There’s something about gold, and indeed other precious metals such as silver and platinum, that sets our pulses racing. There’s a romanticism that allows people to conveniently ignore the blood and sweat that still goes in to extracting the raw materials from the ground, often in conflict-riven parts of the world, to decorate our fingers and necks with sparkling jewels.
While mining has become more sophisticated, involving renewable energies and often driverless trucks or trains, in the case of gold, at least, there’s no getting away from the need to blow up tonnes of rock in search of a few grains of the precious metal. Miners still lose their lives in the process.
With deposits dwindling, discoveries are becoming more expensive to find; hence, the