tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/planetary-resources-5160/articlesPlanetary resources – The Conversation2014-10-01T19:46:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/322242014-10-01T19:46:41Z2014-10-01T19:46:41ZLife in a ‘degrowth’ economy, and why you might actually enjoy it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60497/original/v8gsgy6r-1412143664.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4181%2C2791&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Time to get off the economic growth train?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What does genuine economic progress look like? The orthodox answer is that a bigger economy is always better, but this idea is increasingly strained by the knowledge that, on a finite planet, the economy can’t grow for ever. </p>
<p>This week’s <a href="http://www.ies.unsw.edu.au/about-us/news-activities/2014/03/addicted-growth-how-move-steady-state-economy-australia">Addicted to Growth</a> conference in Sydney is exploring how to move beyond growth economics and towards a “steady-state” economy. </p>
<p>But what is a steady-state economy? Why it is it desirable or necessary? And what would it be like to live in?</p>
<h2>The global predicament</h2>
<p>We used to live on a planet that was relatively empty of humans; today it is full to overflowing, with more people consuming more resources. We would need <a href="http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/world_footprint">one and a half Earths</a> to sustain the existing economy into the future. Every year this ecological overshoot continues, the foundations of our existence, and that of other species, are undermined.</p>
<p>At the same time, there are great multitudes around the world who are, by any humane standard, under-consuming, and the humanitarian challenge of eliminating global poverty is likely to increase the burden on ecosystems still further. </p>
<p>Meanwhile the population is set to hit <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/09/17/science.1257469.abstract">11 billion</a> this century. Despite this, the richest nations still seek to grow their economies without apparent limit. </p>
<p>Like a snake eating its own tail, our growth-orientated civilisation suffers from the delusion that there are no environmental <a href="http://www.sustainable.unimelb.edu.au/files/mssi/MSSI-ResearchPaper-4_Turner_2014.pdf">limits to growth</a>. But rethinking growth in an age of limits cannot be avoided. The only question is whether it will be by design or disaster. </p>
<h2>Degrowth to a steady-state economy</h2>
<p>The idea of the steady-state economy presents us with an alternative. This term is somewhat misleading, however, because it suggests that we simply need to maintain the size of the existing economy and stop seeking further growth. </p>
<p>But given the extent of ecological overshoot – and bearing in mind that the poorest nations still need some room to develop their economies and allow the poorest billions to attain a dignified level of existence – the transition will require the richest nations to downscale radically their resource and energy demands. </p>
<p>This realisation has given rise to calls for economic “<a href="http://simplicityinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/DegrowthandtheCarbonBudgetSamuelAlexander1.pdf">degrowth</a>”. To be distinguished from recession, degrowth means a phase of planned and equitable economic contraction in the richest nations, eventually reaching a steady state that operates within Earth’s biophysical limits. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60496/original/zkj26x7v-1412143444.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60496/original/zkj26x7v-1412143444.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60496/original/zkj26x7v-1412143444.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60496/original/zkj26x7v-1412143444.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60496/original/zkj26x7v-1412143444.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60496/original/zkj26x7v-1412143444.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60496/original/zkj26x7v-1412143444.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60496/original/zkj26x7v-1412143444.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">In a world of 7.2 billion and counting, we need to think hard about our fair share.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Karpov Oleg/Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>At this point, mainstream economists will accuse degrowth advocates of misunderstanding the potential of technology, markets, and efficiency gains to “decouple” economic growth from environmental impact. But there is no misunderstanding here. Everyone knows that we could produce and consume more efficiently than we do today. The problem is that efficiency without sufficiency is lost. </p>
<p>Despite decades of extraordinary technological advancement and huge efficiency improvements, the energy and resource demands of the global economy are <a href="http://www.postcarbonpathways.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/1_Critique_of_Techno_Optimism.pdf">still increasing</a>. This is because within a growth-orientated economy, efficiency gains tend to be reinvested in more consumption and more growth, rather than in reducing impact. </p>
<p>This is the defining, critical flaw in growth economics: the false assumption that all economies across the globe can continue growing while radically reducing environmental impact to a sustainable level. The extent of decoupling required is simply too great. As we try unsuccessfully to “green” capitalism, we see the face of Gaia vanishing.</p>
<p>The very lifestyles that were once considered the definition of success are now proving to be our greatest failure. Attempting to universalise affluence would be catastrophic. There is absolutely no way that today’s 7.2 billion people could live the Western way of life, let alone the 11 billion expected in the future. Genuine progress now lies beyond growth. Tinkering around the edges of capitalism will not cut it. </p>
<p>We need an alternative. </p>
<h2>Enough for everyone, forever</h2>
<p>When one first hears calls for degrowth, it is easy to think that this new economic vision must be about hardship and deprivation; that it means going back to the stone age, resigning ourselves to a stagnant culture, or being anti-progress. Not so.</p>
<p>Degrowth would liberate us from the burden of pursuing material excess. We simply don’t need so much stuff – certainly not if it comes at the cost of planetary health, social justice, and personal well-being. Consumerism is a gross failure of imagination, a debilitating addiction that degrades nature and doesn’t even satisfy the universal human craving for meaning. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60494/original/jfc32m6x-1412143245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60494/original/jfc32m6x-1412143245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/60494/original/jfc32m6x-1412143245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60494/original/jfc32m6x-1412143245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60494/original/jfc32m6x-1412143245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60494/original/jfc32m6x-1412143245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60494/original/jfc32m6x-1412143245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/60494/original/jfc32m6x-1412143245.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Do we really need to buy all this stuff anyway?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Radu Bercan/Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Degrowth, by contrast, would involve embracing what has been termed the “<a href="http://simplicityinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/TedTrainerandTheSimplerWay1.pdf">simpler way</a>” – producing and consuming less.</p>
<p>This would be a way of life based on modest material and energy needs but nevertheless rich in other dimensions – a life of frugal abundance. It is about creating an economy based on sufficiency, knowing how much is enough to live well, and discovering that enough is plenty.</p>
<p>The lifestyle implications of degrowth and sufficiency are far more radical than the “light green” forms of sustainable consumption that are widely discussed today. Turning off the lights, taking shorter showers, and recycling are all necessary parts of what sustainability will require of us, but these measures are far from enough. </p>
<p>But this does not mean we must live a life of painful sacrifice. Most of our basic needs can be met in quite simple and low-impact ways, while maintaining a high <a href="http://simplicityinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/YOURDELIGHTFULDAYTrainer1.pdf">quality of life</a>. </p>
<h2>What would life be like in a degrowth society?</h2>
<p>In a degrowth society we would aspire to localise our economies as far and as appropriately as possible. This would assist with reducing carbon-intensive global trade, while also building resilience in the face of an uncertain and turbulent future. </p>
<p>Through forms of direct or participatory democracy we would organise our economies to ensure that everyone’s basic needs are met, and then redirect our energies away from economic expansion. This would be a relatively low-energy mode of living that ran primarily on renewable energy systems. </p>
<p>Renewable energy <a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/08288661311319166">cannot sustain</a> an energy-intensive global society of high-end consumers. A degrowth society embraces the necessity of “energy descent”, turning our energy crises into an opportunity for civilisational renewal. </p>
<p>We would tend to reduce our working hours in the formal economy in exchange for more home-production and leisure. We would have less income, but more freedom. Thus, in our simplicity, we would be rich. </p>
<p>Wherever possible, we would grow our own organic food, water our gardens with water tanks, and turn our neighbourhoods into edible landscapes as the Cubans have done in Havana. As my friend Adam Grubb so delightfully declares, we should “<a href="http://www.eatthesuburbs.org">eat the suburbs</a>”, while supplementing urban agriculture with food from local farmers’ markets.</p>
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<span class="caption">Community gardens, like this one in San Francisco, can help achieve sufficiency.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A2009_BrooksPark_SanFrancisco_3899032980.jpg">Kevin Krejci/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>We do not need to purchase so many new clothes. Let us mend or exchange the clothes we have, buy second-hand, or make our own. In a degrowth society, the fashion and marketing industries would quickly wither away. A new aesthetic of sufficiency would develop, where we creatively re-use and refashion the vast existing stock of clothing and materials, and explore less impactful ways of producing new clothes. </p>
