"Windmill" wrote in message
...
"dennis@home" writes:



"Windmill" wrote in message
...
jgharston writes:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Its like renewable energy: Its not real but as long as everyone
believes in it, no one needs to do anything drastic like face
up to the real situation.

Come on children, say "I believe in fiat money".

All money is fiat money.
In living memory, gold was 'worth' $35 per ounce.
Today, about $1000 per ounce.

Like everything else, it's worth whatever people think it's worth.

If another extinction event destroyed most life on earth, gold would be
useless.
Food would be the only thing that mattered, and few would want to sell
priceless food in exchange for inedible gold.

I'm surprised the greens haven't jumped on gold mining yet.

They too may find it difficult to ignore the glitter.....

They expend loads of energy (CO2), dump loads of cyanides, etc., rip up
forests, etc. to get it and then waste even more energy putting it in man
made holes with guards.
Pretty stupid really.
The same goes for diamonds, but they are more useful.

During an earlier spike in gold prices, electronic gadgets became
unreliable because in low current applications you need gold for
circuit board contacts, microswitches, etc. etc., and although the
plating was usually very thin, only tens of microns, the bean counters
got excited about the 'waste'.

There are alternatives that work quite well.
I doubt if you will find a keyboard with gold these days and they work
without much trouble.

There is enough gold stored in vaults to keep the electronics industry going
for many decades, there is no need to dig up more.

Mind you if gold was to become cheap it would wreck the HiFi accessories
industry.
I mean who would buy cables where the connectors are plated with a cheap
metal?

In message , The Natural Philosopher
writes
dennis@home wrote:
"Windmill" wrote in message
...
jgharston writes:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Its like renewable energy: Its not real but as long as everyone
believes in it, no one needs to do anything drastic like face
up to the real situation.

Come on children, say "I believe in fiat money".

All money is fiat money.
In living memory, gold was 'worth' $35 per ounce.
Today, about $1000 per ounce.

Like everything else, it's worth whatever people think it's worth.

If another extinction event destroyed most life on earth, gold would be
useless.
Food would be the only thing that mattered, and few would want to sell
priceless food in exchange for inedible gold.
I'm surprised the greens haven't jumped on gold mining yet.
They expend loads of energy (CO2),

No they don't.

dump loads of cyanides, etc., rip up
forests, etc. to get it

No they dont.

and then waste even more energy putting it in
man made holes with guards.

IO dont think they do.

Pretty stupid really.

Yes, you are.

The same goes for diamonds, but they are more useful.

No, it doesn't, and they are in fact less useful.

Gold and diamonds (and other stony type minerals) are fairly unique in
that in both cases what you want is what you dig up.


At least one extraction method of mining gold involves crushing the
quartz it's found in and extracting it with potassium cyanide

--
geoff

"dennis@home" writes:



"Windmill" wrote in message
...
"dennis@home" writes:



"Windmill" wrote in message
...
jgharston writes:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Its like renewable energy: Its not real but as long as everyone
believes in it, no one needs to do anything drastic like face
up to the real situation.

Come on children, say "I believe in fiat money".

All money is fiat money.
In living memory, gold was 'worth' $35 per ounce.
Today, about $1000 per ounce.

Like everything else, it's worth whatever people think it's worth.

If another extinction event destroyed most life on earth, gold would be
useless.
Food would be the only thing that mattered, and few would want to sell
priceless food in exchange for inedible gold.

I'm surprised the greens haven't jumped on gold mining yet.

They too may find it difficult to ignore the glitter.....

They expend loads of energy (CO2), dump loads of cyanides, etc., rip up
forests, etc. to get it and then waste even more energy putting it in man
made holes with guards.
Pretty stupid really.
The same goes for diamonds, but they are more useful.

During an earlier spike in gold prices, electronic gadgets became
unreliable because in low current applications you need gold for
circuit board contacts, microswitches, etc. etc., and although the
plating was usually very thin, only tens of microns, the bean counters
got excited about the 'waste'.

There are alternatives that work quite well.
I doubt if you will find a keyboard with gold these days and they work
without much trouble.

There is enough gold stored in vaults to keep the electronics industry going
for many decades, there is no need to dig up more.

Mind you if gold was to become cheap it would wreck the HiFi accessories
industry.
I mean who would buy cables where the connectors are plated with a cheap
metal?

They'd have to substitute rhodium for gold. Pricey stuff, but harder
than gold so it wouldn't easily wear off.

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

"Rod Speed" writes:



"Windmill" wrote in message
...
"Dave Liquorice" writes:

On Wed, 20 Jun 2012 00:41:22 +0100, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

dump loads of cyanides, etc., rip up forests, etc. to get it

No they dont.

Gold extraction does involve the use of cyanide and mercury depending
on the ore. And in many parts of the world the money dominates so
making sure those toxins don't get into the enviroment is low down on
the list of priorities.

and then waste even more energy putting it in man made holes with
guards.

