remains in place. It's just too much trouble to get out.
The issue with all resources isn't "running out", but rather having much less than we need for the particular way we like to do things. Demand exceeds supply by a large amount.
For example, if we didn't burn fossil fuels, but still used them for plastics, the chemical industry, fertilisers and so on, then at current rates of use we'd have centuries before peak fossil fuels became a serious issue; but we burn the stuff at stupid rates, so peak fossil fuels are an issue today.
Likewise, with our current rate of use of platinum its peaking in production is not really much of an issue; but if we were to use it in fuel cells in a billion or so cars and homes, then it'd very likely be a serious issue.
I have disagree with almost everything in this article, First, Hydrogen, is a worthless storage device. As for Platinum, There has been a significant rise in the price recently, Rhodium rose by 35% over the last three months, The problem is not a shortage of Platinum but a lack of infrastructure to process it. If we were to mine Platinum in Oz we would have to ship it to South Africa for refining. that would be expensive. The other thing that should be pointed out is that to get platinum you need other rare minerals in the PGM group. The only source of Rhodium I know of is in Zimbabwe.
Like I said...I don't do PGMs, but metal mining is pretty much the same the world over. In the gold mining business, higher metal prices are deceiving. The costs of production are accelerating as fast or faster than the the metal price. Despite record gold prices, new exploration and production is problematic, especially given that today's deposits are usually more technically challenging...that's why they were not discovered/mined before.
If you are expecting new, large, accessible and profitable platinum deposits to "appear" as a result of higher platinum prices/demand...you might as well wish for a pony too.
Rhodium is about 80% from South Africa and this year the 20 tons produced will be worth more than the gold (about 6 billion dollars). Rhodium is in a huge bubble (up 20 fold) that is due to burst (maybe already has).
Thanks for the Rhodium info, and yes it is in a huge bubble, Merril Lynch have to get those 35% profits from somewhere It is worth a lot more than Platinum though because it is rare, I thought that Rhodium was an essential element in the process of refining Platinum, and it is also essential for catalytic converters. I wish my memory was better, but I seem to have the idea that Rhodium and Platinum have some special link, i.e. you cant get platinum without rhodium. and this is why most platinum deposits are not viable.
However you can allways get rhodium from spent nuclear fuel.
Nuclear enthusiasts often throw in the partitioning argument, but partitioning with high efficacy is not easy nor proven to be viable on a full commercial scale.
Something doesn't add up. The figure of 0.2 oz costing $90 was mentioned in the text (UK transport) yet platinum is $1470/oz.
At .2oz X $1470= $300 the device would be a magnet for thieves.