This week’s IYNF Breakdown marks the beginning of a series of articles on gold mining, written by our EVS volunteer Alexandru Mustață. The first instalment describes, as objectively as possible, the way gold is mined nowadays throughout the world. It stays away from unnecessarily technical terms, opening up a path for a discussion on a very current topic.

The next few IYNF breakdowns will cover a topic which only makes headlines occasionally, and never on an international level. When it breaches local or national media, it is usually caused by an accident or environmental disaster. In fact, it isn’t perceived as a threat to nature of the first degree, as the negative effects are always on a smaller scale than the ones making primetime news. I am talking about gold mining, a hugely profitable business, which, although decreasing in the last decade, is constantly looking for expansion in new places throughout the world. The articles will try to give a broad perspective on the subject, including different points of views, and trying to see how many aspects of life it affects, be it negatively or positively.

It is difficult today to find a topic related to the environment which is not controversial. There are some which claim that even the deforestation of the Amazon is beneficial in more ways than economically. Every other week an article will be published with “definitive proof” that there is no problem in the glaciers melting, that global warming is a hoax or that the ozone layer is no longer depleting. The following week, however, there will be news stating the exact opposite. Occasionally, any of the two sides will have convincing arguments. The reputability of information is often defined by its source. Usually, the ones claiming that our planet is at risk are activists and NGOs encouraging sustainability, while those stating the opposite are supporting unhindered economic development. Often, both sides are quoting scientific journals. Some of the times, the researchers have dubious financing for their work, or just unfitting personal convictions. Other times, they are creating questionable or even bad science due to a series of limitations which affect their research, given by time, financial constraints, personal skills, or problems with their method. In these cases, there is no larger conspiracy at work, as it represents a characteristic of the postmodern era in academia, affecting plenty of fields. Nutrition, for example: is there any type of food left which wasn’t thought to cause cancer at one time or another in the past 30 years?

For this reason, this first article will mostly deal with facts which aren’t questioned by any of the two sides – mostly the ways in which gold is extracted from earth and turned into the final product. I think that in order to have a constructive discussion about any topic, all sides should have the same instruments. The fundamental one, in this case, I find to be such information, which plenty of times is better spread on the side of those supporting mining. Those defending the environment are sometimes focusing on the negative effects, without being able at all times to pinpoint their cause. I will also try to step out of this paradigm of environmentalists versus economists, since the interests and the groups representing them are more varied than that. There is no “enemy” in this debate, just different individuals with different beliefs, and strong reasons behind them. Before trying to convince them to join a different side, one should first understand their motives and their thinking.

Gold is a native metal (i.e. a metal found in its metallic form in nature, such as copper or iron) which can be found in different sizes – some historically documented pieces weighed over fifty kilograms, while the more commonly considered “big” nuggets are over 50 grams. These bigger pieces have been transformed into wedding rings a very long time ago, nowadays being more common to find it as flakes, fine grains or microscopic particles embedded in rocks. According to the World Gold Council, “(…) larger and better quality underground mines contain around 8 to 10g/t, with marginal underground mines have averages of around 4 to 6g/t. Open pit mines usually have lower grades from 1g/t to 4g/t, but can be highly valuable despite the lower average grade”. That t unfortunately stands for ton, which makes all mining operations huge. If a mine produces 30 kilograms of gold per day, it needs to extract 30.000 tons of ore. That ore is usually under virgin forests, historically important sites, or maybe a village near you. But let’s not anticipate.

There are two more popular ways of extracting gold from the ore. The traditional one is smelting, which is the use of heat and a reduction agent (usually a source of carbon) to remove the oxygen from the ore and to leave behind the elemental metal. This method, however, is dependent on the existence of concentrated gold in the rock, which, as I mentioned earlier, is rarely the case nowadays. Romans and Americans during the Gold Rush used most of it. In those periods, the presence of very little gold in an ore made exploitation unattractive, as the costs would surpass many times the profits.

The new technique employed, considered to be the industry standard today for gold extraction, is called leaching. It represents dissolving what is extracted in a liquid, in order to separate the metal. The first industrial gold bioleaching plant opened in the 1970s, but the core ideas behind it exist since the 1800s. The ore is first comminuted (its particles are reduced to a smaller size), then it is mixed with water (a rather large quantity, considering the size of the ore), and after that sodium, potassium but most commonly calcium cyanide is added. In order to recover the solubilized gold from this part chemical, part natural cocktail (highly not recommended, as all cocktails containing water – not to mention cyanide), three methods can be employed. Carbon in pulp (pulp being the industry term for this cocktail) is the most common one, also being quite simple to understand: carbon is added to the previously created cyanide solution, and its particles, much larger than the ore particles, attract the gold. Finally, the gold is separated from the carbon by elution (i.e. washing with a solvent) or chemically-induced desorption (literally, the opposite of absorption). Other, less commonly used methods, are electrowinning, the passing of a current through the solution, or the Merrill–Crowe process, which uses filtration and decantation.

Congratulations, you now know how to extract gold! In case you are one of the few survivors of a post-apocalyptic world, you can refer to this article in order to get your business started. But please don’t, as gold has a long history of producing plenty of wars, social injustice, exploitation and unhappiness overall. Also, because there are plenty of issues we haven’t discussed yet. For example, what happens with all that cyanide, how is the local community affected, or where should the profits go. However, I understand if you have bigger problems than the environment in this post-apocalyptic world. Most of it is probably destroyed. Then why are you reading articles about mining? Go find some food!

The information I used for writing this article was selected from the following websites:

http://www.osisko.com/2014/03/osisko-reports-record-average-daily-gold-production-for-february/

http://sphinx.murdoch.edu.au/units/extern/BIO301/teach/student%20websites%202010/30763823%20Bioleaching%20of%20Sludge/Page411.htm

http://geology.com/publications/getting-gold/gold-extraction.shtml

http://www.gold.org/about-us

http://info.goldavenue.com/Info_site/in_arts/in_civ/in_civ_overview.html

http://goldinvestingnews.com/world-class-gold-deposits

http://news.goldseek.com/Dani/1309290922.php

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/waste/mining/pdf/IH_2010-001.pdf

Photo credits:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Native_gold_nuggets.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Kalgoorlie_The_Big_Pit_DSC04498.JPG

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Associated_Gold_Mine_Kalgoorlie_1951.jpg