Jack Havig has very little knowledge of what will transpire in the War of Judgment. No one in the immediate aftermath is able to give him any coherent account and he himself must look out for radioactivity and cannibals while fleetingly visiting that period. It is not the kind of World War III anticipated during the Cold War. He thinks that it is more ecological than ideological. We have analyzed his reflections before. (Also, here.)
Poul Anderson could have written a novel about the causes, course and consequences of the War of Judgment but instead wrote a series of stories about its longer term consequences and also this novel in which time travellers from before the War must cope with post-War conditions. In this context, it makes sense that they do not know what happened so neither do we.
With gym this morning and a meeting this evening, today is a sparse day for posts but we never know what might happen later.
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I feel bound to point out Anderson made a serious mistake in the Maurai short stories, where we see him thinking metals would become extremely rare and costly. Recall how Stirling explained that would not be the case, because of both plenty of metal artifacts and sources of iron ore that could be mind. We see Anderson walking back from that error in ORION SHALL RISE, which thereby does not quite fit neatly into the background of the first Maurai stories.
Ad astra! Sean
This makes MAURAI, ORION SHALL RISE and THERE WILL BE TIME a fascinating set of interconnected narratives.
Kaor, Paul!
Correction, "mined," not "mind."
It does, what you said re the three titles you listed, readers needing to keep in mind ORION might belong in an alternate Maurai timeline.
Ad astra! Sean
I think I pointed out that prior to the Industrial Revolution, local small-scale sources of iron ore were used.
Nevertheless, iron production increased over time -- the Roman Empire at its height produced about 80K tons of iron for 50-70 million people; in 1775, the US-to-be produced 35K tons for 2.5 million people.
But that 1775 level of production could have gone on for an indefinite future. It would shift around due to exhaustion of particular deposits, but there were always more.
In fact, trees to produce charcoal were usually the limiting factor -- that's why English iron production stagnated until coke from coal was substituted in the mid to late 18th century, and why production shifted to the American colonies, Scandinavia and Russia.
The reason small local deposits weren't mined any more wasn't that they were exhausted, it was that they weren't -economic- with large-scale industrial iron and steel production.
It made more economic sense to mine even very remote large-scale deposits, and transport the ore, than to waste resources bulking many local small deposits.
The Earth is essentially made of iron. Most of it's in the core, and inaccessible, but there's lots in the crust too.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And I've thought more than once that if mining companies find asteroids rich in iron and other metals that would help in getting off this rock. A single asteroid might have far more easily accessible iron than all the mines on Earth!
Ad astra! Sean
What an iron rich asteroid would *really* be valuable for is the siderophile elements eg: platinum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldschmidt_classification#Siderophile_elements
Iron is common enough in the earth's crust that importing it from space seems unlikely to ever be economic. Mining an asteroid like Psyche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16_Psyche would best be done to use the iron for in space use and send siderophile elements to earth where they are rare & valuable.
Kaor, Jim!
You're right, I erred. Iron is too common and easily accessible on Earth to make it worthwhile importing it from asteroid mines. Iron from asteroids is best used by off Earth colonies. Rarer metals of the kind you cited are more likely to be exported to Earth.
Ad astra! Sean
The thing about asteroidal iron is that it's already very nearly pure, with valuable trace elements. So you don't need to use energy much to refine it. And it comes in big, pure 'lumps'.
https://ptable.com/
One option (way down the sidebar on the left side) is abundance in various places, like the earth's crust, the sun, or meteors. Comparing crustal with meteoric abundance gives an idea of what might be worth mining from asteroids for use on earth.
Element Crust Meteor
Iron 6.3 22
Cobalt .0030 .059
Nickel .0089 1.3
Copper .0068 .011
Aside from the platinum group metals, Nickel is also a few orders of magnitude more abundant in asteroids than the earth's crust, so importing it from asteroids might be worth doing.
Copper is so useful that it's too bad it isn't more abundant in asteroids. Maybe it gets usefully concentrated in the deep sea not springs. If so mining the deposits from the dead ones might be worth doing & not badly destructive environmentally.
Kaor, to Both!
I like these ideas. So much so I should think seriously of buying stock in asteroid mining companies.
Ad astra! Sean
More reason not to expect iron to be imported to earth from the asteroids.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/geologists-uncover-earth-s-largest-iron-ore-deposit-in-history-worth-5-7-trillion/ar-AA1MXuSa?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=9999bfe5660c4305e47928901df09eaf&ei=4
Kaor, Jim!
That's great! And it certainly bears out Stirling's comments about how common iron is on Earth.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment