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151 comments on Jubak: More Peak Everything! (and an open thread)

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totoneila on April 18, 2006 - 6:33pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Hello TODers,

Of course!  I have posted on this before: consider first gold-mining at Sutter's Mill in Cali-- picking big nuggets out of the stream by hand.  Nowadays, it takes 50-100 tons of ore being very, very energy intensively processed to get just one ounce of gold!  Extrapolate to all other minerals--rising energy prices will eventually shut down most mining operations for any earthen minerals.

Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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wrs on April 18, 2006 - 7:43pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I think it's not that bad.  I did some internet research on this topic a while back.  A real good mine produces about 2 ounces per ton while an average mine produces about .5 ounces per ton.  There are usually other metals produced as well such as copper or silver or nickel.  However, the ore from the early mines in the 1860s was producing 50-60 ounces per ton................
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totoneila on April 18, 2006 - 8:36pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hello Wrs,

Thxs for the reply.  You maybe roughly correct in ounces per ore tons, but you also have to consider the 'total picture' of how much non-gold overburden and non-economic gold ore has to stripped away to get to the gold ore 'paydirt' underneath.  The following link has a nice chart showing we might have passed peak gold in 2000:

http://www.gold.org/value/markets/supply_demand/mine_production.html

Excerpt:
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Grades vary enormously with ore bodies. Generally, the largest South African underground operations run at between eight and ten grammes per tonne (i.e. eight to ten parts per million), with more marginal South African operations grading between four and six grammes per tonne. At a grade of 10 grammes/tonne, therefore, it takes more than three tonnes of ore to produce one ounce of gold. Many of the world's operations are open pits, which tend (generally) to be of lower grade than the underground mines, running from as low as one gramme to three or four grammes per tonne. While this low grade is instructive in that it shows how rare gold is in the ground and gives an idea of how much rock has to be shifted to produce the metal, production costs are a more important parameter in determining the quality of an operation and these are a mix of both grade and operating costs.
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http://www.nodirtygold.org/pubs/20TonsMemo_FINAL.pdf

This article conservatively talks about 20 tons to make a 1/3 ounce gold ring, and it does not figure any of the tons of overburden removed first.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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