<p>We would become radical recyclers and do-it-yourself experts. This would partly be driven by the fact that we would simply be living in an era of relative scarcity, with reduced discretionary income. </p>
<p>But human beings find creative projects fulfilling, and the challenge of building the new world within the shell of the old promises to be immensely meaningful, even if it will also entail times of trial. The apparent scarcity of goods can also be greatly reduced by scaling up the <a href="http://www.sharing.org/node/365">sharing economy</a>, which would also enrich our communities. </p>
<p>One day, we might even live in cob houses that we build ourselves, but over the next few critical decades the fact is that most of us will be living within the poorly designed urban infrastructure that already exists. We are hardly going to knock it all down and start again. Instead, we must ‘<a href="http://simplicityinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/RetrofittingTheSuburbsSimplicityInstitute1.pdf">retrofit the suburbs</a>’, as leading permaculturalist David Holmgren argues. This would involve doing everything we can to make our homes more energy-efficient, more productive, and probably more densely inhabited. </p>
<p>This is not the eco-future that we are shown in glossy design magazines featuring million-dollar “green homes” that are prohibitively expensive. </p>
<p>Degrowth offers a more humble – and I would say more realistic – vision of a sustainable future.</p>
<h2>Making the change</h2>
<p>A degrowth transition to a steady-state economy could happen in a <a href="http://simplicityinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/The-Deep-Green-Alternative.pdf">variety</a> of ways. But the nature of this alternative vision suggests that the changes will need to be driven from the “bottom up”, rather than imposed from the “top down”. </p>
<p>What I have written above highlights a few of the personal and household aspects of a degrowth society based on sufficiency (for much more detail, see <a href="http://simplicityinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/TheSufficiencyEconomy3.pdf">here</a> and <a href="http://www.bookofentropia.com">here</a>). Meanwhile, the ‘<a href="https://www.transitionnetwork.org">transition towns</a>’ movement shows how whole communities can engage with the idea. </p>
<p>But it is critical to acknowledge the <a href="http://simplicityinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/OvercomingBarrierstoSustainableConsumptionReport-12b.pdf">social and structural constraints</a> that currently make it much more difficult than it needs to be to adopt a lifestyle of sustainable consumption. For example, it is hard to drive less in the absence of safe bike lanes and good public transport; it is hard find a work-life balance if access to basic housing burdens us with excessive debt; and it is hard to re-imagine the good life if we are constantly bombarded with advertisements insisting that “nice stuff” is the key to happiness. </p>
<p>Actions at the personal and household levels will never be enough, on their own, to achieve a steady-state economy. We need to create new, post-capitalist structures and systems that promote, rather than inhibit, the simpler way of life. These wider changes will never emerge, however, until we have a culture that demands them. So first and foremost, the revolution that is needed is a revolution in consciousness. </p>
<p>I do not present these ideas under the illusion that they will be readily accepted. The ideology of growth clearly has a firm grip on our society and beyond. Rather, I hold up degrowth up as the most coherent framework for understanding the global predicament and signifying the only desirable way out of it. </p>
<p>The alternative is to consume ourselves to death under the false banner of “green growth”, which would not be smart economics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32224/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Alexander does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>What does genuine economic progress look like? The orthodox answer is that a bigger economy is always better, but this idea is increasingly strained by the knowledge that, on a finite planet, the economy…Samuel Alexander, Research fellow, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/216262013-12-18T23:38:38Z2013-12-18T23:38:38ZDeath, the universe and everything<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/38209/original/4tvfk522-1387407697.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">desert sunrise</span> </figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center zoomable">
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<span class="caption">Sunrise or sunset? Our host star is both the creator and destroyer of all life.</span>
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<p>The Earth’s biosphere teems with life. From its upper atmosphere to the depths of its oceans, even down into the rocks that make up the <a href="http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/extreme/endoliths/index.html">planet’s crust</a>. All of it, all these billions of tonnes of carbon-based lifeforms will at some point cease to metabolise, cease to reproduce, cease to be alive. At which point their substance returns to the great biogeochemical cycles and in time becomes something else. </p>
<p>Rather than being morbid, reflecting on death and what it means in a planetary perspective can lead us to better appreciate our lives, and what we may achieve during them.</p>
