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Economy
World gold supply runs out
2009-11-12
Hang on, I've got some lead in my basement that I can alchemize ...
Aaron Regent, president of the Canadian gold giant, said that global output has been falling by roughly 1m ounces a year since the start of the decade. Total mine supply has dropped by 10pc as ore quality erodes, implying that the roaring bull market of the last eight years may have further to run.

"There is a strong case to be made that we are already at 'peak gold'," he told The Daily Telegraph at the RBC's annual gold conference in London. "Production peaked around 2000 and it has been in decline ever since, and we forecast that decline to continue. It is increasingly difficult to find ore."

Ore grades have fallen from around 12 grams per tonne in 1950 to nearer 3 grams in the US, Canada, and Australia. South Africa's output has halved since peaking in 1970.

The supply crunch has helped push gold to an all-time high, reaching $1,118 an ounce at one stage yesterday. The key driver over recent days has been the move by India's central bank to soak up half of the gold being sold by the International Monetary Fund. It is the latest sign that the rising powers of Asia and the commodity bloc are growing wary of Western paper money and debt.

China has quietly doubled holdings to 1,054 tonnes and is thought to be adding gradually on price dips, creating a market floor. Gold remains a tiny fraction of its $2.3 trillion in foreign reserves.

Gold exchange-traded funds (ETFs) -- dubbed the "People's Central Bank" -- have accumulated 1,778 tonnes, making them the fifth biggest holder after the US, Germany, France, and Italy.

Ross Norman, director of theBullionDesk.com, said exploration budgets had tripled since the start of the decade with stubbornly disappointing results so far. Mr Norman said the "false mine of central banks" had been the only new source of gold supply this decade as they auction off reserves, but they are switching sides to become net buyers.
Posted by:Steve White

#15  I don't know if I would call it worthless OldP.
It would make a great section in a proposal to mine 433 Eros.
Posted by: 3dc   2009-11-12 23:12  

#14  This is pure bullsh$$. There are something like 3 billion ounces of gold in the Cripple Creek/Victor area. Currently, they're inaccessible. There's too much water - it fills any shaft sunk below a certain level, and even the biggest pumps used were unable to keep up with the inflow. The several mines still working have to jump through more hoops than the Olympics in order to stay in business, yet they make a profit. There's also more gold dissolved in the ocean than there is in all the vaults in the world. Again, this article is worth about as much as Nidal Hasan's loyalty to the US.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2009-11-12 22:06  

#13  Why do yall think I plant a big garden and can gobs of stuff? A jar of beans might be worth quite a bit soon. Also, beer and hooch. I'll have it made. That and my stock-piling of incandescent light bulbs.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2009-11-12 18:57  

#12  People are buying up gold because they are worried about money, stocks, bonds, and other investments?
Posted by: JohnQC   2009-11-12 15:36  

#11  If only the Japanese moneyed class hadn't been so fond of sprinkling gold powder on their food during the go-go days of the 1980s. Ah well, soon enough it will occur to someone to mine the waste treatment plants serving Tokyo.
Posted by: trailing wife    2009-11-12 15:17  

#10  "That's "holiday" decorations..."

Any day I see P2k's scenario will be a holiday, Fred. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut   2009-11-12 14:10  

#9  twobyfour: Here is a patent application to do just that, to create Palladium, one of the Platinum group metals. It uses Molybdenum and Beryllium.

http://www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090262880

This sort of bombardment has been shown to work at the experimental level (and actually produced more of the new element than expected), and scalability doesn't seem to be a problem. The limit is the size of your particle accelerator.

Make molybdenum into thin sheet. Bombard, then separate and reprocess remaining molybdenum to use again. Since platinum group metals are recovered from ore at only 2ppm, having a continual process to create it is a very attractive idea.

And molybdenum and beryllium are very common compared to platinum group metals.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2009-11-12 13:35  

#8  That's "holiday" decorations...
Posted by: Fred   2009-11-12 12:18  

#7  ...you'll know it when instead of Christmas decorations hanging from the lamp posts along the road, you'll see politicians and bureaucrats.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2009-11-12 10:12  

#6  I'm still waiting for the moment that we hit "peak bullshit".

Iknow, I know...can't blame a girl for dreaming, right?
Posted by: Cornsilk Blondie   2009-11-12 08:42  

#5  Peak gold. Heh.

Fundamentally, there is not enough gold and precious metals to sustain a world economy. All we're doing is tagging something because of scarcity. You get a late planting season in Canada and the US and a very early hard frost, just watch the price of grain. You can't eat gold as a sustainable diet.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2009-11-12 07:35  

#4  Moose, I saw some actual data of mining ops in Western Canada a while ago and the figures were substantially higher than what the article states. And I don't mean prospectuses trying to attract investor by BS-ing them, I mean production data. I smell a rat. Someone(s) wants to make it more profitable.

The bombardment you suggest would be rather an expensive method and furthermore, it would need to be scalable for industrial production volume. I don't think that there are any data of that sort yet, meaning what you bombard with what, specifically?
Posted by: twobyfour   2009-11-12 06:55  

#3  two words.
VESTED INTEREST
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2009-11-12 05:21  

#2  The asteroid 433 Eros, which at the closest point in its orbit will be only 70 times further away from Earth than the Moon, is believed to have more gold, silver and other metals in it than exist in the entire crust of the Earth. It is a mere 34km by 11km in size.

That being said, the extremely rare but useful metals are in the Platinum group. It might be possible to actually create enough of these metals by high speed particle bombardment to be practical.

First you create a thin film sheet of one element, then slam a huge number of high speed particles of another element against it, producing a small number of molecules of the third, desired element.

It sounds ridiculous until you realize that the low grade ores being mined today actually have lower concentrations of the desired metals than that. Having to process a hundred thousand tons of ore to get a fraction of an ounce of metal is pretty ridiculous, too.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2009-11-12 04:10  

#1  It's not true - I still have my class ring.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418   2009-11-12 00:17  

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