‘Platinum’ asteroid potentially worth $5.4 trillion to pass Earth on Sunday

[Dexter]

http://www.rt.com/news/310170-platinum-asteroid-2011-uw-158/

An asteroid believed to be carrying up to 90 million tons of platinum in its core, as well as other rare and precious materials, is about to swoosh past our planet. The news has left developers of asteroid-mining technologies intrigued.

[ABX]

It would be an interesting thought and math experiment to calculate the point in which mining the asteroid doesn't make it worth it.
Usually we think the other way, at what point does the return equal the investment. With this much platinum however, you could end up diluting the price very quickly. It is somewhat tempered by the expense getting it, but that is a crap load of platinum.

[Dexter]

It would be an interesting thought and math experiment to calculate the point in which mining the asteroid doesn't make it worth it.
Usually we think the other way, at what point does the return equal the investment. With this much platinum however, you could end up diluting the price very quickly. It is somewhat tempered by the expense getting it, but that is a crap load of platinum.

The price would go down, but platinum has a lot of unique properties that make it a vital resource of engineering and electronics. Water is also unsubstitutable, and could potentially act as a fuel source in the future, so asteroid mining would allow spacecraft to journey on significantly longer voyages due to the ability to provide spacecraft with refuel depots far away from Earth.

[Oceander]

90 million tons of platinum would destroy the market for platinum.  According to this website:  http://www.gold-eagle.com/article/platinum-rich-mans-gold

the annual supply of platinum is 130 tons.  90 million tons would make the stuff cheap as can be.  It would be interesting to run a scenario that took into account the fact that increased supply would tend to depress prices to figure out what the maximum potential return would be.