There's Plenty of Gold (sound)

[Music] throughout the American West they can be found the Forgotten places we formed our band and we're all well man to Journey a far to the promised land where the gold on is rich in store and we never need to look brother's of the world on the BS of the sacamento way we go looking for the gold that lies [Applause] a century ago their names alone were enough to make men sell their last possessions to pay for a trip West in search of gold and silver places with names like Rosita Tin Cup St Elmo Bachelor Flats men came with a thousand to pan the streams and dig the Earth in search of the Endless wealth they'd been told was awaiting them and wherever they struck PT they built towns towns fairly bursting with song gunfire and the giddiness of new riches here they fought the Wilderness and wrenched from its grasp the wealth a growing Nation needed there was plenty of gold in the World they were told and they believed [Applause] [Music] it until the mines played out and they did play [Music] out of with their limited technology the miners of the last century could take advantage of only the highgrade or deposits and when those Rich veins were gone once flourishing towns died today we are no less dependent on the Treasures of the earth and the cities of a century ago the Earth's mineral wealth still forms the very back bone of society not just the glamour elements like gold or silver but the basic minerals which have become indispensable to our way of life boide for aluminum iron ore for steel copper for electrical wiring potach and phosphates for fertilizer Rock gravel and sand for building lead tin nickel the list goes on and on every every manufactured product from can opener to 747 depends upon the output of Mines the obvious fact is Without A continuing supply of minerals Modern Life as we know it cannot continue and just as obvious is the need to take these minerals without damaging the planet which has provided them there are many who draw ominous conclusions from the fate of the ghost towns they foresee a world filled with the ghost towns of our civilization after all they say the wealth buried beneath the earth's surface is finite its limits set in the heat of creation when it is gone there will be no more and further some say to get what is there may result in massive damage to the environment in the club of Rome's provocative study on the limits to growth scientists determined that if the demand for minerals continues Upward at its present rate the world's known reserves of many minerals will be depleted within a few decades no nation is immune to this forecast the United States for example long thought to be self-sufficient at iron and copper is finding these two common minerals harder and more expensive to locate and produce the US is particularly dependent on Imports of nine critical Metals 100% of its chromium and platinum 95% of its manganese over 80% of its boxy nickel Mercury and Tin in and over 50% of its tungsten and zinc a serious shortage of these minerals in America could have drastic repercussions not only on the US economy but on worldwide economic stability so are we then destined to leave behind the ruins of our civilization will the mineral base of our society play out will our planet become a moonscape of environmental destruction the answer it need not be that that way the miners who sang that there was plenty of gold had only limited technology and ineffectively claimed the Earth's wealth today we have the means if we apply them wisely and responsibly to make our mineral resources stretch to accommodate the world's demand almost indefinitely without irreparable damage the job can be done provided five conditions are met first we must find new mineral deposits wherever they may be however remote in deserts mountains forests even in the oceans second we must learn to make use of low grade or deposits once considered unrecoverable or uneconomical third we must learn not to waste to use and reuse Precious Minerals when whenever and however possible fourth we must promote and Achieve continuing International cooperation to ensure a free flow of vital raw materials to All Nations around the world and fifth we all of us must be willing to assume the inevitably higher cost of locating mining refining using and reusing these minerals plus the additional cost of restoring and reclaiming the areas from which they came it's a big job with enormous risks and no Simple Solutions but it can be done it's a job which is already underway first the search for minerals until recently man looked for minerals with his nose to the ground depending upon the forces of erosion and upheaval to reveal what had been hidden now that's all being changed confined to his Planet man could never really see the big picture of his world but the view from orbit as witnessed by the sky laab astronauts gives us fresh insights into the Earth and her resources geologists have long known that minerals are most easily found near faults in the Earth's surface but over the centuries Wind and Rain have worn down these cracks until many of them are undetectable from the ground from orbit astronauts can employ radiometers electromagnetic spectrum recorders and infrared photography to study vast areas of the earth they can pinpoint likely mineral bearing formations which otherwise might go unnoticed skylab's unmanned little brother in orbit is the Earth Resources technology satellite known as SS SS has crisscrossed the globe provid ing scientists on Earth with studies of virtually every square mile of the planet so voluminous was the information gathered by Earths that it will be studied for years to come evolving into a total picture of the Earth's surface the view from orbit tells us much about the planet's resources but the aerial search must be narrowed brought closer to Earth the yellow capsule under this airplane looks like a bomb but actually it is is part of a sophisticated surveying system which allows geophysicists to look beneath the earth's surface before turning a spade full of dirt employing an electromagnetic system which works something like radar a signal is directed