Grrl Power #1367 – Get rich violently scheme
Cora’s plan probably sounds like a bad idea for a number of reasons. Some of those reasons may be laid out in the next few pages.
At the time this page was posted, a Kg of rhodium is worth about $183,260, which honestly is less than I would have guessed. Iridium clocks in at $132K/Kg, and palladium is a bargain at $35K/Kg. I know they’re all useful in electronics, and also that Rhodium was the primary currency in Star Justice, where I guess it was used as star ship drive fuel.
In the Grrl-verse, elements are valued by four factors: how pretty is it, how abundant is in nature, how useful its chemical properties are, and most importantly, how energy intensive it is to mine/refine/extract or artificially fabricate. Generally speaking, the higher the atomic number, the more energy intensive it is. Also isotopes take more energy – generally, the more neutron variance, the more energy intensive it is to create.
Even with alien super science, the laws of physics still exist, and you can’t use your nuclear reactor to create more reactor fuel. Well, you can, but even the best alien super science can’t get you over 100% efficiency, so it’d be dumb to do. That said, it’s also possible to create Dyson arrays around stars and harvest absolutely massive amounts of solar energy, so it’s possible to create darn near anything – if you have access to a Dyson Array slash Matter Replicator – Let’s just call it a Knights of the Old Republic Star Forge. Not everyone does, of course. Have access to something like that, I mean. Not even every race has their own Star Forge, so while the greater galactic community claims to be post scarcity, the reality is that there is scarcity based economics at play. It’s all just at a wildly different scale than what Earth manages.
The vote incentive is finally done!
The update to the TWC image is pretty minor, but the Patreon version has the bonus comic as well as nude versions. I will strive to make the next one more timely.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
That’s very surprising.
I would not have thought rare earths to be of galactic value.
They’re valuable on earth, because they bind to easy in molecules and refining them is a dirty process.
Molecules are pretty rare in space and dumping toxic waste doesn’t really sound like a problem.
This implies some fascinating things about the FTL worlds and space in general.
They’re apperantly limited to large chunck mining.
Deus’s transmuters are even for FTL societies Top level tech(otherwise they could simply make them and as such be more limited to the weight of the atom).
Heavy metals, okay I get that, but rare earth metals(those are rare [b]earth[/b] for a reason) I would not have expected that.
It’s a weird morning when I read that as Canuck mining aka what wolverine has been called occasionally in comics
Smoutwortel sez: “That’s very surprising. I would not have thought rare earths to be of galactic value.”
I wouldn’t have thought of them as having galactic existence.
Maybe we should start calling then “rare exoplanets”…
The word “earth” with a lowercase “e” doesn’t mean the planet, it means stuff found in the ground. Dirt, clay, rocks, sand, ore, etc. are “earth.”
We already use nuclear reactors to make nuclear fuel.
Depleted uranium recycling is a thing and it works.
The neutrons released in a nuclear reaction tend to turn less radioactive uranium in more radio-active uranium.
This can be used for further reactions when seperated from the less radioactive uranium.
You have to make sure you have the right isotope to start, or else you don’t get the glowy kind, you get the splodey kind.
Usefull (chemical) properties, pretty, high atomic number, weird isotopes, hard to make.
What would the USA think of exporting its high yield nuclear waste to the Galaxy(depleted uranium, polonium, plutonium etc.).
Take plutonium:
Usefull (chemical) properties: it’s an inherent battery, it is super reactive in all kinds of intersting ways/
Hard to make: uranium is actually pretty rare(it’s just really popular)
High atomic number: is 140U enough for you.
It’s considered waste: hard to use for nuclear energy.
Pretty: it glows
Plutonium’s atomic number is 94. I thought for a moment you might be thinking of the atomic weight, but that’s actually really low; Pu isotopes are from 226 through 247, and Pu-240 (assuming a typo) doesn’t meet your description.
Nice mood transition of Max in the last three panels.
Reminds me of a scene from, “Kentucky Fried Movie”.
Regarding the page title: most ‘get rich’ schemes involve violence in some way, not all of it physical
BTW, why is Cora introduced as “Dabbler’s alien friend”? She is human, isn’t she?
Hyu-mon, but not from Dirt, so, technically, an alien
Also, there’s this guy who drew a couple of tons of gold from the earth’s crust for his private use. Couldn’t they ask him to get them a few kilograms of rare earth minerals?
I really want to see Cora try human delicacies like Chocolate, Coffee, or KFC. Imagine her dismissing it initially only to try it and realize how amazing it is.