{"id":1158096,"date":"2020-01-03T16:36:53","date_gmt":"2020-01-03T22:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1010428"},"modified":"2020-01-03T16:36:53","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T22:36:53","slug":"how-earth-bound-mining-lawyers-think-about-space-mining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1158096","title":{"rendered":"How earth \u2013 bound mining lawyers think about space mining"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The asteroid mining market<br \/>\nis already valued at up to trillions of dollars, but a single drill from earth has<br \/>\nyet to make it to space. <\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center d-xs-block d-sm-block d-md-none'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>European scientists<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/mining-moon-ready-lift-off-2025\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" have announced plans to start&nbsp;mining the moon (opens in a new tab)\"> have announced plans to start&nbsp;mining the moon<\/a>&nbsp;as early as 2025, though what they\u2019ll be extracting is neither gold nor diamonds, but waste-free nuclear energy.<\/p>\n<p>Space mining is a concept<br \/>\nstill out of this world to most, but in the mining industry is already making<br \/>\nwaves. <\/p>\n<p>After being considered<br \/>\nmostly a science-fiction tale, governments are now rushing to implement<br \/>\nprograms and legislation that allow them to join the race for mining in space.<\/p>\n<p>Scot Anderson, attorney and Global Head of Energy &amp; Natural Resources with Hogan Lovells in Denver, has a <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"podcast on asteroid mining (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/hoganlovells.qumucloud.com\/view\/zbXFpyhw0cl#\/\" >podcast on asteroid mining<\/a>, and has compiled compelling legal implications and insider tactics for getting in the asteroid mining business. &nbsp;Anderson spoke with MINING.com to break down the issues, challenges and opportunities. <\/p>\n<p><strong>MINING.com: Tell us about your position. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Anderson<\/strong>: I do<br \/>\nboth oil &amp; gas and mining work for terrestrial mining. A lot of this is in<br \/>\nthe Mountain West, but we do work on mining projects all over the world. We<br \/>\nhave been interested in the astro mining piece of it, and we have an aerospace<br \/>\ngroup out of Washington DC. <\/p>\n<p>The way I think about it is that a lot of times these folks are doing space exploration and aerospace stuff, trying to figure out mining, and our group here in Denver, we\u2019re the mining folks who think about it would work in outer space. That\u2019s what we do; we figure out how to gain access to the minerals, how to develop them, all the operational stuff, and what we\u2019re trying to do is take that expertise on how mining works on earth and translate that into how mining and resource development might work in outer space,<strong> <\/strong>which is a kind of interesting interaction because not everybody is coming out of that particular standpoint. <\/p>\n<p><strong>MINING.com: A big question is: How far away are we from<br \/>\nthis actually happening?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Anderson<\/strong>: We\u2019ve been in a lot of programs and you get different views on that. I would say that folks are kind of bullish on that for the next five to ten years, closer to ten years [we could] extract the stuff on the moon. Almost sure that it will happen on the moon first, because we know the moon a little bit at least, and we have a pretty good sense of where there\u2019s water, and where there\u2019s ice available, which is the key thing. The people who do space exploration talk about it, they say the moon is halfway to anywhere; If you can get to the moon, it\u2019s a lot easier then to go somewhere else because you\u2019ve got lower gravity.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>What we\u2019re trying to do is take that expertise on how mining works on earth and translate that into how mining and resource development might work in outer space<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>So, some extraction using ice to create water and fuel, Id<br \/>\nsay in the next ten years, conceivably, and from there getting the asteroids is<br \/>\nnot as a big leap. Within 20 years it will probably be the beginning of that,<br \/>\nand people start using the resources. It\u2019s not 100 years from now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MINING.com: <\/strong><strong>So how do earth &#8211; bound mining lawyers<br \/>\nthink about space mining?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Anderson:<\/strong> When we<br \/>\ntalk about how we do mining on earth: what are some of the issues? If you\u2019re<br \/>\ngoing to do a project and you submit in a new jurisdiction, what do you have to<br \/>\nknow to make sure that you\u2019re comfortable you\u2019re going to get a project. <\/p>\n<p>So we said: let\u2019s take that conceptual framework and think<br \/>\nabout that in outer space, and there are four issues we think about: Security<br \/>\nof tenure \u2014 do you actually have the right<br \/>\nto extract the mineral? &nbsp;The fiscal<br \/>\nregime, and the other two are bankability and feasibility.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the issue on the security of tenure and the fiscal regime: there\u2019s an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unoosa.org\/pdf\/publications\/STSPACE11E.pdf\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Outer Space Treaty (opens in a new tab)\">Outer Space Treaty<\/a> that was signed by a lot of countries (in 1967) when the moon exploration was going on, and the treaty includes a provision that says you can\u2019t appropriate celestial bodies, that would include the moon.<\/p>\n<p>The question is \u2014 what happens if I go to the moon? I set up shop, and I extract ice and rocks and start making things, do I own the rocks that I\u2019ve extracted? I\u2019m not saying that I own the moon, but if I put in the effort, do I own the resources? Same thing with asteroids<strong>, <\/strong>if I send a robot to the asteroid, it sets up shop and starts extracting things and using them, do you own the extracted mineral? And that\u2019s the legal issue, that\u2019s the unsettled question.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how that question plays out, so I\u2019ll say that the<br \/>\nreason we view Luxembourg as the leader is that the states and Luxembourg have<br \/>\nstatutes that say: if you\u2019re a US or Luxembourg company and you extract a<br \/>\nresource, you own the resource. So they\u2019ve interpreted the outer space treaty<br \/>\nto say that it doesn\u2019t preclude ownership of the extracted minerals. There are<br \/>\nsome folks who would argue that\u2019s not the right interpretation, but it\u2019s a<br \/>\nlittle bit uneven. So that\u2019s where the gap is, that needs to be resolved.<br \/>\nLuxembourg already said \u201cwe\u2019ve resolved it\u201d under the law of our country, if<br \/>\nyou extract the mineral then you own it, because the outer space treaty didn\u2019t<br \/>\ntalk about that.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>If I send a robot to the asteroid, it sets up shop and starts extracting things and using them, do you own the extracted mineral? And that\u2019s the legal issue, that\u2019s the unsettled question<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>So there\u2019s this outer space treaty, and then there\u2019s a new treaty, which came along later as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unoosa.org\/oosa\/en\/ourwork\/spacelaw\/treaties\/intromoon-agreement.html\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Moon Treaty (opens in a new tab)\">Moon Treaty<\/a>, and none of the space countries signed the Moon Treaty. The Moon Treaty also includes other celestial bodies and asteroids as well, and it says the moon and other celestial bodies are the common heritage of mankind, and again, the Outer Space Treaty doesn\u2019t use that language but the Moon Treaty does. <\/p>\n<p>The reason that matters is because there\u2019s another treaty, there\u2019s an existing treaty in the United Nations Convention on the law of the sea, which says that the deep sea, which is outside of the territory of one of the countries and nobody owns, is the common heritage of mankind. As a result, there\u2019s actually an international seabed authority that exists that regulates activities in the deep sea and charges a royalty \u2013 like a profit- sharing thing \u2013 that all the countries on earth can share to some extent in the benefits of mineral extraction from the deep sea. So, you play all that true and say well, because the Moon Treaty uses this common heritage of mankind language like the law of the sea, the Moon Treaty would imply that you have to pay some sort of a royalty that would get redistributed among all the countries of the world for the extraction of resources in outer space. But nobody signed the treaty that\u2019s active in outer space, but the Outer Space Treaty which a lot of people did sign was a constitution of outer space development and did not have the language framework. <\/p>\n<p>The argument is that under the Outer Space Treaty, which is the operative document, you don\u2019t have to pay a royalty for cost sharing among all the countries on earth for the minerals being extracted in outer space. That\u2019s how the two things are tied together. There\u2019s the notion of &#8216;do you have the legal right to go and explore and extract minerals?&#8217; <\/p>\n<p>Luxembourg and the US have said yes, because they have used the language of the Outer Space Treaty and then the fiscal regime, do you have to pay anything? The argument for space explorers is no, because the Outer Space Treaty doesn\u2019t have the common heritage of mankind language that was interpreted under the law of sea, so therefore there\u2019s no royalty due or payable for extracted resources from the moon or other celestial bodies. There\u2019s a lot of literature on this and a lot of academic thinking, and the UN has different bodies, but I would say the majority position is you can keep resources you extract in outer space and not pay royalties on resources, but there\u2019s strong minority view on both of those.<\/p>\n<p>We attended a seminar here in Colorado, and one of the<br \/>\nquestions was: Would the framework that I just described be a burden on outer<br \/>\nspace exploration? &nbsp;People are not going<br \/>\nto move forward because of the uncertainty, and the strong consensus was this<br \/>\nwas not an impediment to moving forward with development of resources in outer<br \/>\nspace. There\u2019s enough certainty and there\u2019s enough stuff to do before got<br \/>\nthere, and that there wasn\u2019t an urgent need to get an international treaty to<br \/>\nfix all of this. The framework was robust enough to allow further development<br \/>\nof these projects. <\/p>\n<p><strong>MINING.com:\u00a0 Several challenges exist in outer space exploration. How advanced is the aspect? How developed are the trucks, ships, and mining robots needed?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Anderson:<\/strong> The<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" Near Earth Objects  (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/cneos.jpl.nasa.gov\/about\/basics.html\" > Near Earth Objects <\/a>(NEOs) are close enough that you can actually get to. A couple of things: water is crucial, because you can take the H2O and break it into hydrogen and oxygen and make fuel out of it. And in addition you can have people around it. But even if it was all done robotically, [an issue is] getting to somewhere where you can get water, that\u2019s why I said the equators in the moon that have ice in them are one of the most promising pieces of the puzzle. There you can start using it for manufacturing purposes. <\/p>\n<p>As far as the engineering goes, there are engineers who are<br \/>\ndesigning all this stuff already, and the Colorado School of Mines, one of the<br \/>\ngreat mining universities, they have a space mining program. You can go get a<br \/>\nmasters or PHD in space mining there, and their engineers are designing all the<br \/>\nstuff.<\/p>\n<p>One of the presentations was to extract water from these<br \/>\ncraters in the moon, and it\u2019s fully engineered. You set a kind of a bubble over<br \/>\nthe ice in the crater, and have these \u2026 near the edge of the crater, and you<br \/>\nfocus the sun on the bubble and it heats up, and the water vaporizes and<br \/>\ncollects on the inside of the bubble. They also have the distances and<br \/>\ncalibrations; they have everything needed to make that work.<\/p>\n<p>There are folks who are absolutely working through and running the numbers, and doing the engineering, to have all this happen. The other thing is on the NEOs, sort of the feasibility. Economically, for now at least, and probably for a very long time, you really can\u2019t justify bringing in an asteroid, however you do it. You bring the asteroid to earth or you break it up and process it. Right now the economics of getting it to earth just really don\u2019t make that viable. There are two ways: One is to bring an object near the moon and orbit it around the moon, work on it and bringing it down to the moon, which makes it a lot more cost effective. But the other one, which is very fascinating to me, is basically using a 3D printer. So you basically put a 3D printer up to the asteroid and you set it up, and can actually manufacture the equipment parts for your spaceship, so you actually set your manufacturing up in outer space rather than bringing stuff back to the earth.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MINING.com: It has been argued that the most cost-effective way to build asteroid mining equipment is to do so in space, which would occur on assembly platforms with automated robots. How would those pieces get to the assembly stations?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Anderson:<\/strong> If you<br \/>\ndid the 3D printing approach, you can also set up a space station, like a<br \/>\nmanufacturing platform in space, and then bring materials to that, so you can<br \/>\nhave it relocated. The other thing is when you are mining metallic asteroids,<br \/>\nis basically you put it in a big plastic bag and then you use vibration to<br \/>\nbreak it up, take the bag full of processed granulated materials and move it<br \/>\nsomewhere. You can either have the 3D printer on the asteroid itself and bring<br \/>\nit to the moon, or you can have a centralized facility.<\/p>\n<p>The thing about mining on an asteroid is that they\u2019re not as<br \/>\nstable as the moon. You can kind of tumble and spin. So you have to find the<br \/>\nright one that is stable to do. I think the idea is that you build the stuff<br \/>\nand then bring them over. It would be done with robotics rather than people.<br \/>\nThe idea with moon based, you could have people on there, the economics of<br \/>\nthis. Space tourism is one of the things that would provide economics, where<br \/>\nyou got a bunch of people that would be willing to pay a large sum to go to the<br \/>\nmoon. So you set up your ice mining venture and you generate an environment with<br \/>\nthe water and the oxygen, and fund it by having people come out and hang out<br \/>\nand do a tour, that sort of thing. <\/p>\n<p><strong>MINING.com: What about the impact of the influx of space commodities on economies here?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Anderson:<\/strong> There\u2019s a website called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.asterank.com\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Asterank (opens in a new tab)\">Asterank<\/a>. It ranks the asteroids and shows all the asteroids in the solar system. It models the asteroids and planets flying around. They have a ranking of how valuable the minerals from each asteroid, but that\u2019s a little bit spurious, because it\u2019s an earth- bound price but the cost of getting to earth significantly diminishes it\u2019s value. It\u2019s kind of a plunked-up number.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote alignright\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>The thing about a mining project anywhere is that you spend a lot of capital before you get anywhere, it\u2019s different kind of investment than any other.So the psychology of a mining company is well suited to developing resources in space<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n<p>There is some concern if you brought some gigantic palladium<br \/>\nasteroid to earth efficiently, where that metal is not significantly rare<br \/>\nanymore, and that would have an effect on pricing. But I think we\u2019re a long way<br \/>\nfrom that. Theoretically, if you could get it to earth efficiently, it could<br \/>\nhave a dramatic effect on pricing. <\/p>\n<p>The other question, as we deal with the change and how we<br \/>\ngenerate energy and how we consume things, and somebody said if you electrified<br \/>\nall the vehicles that are planned to be electrified, you need three times as<br \/>\nmuch copper that\u2019s ever been mined. There are a thousand numbers that are like<br \/>\nthat. So, there are some practical limits on how much we can transition to<br \/>\ndifferent models and how you get this stuff. So to an extent we want to change<br \/>\nthe way we generate and use energy, and perhaps there maybe reasons to try to<br \/>\nget this stuff to earth. There are papers where part of the pitch is they talk<br \/>\nabout asteroid mining and they say well, we\u2019re going to create colonies in<br \/>\nouter space. You just look at how many people are coming over the next 20<br \/>\nyears, so that sort of flattens out 40 or 50 years from now. There\u2019s all these<br \/>\npeople coming and there\u2019s stress on resources, of course the next move is to<br \/>\nopen up outer space. Again, I think there are some practical limits. It\u2019s<br \/>\ndefinitely an artificial environment and you can\u2019t just wander around.<\/p>\n<p><strong>MINING.com: What\u2019s the next thing that needs to happen to<br \/>\nmove the whole concept toward fruition?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Anderson:<\/strong> I think it\u2019s probably proof of concept. There\u2019s a lot of engineering on the drawing board, but the actual work has been fairly limited. But there are companies like<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ispace_(Japanese_company)\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" iSpace, (opens in a new tab)\"> iSpace,<\/a> a Japanese company that\u2019s going to do a lap around the moon and put a rover down, in 2022 to 2024, and the engagement of private enterprise in this process is really different. I think the public-private partnership and having funding coming from outside the governments is going to break this open. <\/p>\n<p>To me, it\u2019s the investment of private industry and continuing this investment, getting the proof of concept and return on the investment will take a while, but if companies are willing to make the long-term investment, then there\u2019s definitely some opportunities to make this all work and make it economically viable at some point. But it\u2019s a long-term play<strong>. <\/strong>The thing about a mining project anywhere is that you spend a lot of capital before you get anywhere, it\u2019s different kind of investment than any other. So the psychology of a mining company is well suited to developing resources in space<strong>,<\/strong> because it\u2019s got to have the same level of basics to making the investment in the front end before making a return somewhere down the road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>European scientists have announced plans to start mining the moon as early as 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2648,624,369],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158096"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1158096"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1158159,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1158096\/revisions\/1158159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1158096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1158096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1158096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}