Yep, the modern times. With everything humanity has achieved, where does mining fit in?
As the turn of the 20th century set in, it was in the
western United States where the gold and silver rush was rampant as well as
coal, copper, lead and iron mining. Then enter the Alaskan copper that
dominated the supply to the world demand. It was a slow start in Canada because
of transportation issues as well as US competition, but eventually Ontario
became the major producer of nickel, copper and gold.
In the 1850’s Australia experienced their gold rush and was
producing 40% of the world’s gold. This was the time the Mount Morgan Mine was
established. It was once the largest gold mine in the world which produced
about 262 tonnes of gold, 37 tonnes of silver and 387,000 tonnes of copper. Now
in the 21st century, Australia still remains as one of the major mineral
producer. No wonder their country is rich and identified by the Credit Suisse
Research Institute (Swiss multinational financial services holding company founded
in 1856) as the nation with the highest median wealth in the world. Australians
must be very lucky to live in the world’s 13th –largest economy and
ninth-highest per capita income.
Then came the 21st century where mining became a globalized
trend built by large conglomerates of multinational corporations. Well we can
never know if all the minerals in the surface of the Earth has depleted but
peak minerals and environmental impacts raises some concern.
Peak minerals being the point in an area where the largest
production of a mineral will occur and subsequent production decline will
follow. Global extraction and production becomes a little bit more difficult as
complex processes are necessary to acquire minerals. Please bear with me with
my gibberish as I attempt to decipher the intricate world of mining.
Alongside the technological growth, increase in demand for
other elements, particularly rare earth minerals have begun. Rare earth mineral
is a mineral that consists of one or more rare earth elements. These rare earth
element (REE) or rare earth metal (REM) is one of a set of seventeen chemical
elements in the periodic table. Despite the name rare, they aren’t that “rare”
but tend to occur together by nature and are difficult to separate from each
other.
The mining of rare minerals used to be dominated by the
United States but was overrun by the People’s Republic of China. I guess it
pays off to be a big country that covers 9.6 million square kilometres, a lot
of area to mine would mean lots of economic advantage that’s why China is
currently the second-largest economy by nominal GDP (gross domestic product)
and largest by purchasing power parity.
To answer my question, I think mining fits right into our
everyday lives. We may be wary of this misconceived word-mining- but in reality
one way or another it has, is and will touch our lives. So allow me to share
with you, on the next episode, the mining industry.
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