Is gold really in short supply? The Royal Mint to extract gold from old phones
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Gold and precious metals are to be extracted from old phones and laptops by Britain's coin-maker.
The Royal Mint plans to introduce a world-first technology to the UK to recycle gold from electronic waste.
Less than one fifth of electronic waste ends up being recycled, estimates show.
The mint's chief executive Anne Jessopp said the technology would help to "make a genuine impact on one of the world's greatest environmental challenges".
Read all about it in the link below
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-58978512
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It would use far more energy and resources to pull what little precious metals are in cell phones, let alone computers.
Why is this news? It's been going on for decades. Or is the Royal Mint planning on finding the other 80% LOL.
Kidding aside, while their new prices may be less energy intensive, is it economical and at what price point?
Gold is always in short supply. That's why people will pay $1785 an ounce for it and literally move mountains to obtain it.
I believe so. Gives credence to the fact that perhaps there really exists a shortage of the metals as found in the start of this year.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-precious-coins-demand/gold-silver-coin-demand-surging-straining-u-s-mints-capacity-idUSKBN2A22Y6
LOL.
Could be a marketing ploy perhaps? Sort of like trying to extract mercury from compact fluorescent light bulbs just for claiming to be environment friendly and saving the planet to keep the likes of Greta Thunberg happy
It may push up the price a little more because the costs for all this extraction will eventually transfer to the product buyers. The latest offerings from the US mint (especially the high relief bronco) under the garb of dissuading flippers may just be a smoke screen - just a wild guess at this point of course.
Guess there are no straight answers at this point in time. Laudable effort in terms of going green but it may not be so effective price wise nor reducing carbon footprints. Who knows?
Edited to add link.
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/u-s-coins/quarters/PCGS-2020-quarter-quest/album/247091
Gold is gold and there are many experts out there to find a way to extract it.
China has been doing it for years.
Wayne
Kennedys are my quest...
If I remember correctly, didn’t the Japanese do something like that with the Olympic metals for 2020. Seem to recall cellphones 🤠
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I am on the fence with this one. Shamelessly copying and pasting the below.
Conclusions and outlook
In this review, the challenges and rewards in recovering gold from waste PCBs, which can help secure the high global demand for this valuable metal have been highlighted. Growing societal and environmental awareness of the current (often illegal) practice in collecting and reprocessing waste electronics, combined with economic drivers, will lead to greater regulation in this industry and here the substantial body of academic literature will play an instrumental part in providing routes suitable for industrial scale-up that are based on sustainable chemistry principles. Current industrial processes rely heavily on pyrometallurgy, where the high throughput, minimal pre-treatment steps, combined with ability to handle heterogeneous material, render this economically attractive. While highly energy-intensive, its reliance on fossil fuels can be partially offset by using the plastic content of PCBs as fuel. Even so, substantial challenges remain in minimising the pollution generated through incinerating plastics. Hydro- and biohydro-metallurgy offer lower capital investment routes which, along with flexibility of scale, are attractive options for both developed and developing countries alike, provided they can compete with the economy of scale offered by pyrometallurgy, deal with the challenge of the highly complex feed stream, and limit the discharge of organic chemicals into the environment. While much of the current unregulated practices draw heavily on cyanide-based hydrometallurgy processes used in primary mining operations, reports on novel leaching and extraction agents using less toxic reagents, which also address the different chemical environments presented in leaching metallic gold from PCBs, are burgeoning. Similarly, there is a wealth of literature that highlights the promise offered by biohydrometallurgy and biomass adsorption. With the potential to process low-grade material cheaply and under mild conditions, these routes are likely to make a positive impact, although life-cycle analyses would be required to fully appreciate their benefits or otherwise. However, it is clear that recovering valuable metals like gold from discarded household items such as mobile phones is a compelling and growing field, with many promising avenues arising for sustainable chemical processes.
Source: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/ra/c9ra07607g
https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/u-s-coins/quarters/PCGS-2020-quarter-quest/album/247091
Gold is not in short supply, Poland announced like a week ago their central bank is adding 100 tons of it next year. Gold has very few industrial uses, unlike silver, copper or aluminum. Virtually all gold that has ever been mined exists as bullion, jewelry to this day.
This is less of an issue of scarcity for bullion/manufacturing needs and more akin to a foreign mint virtue signaling and some mint director wanting a nice bullet point on their resume.
*Silver is the metal that routinely gets completely consumed in electronics for its high electro-conductivity properties. In 100+ years this is the metal that will be pillaged for in landfills once it becomes profitable enough to do so.
The US Mint is a minor player in the world gold scene. What they do and how they structure their pricing has very little effect on the global perception of precious metal supply & demand. About 3,200 metric tons of gold was mined worldwide in 2020. In 2016, total circulated (non-proof) mintages of all 4 denominations of AGEs and the 1 oz Gold Buffalo program required 37.5 metric tons of gold, or a little more than 1% of the world's production. Of course, the US minted other gold products as well such as commemoratives and proof coins, but the lion's share is contained within the bullion AGE and buffalo programs.
Worldwide, about 8% of the annual gold production (250 metric tons) is consumed by the electronics industry.
The cost of mining and refining gold is tied closely to the price of energy (petroleum). Industrial-scale reprocessing of electronic and industrial waste to reclaim precious metal content is nothing new and will continue to evolve, following the same supply & demand economic relationships that govern every other industrial process.
Short supply? No.
In demand? Yes.
If it is economically advantageous to extract the gold, someone will do it.
Not sure how it helps the environment as the trace amounts of gold are not the problem.
