When you say "never", then I know you don't know what you're talking about. 10,000 years? Maybe. Never? Certainly we'd run out of them eventually.
Harper touts Canada’s mining industry
- Thread starter Locutus
- Start date
deep sea port and all weather road is needed in the arctic,there are dozens of companies just waiting for a commitment from the govt.
Check out Sabina gold and silvers website.
So if it's so profitable, why not require the mines to build the ports in exchange for the right to mine?
Either that or we forfeit any tax break that they get in exchange for the government building the port?
I think a port would be a good idea though.
They are waiting for the govt. to commit,the government will also get royalties so its in our best interest to get er done and now.
Sabina Gold & Silver Corp. is a Canadian gold Company on track to become a mid-tier gold producer.The Company has a portfolio of different properties in Canada at different stages of development. The Company's flagship projects are currently located in Nunavut, in the Canadian North.
Through these Nunavut assets, Sabina is currently evolving from a successful exploration company to a developer.
The Nunavut assets, which are geographicaly proximal to each other, consist of:
- The high grade Back River gold project. Back River is a series of seven claim blocks, where a critical mass of resource ounces has been discovered and enabled the Company to move towards economic studies;
- The Wishbone greenstone belt, a large grass roots exploration claim block adjacent to Back River and highly prospective for new gold discoveries; and
- The significant royalty on the Hackett River silver-zinc property, sold by Sabina to Xstrata Zinc Canada in 2011. The royalty is comprised of 22.5% of the first 190 million ounces of silver produced from Hackett River and 12.5% of all silver produced thereafter. Hackett River sits at the North end of the Wishbone greenstone belt.
This portfolio of Arctic assets gives the Company a district size precious metals presence in one of the world's safest mining jurisdictions.
The Company is well financed with no debt. These financial resources in conjunction with a management team that has demonstrated proven success in exploring, developing, and operating large projects in difficult environments, provide the platform for Sabina to become a leading Canadian investment opportunity.
Management plans to grow the Company by focusing on these mandates:
- to strive to become a mid-tier gold producer as quickly as possible;
- to seek out other accretive precious metals acquisitions while continuing to advance Back River;
- to build on an experienced skilled management and technical team; and
- to maintain a strong treasury to enable the Company to facilitate its objectives
I suppose one possible solution could be:
The government could sell unlimited crown resources to a company to exploit on the condition that it guarantee that the resource will be exploited over a minimum 70-year period. This would mean that the company would first have to ascertain the minimum amount of the mineral in the mine, whereby the government would thus allow it to exploit 1/70 of those minerals each year. Should it be found later that the mine in fact had more minerals than that that the company simply had not noticed, then so much the better, it could then stay open longer still.
This would prevent an unsustainable bubble economy occurring whereby the company builds up a large mining town with people all investing in homes there etc. only to then shut down 15 years later because the resources would already have all been exploited.
This way it would mean the company would not have any incentive to overexpand, whereby it would satisfy itself with hiring a smaller number of workers who would then essentially be more or less guaranteed a lifetime of employment should they wish to settle there. At least this would prevent a quick boom and bust at the mine.
The government could sell unlimited crown resources to a company to exploit on the condition that it guarantee that the resource will be exploited over a minimum 70-year period. This would mean that the company would first have to ascertain the minimum amount of the mineral in the mine, whereby the government would thus allow it to exploit 1/70 of those minerals each year. Should it be found later that the mine in fact had more minerals than that that the company simply had not noticed, then so much the better, it could then stay open longer still.
This would prevent an unsustainable bubble economy occurring whereby the company builds up a large mining town with people all investing in homes there etc. only to then shut down 15 years later because the resources would already have all been exploited.
This way it would mean the company would not have any incentive to overexpand, whereby it would satisfy itself with hiring a smaller number of workers who would then essentially be more or less guaranteed a lifetime of employment should they wish to settle there. At least this would prevent a quick boom and bust at the mine.
nope
That depends on what areas we decide are out of bounds. There are lots of minerals and timber resources locked up in parks which is a waste and cuts into the available supply. We lost huge portions of our annual allowable cut on the coast because the government tried to buy votes from citiots by creating parks and preserves with no regard for industry sustainability. In the Dark days of Dipper mismanagement they came up with a thing called Visual Quality Objectives which Took almost 30% of the AAC on the mid coast because someone thought that rich people on cruise ships did not want to see clear cuts. Problem is that the ships leave from Seattle and do not deposit one thin dime in BC, nor do they even get close to many of the inlets that these restrictions were placed on.
Many years ago the federal government put a moritorium on drilling off the west coast mostly to keep BC from getting too independent by exporting oil. As a result we are missing out on an economic opportunity there as well.
Now obviously it makes sense not to exploit every mineral deposit or stand of timber at once or we will flood the market and cut our own throats but to place areas permanently off limits is also foolish.
There is nothing wrong with selective logging either; after all, the tree will eventually die anyway so when we're talking about a mature tree, why not.
In the part of Germany where my wife comes from they log their parks on a selective basis. Can't afford to waste the fiber.
Most mine plans are ten years but as a pit gets mined out the strip ratio to mine adjoining rock gets affordable and then you will see a ten or 15 year life expectancy for a pit,but if a mine mill is allready there then its still affordable to truck ore from many miles away and use one plant.Once the infrastructure is there it will be utilized to the fullest extent,thats why mines allways expand after the first 5 years.They get more efficient as t5hey go and that means they mine cheaper.
Any miner will tell you though,the bigger the machinery the cheaper it is to mine,a 350 tonne rock truck is more efficient then a 50 tonne rock truck and Caterpillar now makes a 400 tonne rock truck.
Also the northern mines need diesel to operate,most mines down south use electric shovels,they are about 4 times cheaper to run then a diesel excavator.
Good point taxslave. Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting in Flin Flon is closing mines but at the same time the smelter is being expanded to accomadate new, easily accesssed deposits within the THO mineral belt. Without that smelter and infrastructure those minerals would be sitting for a long long time.
I tried using a bigger shovel while working on my gold claim but was short of horsepower, so i went to the bank to borrow money for a gym membership. They said i should go to the borrow pit and........;-)
So? One day the well will run dry. It's the Law of Diminishing Returns.
More demand + fewer and fewer resources = increasingly higher cost and eventual extinction of product.
We and a few dozen generations will have passed before anything runs out.
There has to be about 50 exploration camps within 30 miles of Baker lake NU. right now,looking for gold,silver,uranium and other minerals,Baffin island will also start booming soon.
Once I flew over the arctic for the first time I realized just how freaking big the NWT are and it's basically a treasure chest of precious gems and minerals.I have never been to Labrador but a lot of my buddies also run camps up there so there is lots of activity,logistics keep most development to a minimum as its very hard to resupply anything when you only have a few months to do it.He who has the best contacts gets the planes and fuel and it takes a full year to ship anything big from southern Canada to the arctic.
So how did things "pan" out for you?
Some pics from my days in the mines.
Would have been awesome with that equipment but they would have put me in irons cause i couldn't afford that kind of payolla and lobbying;-)
Really?
At the present rate of consumption, educated estimates of running out of resources goes like this;
indium(used in lcd monitors): 4-13 years
silver: 9-29 years
lead: 8-42 years
antimony(used in pharmaceutical drugs): 13-30 years
tin: 17-40 years
uranium: 19-59
zinc: 34-46 years
copper(wire, plumbing, pennies): 38-61 years
nickel: 57-90 years
Looking for is not finding.