IO dont think they do.

Well it takes enery to build the vaults and keep them staffed and
guarded.
Or are you saying that there are not a stacks of bullion in Fort Knox
or the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's vaults?

Maybe they've been lying about that too ! (TBH it wouldn't surprise me
very much).

Gold and diamonds (and other stony type minerals) are fairly unique in
that in both cases what you want is what you dig up. No smelting is
involved. So no chemicals are involved either and no energy is need to
reduce the oxides to metals.

Not true for Gold, it can be smelted direct from the ore or there is
other processing required to extract the gold from the mercury
almalgum or from the cyanide based leaching.

Diamonds are pretty much only "valuable" beacause De Beres (I think)
have a strangle hold on the market.

I think that must be correct, because it's technically possible to grow
perfect synthetic diamonds nowadays, yet it doesn't seem to happen.

It does actually. Its just not feasible to grow the big jewellery diamonds.

According to what I once read, people who wanted to grow single-
crystal diamond for solid state research tended to run into problems
(and not technical ones).

Fantasy.

Maybe. Never can tell about people's motives for saying what they do.

--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost

In article , Windmill spam-no-
lid scribeth thus
"dennis@home" writes:



"Windmill" wrote in message
...
"dennis@home" writes:



"Windmill" wrote in message
...
jgharston writes:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Its like renewable energy: Its not real but as long as everyone
believes in it, no one needs to do anything drastic like face
up to the real situation.

Come on children, say "I believe in fiat money".

All money is fiat money.
In living memory, gold was 'worth' $35 per ounce.
Today, about $1000 per ounce.

Like everything else, it's worth whatever people think it's worth.

If another extinction event destroyed most life on earth, gold would be
useless.
Food would be the only thing that mattered, and few would want to sell
priceless food in exchange for inedible gold.

I'm surprised the greens haven't jumped on gold mining yet.

They too may find it difficult to ignore the glitter.....

They expend loads of energy (CO2), dump loads of cyanides, etc., rip up
forests, etc. to get it and then waste even more energy putting it in man
made holes with guards.
Pretty stupid really.
The same goes for diamonds, but they are more useful.

During an earlier spike in gold prices, electronic gadgets became
unreliable because in low current applications you need gold for
circuit board contacts, microswitches, etc. etc., and although the
plating was usually very thin, only tens of microns, the bean counters
got excited about the 'waste'.

There are alternatives that work quite well.
I doubt if you will find a keyboard with gold these days and they work
without much trouble.

There is enough gold stored in vaults to keep the electronics industry going
for many decades, there is no need to dig up more.

Mind you if gold was to become cheap it would wreck the HiFi accessories
industry.
I mean who would buy cables where the connectors are plated with a cheap
metal?



They'd have to substitute rhodium for gold. Pricey stuff, but harder
than gold so it wouldn't easily wear off.


Yes it is pricey!, we used to use it to plate the tuning capacitors in
the output stages of high powered valve TV Transmitters.

Nice shiney metal not as bright as Chrome .

Around one of the most expensive substances there is!....

--
Tony Sayer

In message , tony sayer
writes

They'd have to substitute rhodium for gold. Pricey stuff, but harder
than gold so it wouldn't easily wear off.


Yes it is pricey!, we used to use it to plate the tuning capacitors in
the output stages of high powered valve TV Transmitters.

Nice shiney metal not as bright as Chrome .

Around one of the most expensive substances there is!....


Not one for cosmetics, are you, tony ?

--
geoff

tony sayer writes:

[.................]

Mind you if gold was to become cheap it would wreck the HiFi accessories
industry.
I mean who would buy cables where the connectors are plated with a cheap
metal?



They'd have to substitute rhodium for gold. Pricey stuff, but harder
than gold so it wouldn't easily wear off.


Yes it is pricey!, we used to use it to plate the tuning capacitors in
the output stages of high powered valve TV Transmitters.

It was also used in one of the first RAF radar units.
That ran on a much lower frequency than modern radars.
Magnetrons had only just been invented back then, so it used valves and
a shorted transmission line as a tuned circuit.
The 'transmission line' actually consisted of two massive tubes (copper
inside, AFAIK) plated with rhodium, with an adjustable clamp shorting
the two together for tuning purposes.
Beautiful workmanship; clearly a labour of love, or maybe hate.
(No, I'm not quite that old - they still had one in the late 50s, maybe
just kept from a feeling of sentimentality, or possibly out of a vague
hope that it might see over the horizon a little further than the newer
C band radars).
Probably in a museum today.

Nice shiney metal not as bright as Chrome .

Around one of the most expensive substances there is!....

Money must have been no object when the Luftwaffe were bombing the hell
out of London.
But getting supplies of rhodium must have been awkward.


--
Windmill, Use t m i l l
J.R.R. Tolkien:- @ O n e t e l . c o m
All that is gold does not glister / Not all who wander are lost