Mineral Economics

Abstract

Few individuals will ever buy a ton of raw iron or a hundred pounds of unfabricated copper. These quantities of metal will be purchased by many in fabricated form as an automobile. Thus metals are taken for granted, and mines are seen as horrible holes ruining the environment (aesthetically, if no other way). Not many realize that golf courses use more of the land than all of the metal mines in the country. All of those golf courses are ultimately paid for by value added on minerals. Golf courses can be sited in a wide choice of locations, however, while metals have to be extracted from those rare, restricted zones where nature concentrated them sufficiently to warrant their extraction. They have to be extracted economically (which means at a profit in the western world). This is essentially true in controlled market nations, even if it is not admitted.