Mining is one of the largest commercial jobs. The word mining doesn’t sound very important to ordinary peoples who doesn’t know geology. After I read this book, I knew our culture need industrial minerals more than they need anything else except food, but even food could not be produced without minerals.
There are only a few of the world’s five billion people who don’t rely on mineral everyday. Unfortunately, there is many factors concerning these industrial activities. Will it make profit or is it not economically feasible. Minerals can be found in every part of the earth’s crust, but with two important needs; the concentration of mineral and the size of the deposit.
We want to make sure the mineral is high grade and large enough to repay the investment and make profit. Of the many mineral found, there is only a few mineral will appear to have good potential. So it must be tested widely, which costs a lot of time and speed is one of the critical factors. If the construction is financed by loans, it leads up to high interest costs.
The economics of a mine depends upon ore reserves, grade, type of ore, and the location. In order to mine, many months and millions of dollars have to spend in construction. There are only a few mines are discovered in convenient places, this costs a lot on transportation and labor on such an atmosphere. Construction includes food, health, accommodation and recreation facilities for the hundreds of working man. Water, power, communication, equipment, etc… So in a construction site is almost the same as a little empire.
In able to build this, the Industry Company has to make sure the ore they are getting is worth it. Environmental concerns are global concerns; cost advantages may increase by having higher environmental impacts from mining. This creates air pollution and global problems. In the other hand, the skill of mining delivers benefits to all of the earth’s population. Such as medicine, communication, etc… all provide benefits to human by metals and minerals. So the public has mixed points, they want to protect the environment, but also wish to maintain the present quality of their lives.
In general, mining is something that can’t be missing out from the society we are now at. Even the international financial system depends at least one metal – gold. There are still many zones of minerals are waiting for us to discover under the crust and oceans of our globe.