<p>Every species currently alive will one day become extinct. Around <a href="http://paleobiology.si.edu/geotime/main/foundation_life4.html">99.9% of all species</a> that have existed have shuffled off that way. They had their time on Earth, and then that particular sequence of genetic information was lost forever. Evolution is nothing if not profligate.</p>
<p>Even the Earth’s biosphere, the environment that sustains us and everything else, will one day die. Our sun is a yellow dwarf (that something 333,000 times more massive than the Earth is a “dwarf” gives some indication of just how big stars can be). Over the course of its 4.5 billion years lifetime, our sun has <a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/faint-young-sun">increased in brightness</a> by about 25%. It will continue to do so over the next couple of billion years, during which it will consume millions of tonnes of hydrogen fuel every single second. Stellar evolution too, is nothing if not profligate.</p>
<p>As the sun decreases in mass, the gravitational forces that keep it together lessen, and so it expands in size. This greater surface area will radiate more and more energy down onto the Earth. Eventually <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/earth/earth_timeline/future_earth">the oceans will boil</a> and the solar wind will blow the atmosphere into space. Lighter rocks will be eroded away to leave a molten ball of metal that may even be consumed by the sun itself, if it expands far enough to reach the Earth’s orbit around it.</p>
<p>So if the Earth is the only planet in the universe that has life, and if we assume that <em>Homo sapiens</em> will go the way of all other species – perhaps distinguishing itself with self-obliteration in some socio-ecological catastrophe before being able to establish colonies on other planets – then that would be the end of our universe’s experiment with animated matter. Life, to put it another way.</p>
<p>This is perhaps the bleakest perspective on the fundamentally finite nature of life. It should be immediately mitigated with the realisation that it’s quite possible there are a <a href="http://kepler.nasa.gov">staggeringly large number</a> of planets in our galaxy alone, not to mention the rest of the universe. Many potential homes for life in the cosmos. However, this doesn’t address the finiteness of <em>our</em> being. What does it matter if bug-eyed aliens are boggling at our biosphere’s life signature through their telescopes light years away? We don’t want to die.</p>
<p>There are clear evolutionary advantages in having a strong aversion to dying. In one sense, our entire bodies are built to ensure we survive. We sometimes fight for our lives. We battle cancer. Wars are often great spurs for developments in science and technology. Our conflict with mortality has in the past few centuries produced major increases in the average human lifespan, and overall quality of life. Alas, such improvements have not been uniformly distributed, so while about a <a href="http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats">billion go hungry</a>, a further <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs311/en/">billion over-eat</a> with many dying much sooner than would be otherwise expected. The collateral damage of industrialisation that powered such advances threatens to significantly undo some of our most impressive achievements. Rather than more of everything, there are very good arguments for distributing what we have more equitably so that we can provide a <a href="http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/a-safe-and-just-space-for-humanity-can-we-live-within-the-doughnut-210490">safe and just space for humanity</a>.</p>
<p>The matter that we borrow for our bodies is subject to the ultimate <a href="http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_fate.html">fate of the Universe</a>. You may believe that your soul or spirit could even survive the end of spacetime as we know it. What we do know is that our physical bodies will at some point perish. You can amass wealth and possessions beyond imagination. None of this will change the fact that you are going to die.</p>
<p>What will last – not forever, but potentially centuries into the future, perhaps even beyond the lifetime of our species – is the impact that you have on the biosphere. That’s quite an awesome responsibility. It is also an opportunity to have something survive your death: those things you value here on Earth, and with them your hopes that others will enjoy them when their time comes to live on our home planet.</p>
<p>“<em>There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.</em>”
Frank Herbert</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/21626/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The Earth’s biosphere teems with life. From its upper atmosphere to the depths of its oceans, even down into the rocks that make up the planet’s crust. All of it, all these billions of tonnes of carbon-based…James Dyke, Lecturer in Complex Systems Simulation, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/132222013-04-04T19:31:27Z2013-04-04T19:31:27ZBuy, sell, lift-off: the global economy is going interplanetary<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22022/original/ppdckd4n-1364969889.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The commercialisation of space is already underway.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rick Sternbach/Keck Institute for Space Studies</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Harvesting space resources will raise living standards worldwide, without further damaging Earth. So how can those resources be tapped in a way that will produce a return on investment?</p>
