Good questions -
get 2 oz per month - no, more like 0.5 oz. in most locations.
My estimates of the number of people may be way too high.
Consider that at 10K per ounce in today's dollars, many uneconomic sources become good deals.
Every pile of mine tailings that hasn't been heap leached will be processed. Even the ones at Bodie State Park - trucks will sneak in at night and load up.
About 1/3 the streams in the western US have some gold.
There are large numbers of "dry washes" with gold - you have to dig for it, however.
There are about 40,000 abandoned hard rock mines or prospects in California, and the total for all the Western US should be about 150,000.
About 100,000 of those are gold related (SWAG)
I expect about 1 to 1.5 million people in the US could be involved.
Canada has huge resources, but will be seasonal.
Mexico and Peru, New Zealand, Australia, China, New Guinea, Philippine, South Africa.
Maybe a better estimate would be about 50 to 100 million people digging up gold worldwide when the price is over 10k.
And every existing mine will be running flat out, three shifts. |
