User blog comment:Shadow at Morning/Determination of the Size of Vale via Cartographic Analysis/@comment-31.205.73.160-20150130004757/@comment-24891101-20150130011047

Mining did cross my mind, as the other big industry aside from agriculture. Certainly it's necessary for raw materials. And there's plenty of room for primary industry, but there's no guarantee that they'd sit atop convenient mineral wealth. Petroleum industry may also exist, but power generation and portable energy storage can be at least partially accounted for by Dust. Future work could involve estimation of the amount of arable land required and mining operations necessary to support that society.