<p>That question may have been hypothetical in the past; now, it’s of pressing concern.</p>
<p>In February, the centre I work for at UNSW <a href="http://www.acser.unsw.edu.au/oemf/">hosted a forum</a> on an exotic topic: mining the resources on asteroids and the moon. It brought together space engineers, world-class Australian miners, and some Australian experts in fields such as robotics.</p>
<p>The event followed <a href="http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/01/23/deep-space-industries-the-company-that-wants-to-mine-space/">announcements of some start-ups</a> in off-Earth mining, some of which had <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/25/science/space/washington-company-is-working-to-mine-asteroids.html?_r=1&">powerful backers</a>. It seemed like a typical, low-key academic exercise.</p>
<p>To our surprise, the forum received <a href="http://www.acser.unsw.edu.au/oemf/Media.html">international media attention</a>. We were exhausted by a week’s worth of constant <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-18/mining-forum-looks-to-asteroids/4525582">TV and radio interviews</a>. No-one expected this, and we’re still struggling to understand it.</p>
<p>Interest may have been fuelled by some of the novel space accomplishments of the last year:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>a commercial company, <a href="https://theconversation.com/spacex-launch-the-age-of-commercial-spaceflight-is-here-7107">SpaceX</a>, has built an unmanned spacecraft that has <a href="http://www.spacex.com/dragon.php">twice rendezvoused</a> and attached to the International Space Station (ISS)</p></li>
<li><p>NASA is testing robots at the ISS for <a href="http://ssco.gsfc.nasa.gov/robotic_refueling_mission.html">refuelling satellites on orbit</a></p></li>
<li><p>the Curiosity rover is <a href="http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/news/whatsnew/index.cfm?FuseAction=ShowNews&NewsID=1423">drilling rocks on Mars</a>: just as one might prospect for minerals on an asteroid</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22024/original/qcdhcw2z-1364970465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22024/original/qcdhcw2z-1364970465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22024/original/qcdhcw2z-1364970465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22024/original/qcdhcw2z-1364970465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22024/original/qcdhcw2z-1364970465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22024/original/qcdhcw2z-1364970465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22024/original/qcdhcw2z-1364970465.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Curiosity’s first sample drilling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These high-profile missions are in the collective consciousness, and many people may know preliminary plans are underway for an <a href="http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/awx_03_28_2013_p0-564163.xml">asteroid-capture mission</a>.</p>
<p>Such space feats also suggest that the technology is more in hand than one realised – more science-fact than science-fiction.</p>
<p>The challenge now is to establish viable businesses, and the economics must be clarified to bring investors to the table.</p>
<h2>For what it’s worth</h2>
<p>What are space resources even worth? Consider the asteroid, named 2012 DA14, that <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/asteroidflyby.html">buzzed past the Earth in February</a>. One valuation of its water and mineral contents was <a href="http://www.space.com/19758-asteroid-worth-billions-2012-da14-flyby.html">US$195 billion</a>. Another was <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2013/02/13/no-asteroid-2021-da14-isnt-worth-195-billion-whatever-deep-space-industries-says/">zero</a>. </p>
<p>Well, that’s helpful.</p>
<p>Such ambiguity arises from the lack of market definition. One could bring resources back to Earth, where markets exist. There are valuable resources out there, such as the platinum and diamonds known to be on asteroids. </p>
<p>But terrestrial market prices probably do not support the costs of obtaining solar system minerals.</p>
<p>By contrast, resources obtained <em>and used</em> in space have an inherent value: the avoided cost of launching equivalent resources from Earth. Today that’s at least US$7 million a tonne to low Earth orbit, and perhaps three times that to higher orbits. That represents an attractive price for those resources. </p>
<p>But markets for in-space uses of space-obtained resources are currently hypothetical: filling <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/news/budget/fy11_fueldepot.html">fuel depots</a> to make interplanetary travel more efficient; processing <em>in-situ</em> resources to <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/analogs/isru/">support human settlements</a>; building <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/niac/mankins_sps_alpha.html">orbiting solar power stations</a> to beam clean energy to Earth.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22042/original/jkx4nkjk-1365035771.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22042/original/jkx4nkjk-1365035771.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22042/original/jkx4nkjk-1365035771.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22042/original/jkx4nkjk-1365035771.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=467&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22042/original/jkx4nkjk-1365035771.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22042/original/jkx4nkjk-1365035771.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22042/original/jkx4nkjk-1365035771.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Large orbiting space solar power station.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NASA/Kennedy Space Center/NextGen</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Resources that will be valuable in space will not be the ones that could be sold back on Earth. As a colleague <a href="http://www.acser.unsw.edu.au/oemf/presentations.html">said at our forum</a>: “If you’re stranded in the desert, gold is useless and water is priceless.” </p>
