Cobalt Mining Operation - Daily Output

[rgrove0172]

Im setting up a Cobalt mine on Kessinger (same system as King)

Whats a realistic daily production in unrefined ore per standard 24 hour day? Its a moderate sized operation, no mom and pop job.

 

[Wil Mireu]

This is what the internet is for

Read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt#Occurrence (and Production underneath that)

So Cobalt is found with Copper and Nickel deposits. "The main ores of cobalt are cobaltite, erythrite, glaucodot and skutterudite". Since Copper is found in native form, it's not unreasonable to think that you can find it in that form on most rocky planets. But would you find the cobalt minerals there too?

Cobalt is found usualy with sulphur and arsenic. Looking up the minerals, we have skutterudite forming as a hydrothermal mineral ( http://webmineral.com/data/Skutterudite.shtml ), glaucodot as "Deep seated, high temperature hydrothermal deposits" (http://www.mindat.org/min-1709.html), erythrite as as secondary oxidation (i.e. weathering) product ( http://www.mindat.org/min-1407.html ), and cobaltite in "High temperature hydrothermal deposits and contact metamorphic rocks (http://webmineral.com/data/Cobaltite.shtml).

Why is that important? Because it tells us on what sort of planets we could find cobalt minerals. Fortunately in this case cobalt minerals are mainly hydrothermal in origin, which means that they will be found on planets that have (or had) volcanic activity and water (most planets will have water in them, even if they don't have oceans). Erythrite would only be found on planets that have volcanism, water, *and* earth-like atmosphere that will weather the other cobalt minerals into erythrite.

So with that in mind, you are probably safe to use the techniques described at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt_extraction_techniques to extract the cobalt.

(I largely elaborated on all this to illustrate how it is possible to use a bit of geological knowledge and knowledge of minerals and mineral extraction here on Earth to figure out which environments on which planets would be likely to have specific minerals or elements. For example, people often put "Lanthanum deposits" on airless planets, but lanthanum is not found in "deposits" - it's concentrated in minerals in placer deposits, which require something to concentrate them (e.g. rivers), which means they are going to be found on worlds with atmosphere and some method to erode and deposit rocks).

 

[rgrove0172]

Thanks and yes I did a bit of 'googling' myself but to not that extent. I assumed some soft of plasma smelting process and left it at that. The process isnt as important to the plot as the tonnage they are producing and therefore required shipping.

The technical details of a setting like 2300 (close enough to resemble our own) is a lot of fun to play with but can bog you down big time when trying to prepare for a game. I try to keep it under control but will admit that Im constantly researching and laying out how some gizmo works or process is undertaken when it has minimal real affect on the game.