Oct 28, 2020 10:47 PM
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201...-mine-gold
EXCERPTS: . . . The question now hovering over the rolling Sperrins is, what is more valuable: keeping the gold in the ground, or taking it out? This query could hardly be voiced at a more pivotal moment. The price of gold rocketed during the pandemic, spurring renewed interest in excavation projects and even an illegal mining boom in parts of the Amazon rainforest. Yet gold is proving ever-more difficult to release from the ground. The technical challenges may be well known, but environmental protests and local politics are less predictable. At what point does mining gold stop being worth the effort?
[...] According to CFRA Research, about half of the world’s gold, excluding that still buried in the ground, is used in jewellery. As for the other half, one quarter is held by central banks and a final quarter is owned by private investors or used in industry. Matt Miller is among those who believe we have reached peak gold. The price of a single ounce of the glittering yellow metal breached $2,000 (£1,550) this summer and still rests comfortably above $1,900 (£1,470). Twenty years ago, the same ounce would sell for less than a quarter of that amount.
But Covid-19 has also caused disruption to gold mining operations themselves and supply is not likely to bounce up to meet rising demand any time soon. As such, the gold mining industry is actually sitting on the makings of a “major crisis”, argues Miller. “My view is that gold demand will continue to trend upwards,” he says. “More and more of that is going to come from the recycling, which basically means that gold is trading hands.”
He predicts that recycling old jewellery, coins or even the seemingly miniscule amounts of gold in the circuit boards of electronic devices, will become an increasingly significant source of the metal in the future. CFRA’s data suggests that around 30% of the world’s gold supply in the past 20 years was actually recycled, not mined. Refineries that recycle “scrap” gold – old jewellery, coins and bars – do use toxic chemicals and energy in their processes, but some environmental impacts may be much lower than mining. One recent study of gold refineries in Germany found that, kilogram for kilogram, the production of 99.99% pure gold via recycling was 300 times less carbon intensive than mining it from underground or open pit mines.
This means that obtaining one kilogram of recycled gold would produce 53kg of CO2 equivalent – but to mine a kilogram of the same material would cause 16 tonnes of CO2 equivalent to be emitted. Recycling scrap gold from electronics fell in between the two but was still better than mining – at one tonne of CO2 equivalent for every kilogram of gold turned out. Like any large-scale industrial operation, gold mining can also have local effects on the environment. Public opposition to gold mines in some parts of the world has become a barrier to gold production, says Miller... (MORE - details)
EXCERPTS: . . . The question now hovering over the rolling Sperrins is, what is more valuable: keeping the gold in the ground, or taking it out? This query could hardly be voiced at a more pivotal moment. The price of gold rocketed during the pandemic, spurring renewed interest in excavation projects and even an illegal mining boom in parts of the Amazon rainforest. Yet gold is proving ever-more difficult to release from the ground. The technical challenges may be well known, but environmental protests and local politics are less predictable. At what point does mining gold stop being worth the effort?
[...] According to CFRA Research, about half of the world’s gold, excluding that still buried in the ground, is used in jewellery. As for the other half, one quarter is held by central banks and a final quarter is owned by private investors or used in industry. Matt Miller is among those who believe we have reached peak gold. The price of a single ounce of the glittering yellow metal breached $2,000 (£1,550) this summer and still rests comfortably above $1,900 (£1,470). Twenty years ago, the same ounce would sell for less than a quarter of that amount.
But Covid-19 has also caused disruption to gold mining operations themselves and supply is not likely to bounce up to meet rising demand any time soon. As such, the gold mining industry is actually sitting on the makings of a “major crisis”, argues Miller. “My view is that gold demand will continue to trend upwards,” he says. “More and more of that is going to come from the recycling, which basically means that gold is trading hands.”
He predicts that recycling old jewellery, coins or even the seemingly miniscule amounts of gold in the circuit boards of electronic devices, will become an increasingly significant source of the metal in the future. CFRA’s data suggests that around 30% of the world’s gold supply in the past 20 years was actually recycled, not mined. Refineries that recycle “scrap” gold – old jewellery, coins and bars – do use toxic chemicals and energy in their processes, but some environmental impacts may be much lower than mining. One recent study of gold refineries in Germany found that, kilogram for kilogram, the production of 99.99% pure gold via recycling was 300 times less carbon intensive than mining it from underground or open pit mines.
This means that obtaining one kilogram of recycled gold would produce 53kg of CO2 equivalent – but to mine a kilogram of the same material would cause 16 tonnes of CO2 equivalent to be emitted. Recycling scrap gold from electronics fell in between the two but was still better than mining – at one tonne of CO2 equivalent for every kilogram of gold turned out. Like any large-scale industrial operation, gold mining can also have local effects on the environment. Public opposition to gold mines in some parts of the world has become a barrier to gold production, says Miller... (MORE - details)