6 ms·

The important thing to note here is that "precious metals" and "rare minerals" really aren't. Given advanced enough technology, they become abundant. That happ

The important thing to note here is that "precious metals" and "rare minerals" really aren't. Given advanced enough technology, they become abundant. That happened with aluminum - they used to make very expensive jewelry out of it, till we learned how to mine it efficiently, and now it's $1.9 per kilo. I expect the same to happen to gold, silver, platinum. Diamonds are already on their way.

tn13 10y ago
Obviously. Same goes for fossil fuels and water.
- thaumasiotes 10y ago
  Water is already abundant. And much less than $1.90 per kilogram.
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    Not in the restaurants around me.
cperciva 10y ago
Technically mining aluminium was never the issue; rather, we eventually learned how to smelt it efficiently.
DiabloD3 10y ago
Monetary gold (the thing that controls the price of gold, ie, the precious metals spot prices) and precious jewelry is about half of the usage of today's newly mined gold, industrial and electronics taking up the other half. Over human history, about 165 thousand metric tons (or 182 thousand short tons, or about 5.3 billion troy ounces) of gold have been mined, or at a spot price of $1200, almost $6.4 trillion dollars of gold. 33 thousand metric tons of it is currently held by banks and individuals as monetary gold. Gold mining produces 2.5 to 3 thousand tons of gold each year. But get this: if we melted the entire planet down, there would be single digit or possibly low double digit quintillions of metric tons of gold. In other words, we have mined less than a trillionth of the gold. What keeps gold prices so far up is it costs about $1000 per ounce to mine, although this is dropping due to larger and larger mining machines and more automated processes that involve less people. Outside of electronics, gold has no real world usage. Monetary gold and jewelry are largely artifacts of the past, imo. Once we eliminate those, the continued fast pace of growth of industrial and electronic consumption will be handled for quite some time, and also drop the price of gold significantly.
Nadya 10y ago
We can manufacture synthetic diamonds actually. Better than the real deal in some cases. Read More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond Of note: >Gem-quality diamonds grown in a lab can be chemically, physically and optically identical (and sometimes superior) to naturally occurring ones. The mined diamond industry has undertaken legal, marketing and distribution countermeasures to protect its market from the emerging presence of synthetic diamonds.

tn13 10y ago

Obviously. Same goes for fossil fuels and water.

thaumasiotes 10y ago
Water is already abundant. And much less than $1.90 per kilogram.
- danieltillett 10y ago
  Not in the restaurants around me.

cperciva 10y ago

Technically mining aluminium was never the issue; rather, we eventually learned how to smelt it efficiently.

DiabloD3 10y ago

Monetary gold (the thing that controls the price of gold, ie, the precious metals spot prices) and precious jewelry is about half of the usage of today's newly mined gold, industrial and electronics taking up the other half. Over human history, about 165 thousand metric tons (or 182 thousand short tons, or about 5.3 billion troy ounces) of gold have been mined, or at a spot price of $1200, almost $6.4 trillion dollars of gold. 33 thousand metric tons of it is currently held by banks and individuals as monetary gold. Gold mining produces 2.5 to 3 thousand tons of gold each year. But get this: if we melted the entire planet down, there would be single digit or possibly low double digit quintillions of metric tons of gold. In other words, we have mined less than a trillionth of the gold. What keeps gold prices so far up is it costs about $1000 per ounce to mine, although this is dropping due to larger and larger mining machines and more automated processes that involve less people. Outside of electronics, gold has no real world usage. Monetary gold and jewelry are largely artifacts of the past, imo. Once we eliminate those, the continued fast pace of growth of industrial and electronic consumption will be handled for quite some time, and also drop the price of gold significantly.

Nadya 10y ago

We can manufacture synthetic diamonds actually. Better than the real deal in some cases. Read More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_diamond Of note: >Gem-quality diamonds grown in a lab can be chemically, physically and optically identical (and sometimes superior) to naturally occurring ones. The mined diamond industry has undertaken legal, marketing and distribution countermeasures to protect its market from the emerging presence of synthetic diamonds.