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On Earth, we are constantly worried about running out of resources like metals and oil and natural gas. The Star Wars galaxy uses fusion and hypermatter for energy BUT they mine tons of metal to build fleets and other colossal mega-projects and the gas for blasters (Tibanna) is mined from gas giants and coaxium for hyperdrives.

Has it ever been said that they might run out of terrestrial planets and gas giants to mine?

I know the galaxy has 400 billion stars with worlds around them, but the rate they do this type of mining (sometimes an entire planet) shows they move much faster than us and will likely deplete an entire world in a few years.

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    "On Earth, we are constantly worried about running out of resources like metals and oil and natural gas" — our behaviour would perhaps suggest otherwise.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Jan 19 at 11:11
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    They don't even know all the planets, or even stars. Much of the SW galaxy is uncharted.
    – Mithoron
    Commented Jan 19 at 14:14
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    nice zinger @PaulD.Waite
    – Turbo
    Commented Feb 12 at 16:16

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You kind of answered your own question: let's be very generous and suppose there are 100 million inhabited systems out of those 400 billion you mentioned. That's a 4000:1 ratio of uninhabited (read: potential stripmines) to inhabited. You have any idea how much mass can be in just one system? Hell, just one gas giant? More than enough to build every ship, station, and mega-project over the last 20,000 years.

That's not even taking into account junk/reclamation planets like Bracca, Ferrix, or Lotho Minor. The thing about refined ores is that they're almost endlessly recyclable. We've already seen in 'Jedi: Fallen Order' the ships of the Clone Wars being stripped down and their resources used to build the Imperial star fleet. Then a generation later in 'Ahsoka' and 'Squadrons' that very Imperial fleet in turn begin dismantled and used to build ships for the New Republic. No doubt, many of the left-over ships & equipment of the ancient Sith Wars met a similar fate, and their base minerals have found their way into Republic, Imperial, and New Republic constructions over the centuries.

Also, as should always be remembered with questions like this: Star Wars isn't supposed to be science fiction (certainly not anything approaching "hard" sci-fi), it's a fantasy fairytale setting that happens to have lasers and spaceships. The logistics of a galaxy wide civilisation's ore consumption isn't something that really matters, or needs to be explained. It works, because it does. So no, it's never been mentioned.

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  • Also there is the weird population distribution. On one end you have very few planets (if any) like Coruscant (which is 100% paved over), to 90% of the rest of the planets that seem to have population densities like Tatooine.
    – Peter M
    Commented Feb 12 at 20:52

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