But, I say go for it.
What is really needed are more "GOLD RUSH" style shows on cable! Fire up those dredges!
Reminds me of when the German government tried to extract gold from the world's oceans to pay off their war reparations after WWI. Unfortunately, Fritz Haber estimated the concentration at 65 mg/metric ton of seawater. The actual concentration was 65 µg/metric ton. He mis-estimated by a factor of 1000X, so it wasn't feasible.
Sadly, the concentration of used electronics per metric ton of seawater is increasing...
You, sir, are correct.
Link
Thanks buddy. The link is very cool. I did not realize that all the medals were from recycled material. Gold, silver and bronze.
I swear. Some of the esoteric stuff that rattles around my brain. “Out of the fog and into the smog”. 🙀😉
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Greta's happy...she's Rick Rollin these days!
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Tony hasn't been using his dredge. He got shut down due to lack of a water permit.
Extracting gold from electronics also causes pollution. However, I wonder if it is environmentally less destructive to do than mining and practically destroying landscapes to get at the raw material.
Gold is a great conductor of electricity and it does not have the drawback of tarnishing like silver or copper. It keeps its conductivity longer, which is why it is used in safety devices such as airbags.
edited for spelling
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I spent a lot of years in the printed circuit industry, creating the boards for electronic devices. That involved silver, gold, copper and tin/lead plating. The scrap from those processes (at that time) was simply sent to landfills - and there was a significant amount. At today's prices (compared to forty+ years ago), it may well be worth reclaiming. Cheers, RickO
Exactly.......I thought gold came out of the ground to begin with !
I get tired of that kind of fake, feel-good writing......
If it costs $1500 to extract an ounce of gold from discarded electronic equipment, it makes sense at current gold prices.
Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
"Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire
So you think mining is a harmless, clean operation. Some metals mining is done using ponds of strong oxidizing acids.
https://www.hcn.org/articles/climate-desk-mining-companies-pollute-western-waters-citizen-pay-for-the-clean-up#:~:text=Uncontrolled mining pollution has a,billion pounds of toxic waste.
And disposal of PC boards does not occur by safely putting the metals back in the mountains. It often results in landfills that leach pollutants into waterways.
It is at least POSSIBLE that this method is far more environmentally friendly than the alternative.
Hey, why do we have to choose when we can do both?
Reclaiming gold is fine but I wish they would find a way to reclaim the rest of the materials from modern tech devices.
I have seen photos of a river in China where a lot of old computers and such are shipped. They take what can be easily sold (gold, copper) and then toss the rest, which is by far the bulk of the items, into the river and the surrounding landscape.
Estimate of gold reserves in 2019 was just over 190,000 metric tons worldwide. There is no gold shortage and never will be.
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Only gold shortage here is in (or not) my collection 😂🙀
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I didn't say that at all. I said that gold came out of the ground. Letting it go back to the ground can't be harmful.
What the heck did I just watch?? Weirdest thing I've seen in a while
That is not true as per my second comment. It doesn't go "into the ground". It leaches into groundwater along with all the other heavy metals in the waste stream.
Part of the new generation. Not so different from when we were young. I hope she becomes a coin collector. We need em 😉
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You made me watch it just to see what the fuss was about.
Trying now to find a way to turn back time a minute or two.
Disposing of e-waste in landfills is not a solution as the pollution will catch up to us or our descendants. While gold in the ground causes no harm, the problem is all the other components on the circuit board and the plastic housings that are buried with the trace amounts of gold. It is the combination of all those miscellaneous materials that will be a problem (the Michigan lead water crisis is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of improper waste disposal).
Mining has its own environmental destruction as has been pointed out here.
Proper processing of e-waste is the better long term solution and it may require government subsidies to help encourage recycling companies to do this work. As gold, silver and other metals rise in value, less subsidies would be needed. It is probably better to subsidize this project than later pay for the clean up and aftermath of human suffering due to uncontrolled pollution.
When one buys a computer in California, we do pay for an e-waste fee. I wonder where that money actually goes? I have even seen recycling centers in California that charge the consumer for dropping off electronics. This kind of discourages proper recycling.
BST: Tennessebanker, Downtown1974, LarkinCollector, nendee
My little town asks for a donation for dropping off cardboard. Appliances and electronics are $10 each. 🤨🙀
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See what I mean in regards to obstacles for recycling. Imagine offering a dollar for each electronic unit that the consumer brings in? That would prevent a lot of junk from filling in the landfills. Offering money upfront to take in the junk is likely going to be cheaper than spending for clean up later down the line.
BST: Tennessebanker, Downtown1974, LarkinCollector, nendee
Hmmm, Not sure if they do it now, but my county wouldn't charge the dump fee if you also brought recyclables of which cardboard was one of them. Pretty sure there is a profit in cardboard as I used to see pickups loaded with cardboard they had gone around to various business's and collected!
I am not, repeat NOT, disputing your point about improper waste disposal.
That said, I believe that the lead issue in Flint, MI, was linked to the distribution system, not improper waste disposal.
Reference
Where I'm from you frequently see furniture and other assorted junk left beside the road or on the edge of remote properties.
That is correct.
Apparently copper is in short supply as the price keeps rising to recent highs.....
I stand corrected then. The Michigan water crisis was not a good example of what happens with improper waste disposal since its cause was something else. So, if problems within the distribution system caused the Michigan water crisis, then dumping pollutants randomly in our environment would certainly cause all kinds of health problems for humans, plants, animals and the ecosystem as a whole. Would anyone want fresh fish from the ocean with high levels of mercury, for example?
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