from the airplane to the ground below the signals are bounced back by any metal or sulfide or deposits in the earth and recorded by the receiver which is towed behind the plane the intensity of these signals give the Searchers a record of mineral C concentrations and their Geographic [Music] [Music] boundary finally following the aerial surveys a ground crew moves in using a similar technique to narrow the search even further it's a deceptively simple procedure but it is capable of telling the Prospectors the size and shape of a buried deposit its depth and whether it is lying flat or at an angle beneath the surface eventually core samples are drilled to verify what the earlier tests of IND [Applause] ated and even old core samples are revealing new secrets for nearly a century individuals companies and governments have been taking core samples from around the world and filing them away on musty shelves now these samples are being re-examined subjected to new tests the men who drew the samples may have been looking for just one kind of mineral when they didn't find it they moved on often ignoring other elements present in the samples today we are looking once again to see just what earlier Searchers might have missed as off we roam through the dark sea fo we'll never forget friends at home but memory kind shall bring to mind the love of those we left behind the search for new minerals reaches from outer space to Inner Space the oceans themselves in time the oceans floor may play an important role in supplying the world's mineral [Music] needs look for the these blackish lumps are mineral nodules formations of manganes copper Cobalt and almost 30 other minerals which have been collecting around tiny objects on the ocean bottom for millions of years in the future suction powered dredges may be lowered to beds of nodules 5 m deep providing man with billions of tons of minerals once thought unrecoverable so new discovery is the first condition for assuring ample supplies of essential minerals the second condition is that we develop and utilize lowgrade ore deposits thought worthless in years past new processing technology allows today's miners to refine raw ores containing only a fraction of 1% of the base mineral of course claiming such lowgrade ores requires massive and large-scale excavation of the raw material responsible mining companies are now taking Extraordinary Measures to restore the terrain to normal configuration after mining for return to productive use but the answer to meeting the world's mineral requirements is not simply to dig more what happens to the minerals after they have been refined and turned into millions of products what do we do with them after their initial use although we rarely think of it as such trash is one of our greatest resources and growing each year how much tin steel aluminum and copper for instance ends up at the bottom of sanitary landfills or in roadside ditches plenty if our mineral requirements are to be met we must learn to conserve and reuse what we already have and while we've scratched the surface of condition 3 our lifestyles must change to accommodate the life of conservation our ancestors lived in order to survive this means collecting shredding and remelting products such as aluminum cans a simple process which produces new ingots with less than 5% of the energy required to make the Virgin metal one of every seven aluminum cans manufactured in the United States is being recycled this process recovers enough aluminum to cast all the engine blocks of all the subcompact cars built in the country but what if four or five of every seven cans could be recycled or all of them recycling can be applied to almost almost any mineral today the steel industry is reducing junk rust heaps to scrap metal and then remelting that metal to be used and used again such reuse provides a double benefit it dramatically increases the supply of critical Metals while decreasing the volume of solid refu to be eliminated the fourth condition for uring adequate mineral supplies to the world involves International cooperation as critical elements are often found in locations that are extremely difficult and costly for men to reach take for example mount whaleback a mountain of iron ore in the remote Australian Outback almost 300 M from the continent's Northwest Shore when geologists first studied this virtually uninhabited area they discovered Mount whaleback was packed with iron ore from its crest 700 ft above the desert plane to a depth of at least 1,000 ft below the plain surface a reserve of 1,000 million tons of highgrade ore for an or hungry world but there was no way to develop it no adequate roads no nearby cities no way of moving the ore or refining it or shipping it in a textbook example of international cooperation mining companies from Australia Great Britain the United States and Japan formed a joint venture naming their project after the largest mountain in the area mount Newman an incredible array of mining equipment was moved piece by piece into the Outback and gradually an entire city grew where there had been only a desolate [Music] landscape then to get the A out they built a 265m long railroad to the coast and a port capable of handling 160,000 ton cargo vessels the result 6,000 tons per hour 30 million tons of iron ore a year is Flowing from Mount Newman to the markets of the world Halfway Around the Globe in another extremely remote area and even more incredible effort of the mining industry the Black Angel a vein of lead and zinc located 2,000 ft up the face of a sheer Cliff above mamic Fjord on Greenland's West Coast the Black Angel was first discovered in 1964 since that time tests have shown the reserves to contain at least 20 % combined lead and zinc representing millions of tons of these critical elements but how were men to mine that ore embedded in rock in permanently Frozen conditions in a place where only seagulls could reach it almost unbelievably the job was [Music] done with ships and cable cars and large quantities of inventiveness and courage the Black Angel became one of North America's outstanding mining accomplishments with minimal