The Coming Collapse of Gold

Photo by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen

 Gold has been a store of value since the dawn of civilization, but that's about to change.  Gold prices are going to plummet in the future - permanently.  I can't give you  a date, but I can tell you how it will happen.

In all of human history we have managed to pan, blast, and pry about 176,000 metric tonnes of gold from mother earth.  While the oceans are estimated contain about 20 million tons of dissolved gold.  The gold is very low in concentration, about one milligram in a ton of sea water.

Although many people have tried to extract the gold from the sea, none have done so successfully.  The most famous was German chemist Fritz Haber who tried to pan the oceans for gold to repay Germany's war debt.  Many swindlers have tried to sell the idea, but only succeeded in mining gullible rich people.

Photo by US Mint

 But that will change in the future.  A few methods may be possible to rob Poseidon of his wealth.
1.  Microbes are known to take dissolved gold and produce solid gold.  Pedomicrobium 
is an example as is Delftia acidovorans . These could be genetically altered to increase their yield.

2.  Designing sheets of materials that have an affinity for gold and placing those in ocean currents.  The sheets are anchored to the sea floor and recovered months later after filtering the precious metal.  Japan has used a process like this to test the recovery of Uranium..  Uranium is much more abundant in ocean water, 4.5 billion metric ton, but the concept is the same.
3.  Plants like kelp could be genetically engineered to have an affinity for gold and then be harvested.  Although this solution has many obvious issues.  Otters with gold-capped teeth anyone?

Photo by Bullion Vault

As material science progresses, it is just a matter of time before we can start to pan the oceans for gold.  It may take 10 years, or 50, but eventually someone will crack the code.  When they do, vast new quantities will pour into the world's markets permanently depressing the gold market.

Oceans Ten Times More Acidic Than Thought

National Geographic has a curious article entitled, Oceans Ten Times More Acidic Than Thought" that contains so many errors it's difficult to know where to begin. For starters, the title implies that the ocean is ten times more acidic that previously thought, like it slipped from 6.5 to 5.5pH, catching researchers off guard. In reality, it's the increase in acidity that is ten times higher than some climate model predicted. Perhaps a better title would have been, "Global Warming Model Incorrect By an Order of Magnitude".

The word "Oceans" in the title implies many of our oceans have increased acidity, but the article cleanly states the research applies to the ocean around one island (or perhaps "Oceans" in the title needs a possessive apostrophe).

A whale of a contradiction in the article is "...carbon dioxide dissolves in the oceans it forms carbonic acid, which in turn has a negative impact on marine life.", but later the article claims, "Larger mussels and barnacles suffered, leaving smaller barnacles and some calcium-based seaweeds better off."
Increased acidity doesn't have a negative impact on all marine life. Under almost any change in environment, some species will do better and other will flounder.

The article ends with a stinging quote: "This is typical of so many climate studies—almost without exception things are turning out to be worse than we originally thought." This clearly is a call to the readers to do something about the tsunami of impending climate change. Although it could be argued from the article that there's something fishy with these climate models which can't make accurate predictions.

The whole article should be taken with a grain of salt.