<p>The two most valuable commodities could be construction materials (for the structure, say, of a huge space solar power station) and water (processed into rocket fuel, or used for human habitation).</p>
<h2>Emerging markets</h2>
<p>How will space resources markets emerge? Some people have suggested they will come to the fore via a <a href="http://www.claytonchristensen.com/key-concepts/">disruptive innovation</a> model, whereby a lower-quality, lower-cost product makes small inroads into an existing market, the profits fund product improvement and, eventually, the new product dominates. </p>
<p>But since there is no existing space market, this would seem unlikely.</p>
<p>Perhaps the commercial aviation industry provides a better model. This market, so critical to the global economy, <a href="http://web.mit.edu/airlinedata/www/Documents/Traffic%20and%20Capacity/Traffic%20and%20Capacity%20Charts.pdf">has grown for decades at 4% even in the US</a>, and 5% worldwide. As we all know, that industry began modestly. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22046/original/qk97zzvh-1365036515.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22046/original/qk97zzvh-1365036515.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22046/original/qk97zzvh-1365036515.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22046/original/qk97zzvh-1365036515.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22046/original/qk97zzvh-1365036515.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22046/original/qk97zzvh-1365036515.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22046/original/qk97zzvh-1365036515.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Qantas ancestor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gordon Roesler</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Government investments, such as air-mail services and air traffic control systems, were critical to aviation’s early growth and ultimate profitability. New applications continuously expand the market – so we can thank commercial air-cargo services for fresh sushi.</p>
<p>The space resources market is likewise developing modestly. The first product the American “asteroid-mining” company <a href="http://www.planetaryresources.com/">Planetary Resources</a> will launch consists of <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/21/planetary-resources/">tiny, low-cost telescopes</a>:</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22047/original/kkn6gkqp-1365036843.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/22047/original/kkn6gkqp-1365036843.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22047/original/kkn6gkqp-1365036843.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22047/original/kkn6gkqp-1365036843.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22047/original/kkn6gkqp-1365036843.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22047/original/kkn6gkqp-1365036843.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/22047/original/kkn6gkqp-1365036843.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=359&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Planetary Resources’ first-generation space camera.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Planetary Resources.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The telescopes’ primary function is to find asteroids suitable for mining, but they may also be used to image the Earth, generating near-term revenue while waiting for the resources market to develop. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://deepspaceindustries.com/business/">business plan</a> of the privately-held American company <a href="http://deepspaceindustries.com/">Deep Space Industries</a> envisions medium-term revenues from operators of commercial communications satellites, who will buy propellant to extend the satellites’ lifetimes.</p>
<p>We have reached the point where the question is no longer “is the commercialisation of space possible?” but rather: “what is the path to return on investment?” </p>
<p>Combined economic, environmental and social forces will propel the industry to a high level of importance in the coming decades.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/13222/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gordon Roesler works for the Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research.</span></em></p>Harvesting space resources will raise living standards worldwide, without further damaging Earth. So how can those resources be tapped in a way that will produce a return on investment? That question may…Gordon Roesler, Visiting Researcher & Senior Project Engineer, Australian Centre for Space Engineering Research, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.