environmental disturbance today miners work in shafts sunk into the face of the cliff lowering the ore by cable car to the waiting cargo ships far below all the gold is there must anywhere you can dig it out with an iron bar and where it's sick with a spade or pick you can take out lumps as big as a bre and what of our fifth condition the cost of assuring a continual flow of minerals around the world the development of new technology is expensive so are the massive Construction and Equipment requirements to reach mine and transport low grade ores and today the added expense of Environmental Protection and Reclamation is a very real part of the total price of fulfilling the world's mineral needs costly yes necessary yes for instance the reawakened town of Princeton in southern British Columbia born in the 1860s with a discovery of gold it lingered for years on copper after the Gold was [Music] gone when the richest copper deposits had also been tapped it subsided to a near ghost town but today 800 ft above the simil camine river outside Princeton 28% copper concentrate is being produced from ore containing 1 half of 1% Copper at the rate of 10,000 tons of copper concentrate a year from a reserve of 76 million tons of ore the effort involved 2 miles of pipeline between the initial capacitor and the concentrating plant with a 1,000 ft span Over the River Canyon dams at either end of a valley to permit reuse of 70% of the water involved in mining and as a closed system storage area for tailings that will eventually be reforested with tens of thousands of trees to restore the area it involved the plan construction of family unit communities and a truck transportation system to get the or concentrate to the docks in Vancouver where it can be shipped to our International Community contrast this with a millions of tons of highgrade copper ore embedded in a thumb of rock that rises 12,000 ft above the jungle floor in Indonesia the urberg Dutch for or Mountain its riches have been tapped after a gargantuan Road building [Music] effort the miraculous transport of bits and pieces of heavy equipment by helicopter for reassembly at the remote mine site in addition to Native Indonesians there's now a town of 1,500 made up of a Workforce from Korea the Phil Philippines Australia New Zealand Canada and the United States and today an almost science fiction mining operation features a mile long cable car system to bucket The Ore from the mine to the mill [Music] site and a 46m long gravity run to take the or slurry to the new ocean port for concentrating drying and loading on the cargo ships for transport to the world banville in New Guinea where during World War II thousands of Americans Australians and Japanese fought to the death the ghosts of the miners of old must mingle in shared amazement with the spirits of almost forgotten casually lists as former enemies band together in a massive mining operation and an international venture between the buan vians Japan Australia and the United States has brought together a Workforce of 10,000 employed by 200 contractors living in two complete New Towns as a part of the largest Grassroots mining operation ever undertaken the reason for all this 900 million tons of ore that will produce 150,000 tons of copper concent 500,000 ounces of gold and 1 million ounces of silver each year for up to three decades all in an area of only 10 square miles mineral recovery need always be so difficult for in other areas Nature has been almost deceptively Cooperative in the northern Philippines the ocean waves wash this blackish sand ashore to be scooped up for processing it's magnetite ore and rich in iron here on lisan the ore has been gathered at the rate of 110,000 metric tons a year similar deposits are also being collected on beaches in New Zealand Australia and Japan on caramon island in Indonesia quaring work similar to non-metallic mining operations all over the world is providing materials for construction as Granite is reduced to usable size aggregate for critically important building operations aggregate for concrete road building and countless other uses aggregate for the places in the world where the raw material is not available in sufficient quantity to meet the demand on the edge of the South China Sea in the jeor state of Malaysia boite the source of aluminum lies only a foot below the surface in seams of up to 18 ft thick heavy equipment need remove only this very thin layer of overburden to reach the ore and transport the Box site Less Than 3 miles to the processing plan and Port Malaysia also produces nearly half of the world's tin the ore in aluvial deposits washed down from the mountains over the centuries is mined by both hydraulic and dredge methods the slurry is washed over looses where the heavier ore settles out for [Music] processing perhaps then the miners of old were right in their optimistic view there is plenty of gold gold in the form of all the precious minerals and metals that support our existence but there remain many obstacles to claiming them there are no Simple Solutions to keeping the wheels of civilization turning making available on an international basis the minerals necessary for our survival it will require muscles and machines study and planning responsible concern for the environment International cooperation and courage all of the world's people need a continuing supply of mineral to survive on this planet there must be access to this Supply by All Nations all men that access must be safe and secure it is Unthinkable to wall off or deny this basic need for purely political or environmental reasons it is equally Unthinkable to exploit them completely ignoring those realities satisfying the worldwide need for minerals can create a healthy interplace between nations an exchange a Commerce a basis of peaceful economic coexistence for the benefit of all the world's people and if we are ruled by wisdom and reason the fate of the ghost towns need not be repeated in our time indeed if we make the best use of what we have on this Earth without want and abuse of the planet then we can truly say there is plenty of gold in the world for us all of therey of