A new reason to be a gold bug:

Supply of gold is bottoming out, analysts predict

pffft Peak Gold, haven't you heard of abiotic Gold, well actually it's called abiotic heavy metals, or even the abiotic rare metals the earth makes all it's heavy metals not some stupid star that blow up zillions of years ago.

Very interesting....as a goldbug this picqued my interest. I was more worried about a short term bubble in prices, but damn, maybe there is something to this. Gold is a lot easier than oil to hold on to and resell at a higher price later.

I will keep watching for news on this....wonder if we should start a second site called peakgold.com? If the trends are there the prices will go to the moon.

Should be interesting to see how gold reacts to the US raising interest rates today. Dollar is starting to slide again compared to the euro. Time to buy more gold....

The connections to peak oil are notable.

We've done damn well at finding the easy-to-retrieve gold (like many other extractable resources). Refining more from inaccessible or low-density ores requires ever-greater amounts of energy. Say AuROEI.

There comes a point where, no matter how much men moil for gold, the barrels, therms, or MWh that it costs to produce the gold is worth more, to most people, for its heat value or petrochemical utility. Arguably, gold is a symbol of stored energy (how much it took to mine it), but it is a token of "spent-energy", and when people are looking for "unspent" energy to spend, they won't give a damn how much energy was spent to obtain the material.

Unless it's useful.

That day will come much sooner for gold than other materials. If there are other inflation hedges, gold is indeed a "culturally significant" metal and little more (plating overpriced cables and spacecraft aside). If prices go sky-high, because mining has to bid for shrinking energy supplies, demand will plummet and no one will die from the lack.

Silver and platinum, however, are "technologically significant" metals. Lots of uses in photography, electronics, and catalysts, with little that replaces them. Silver production has fallen behind 'consumption' for years now, drawing the balance from stocks discovered long ago (and held as bullion coins, etc.). When this squeeze gets serious, it should be more interesting than gold.

I came across an article about reducing the energy used in extracting minerals. The ores that are mined today are at increasingly lower levels, and energy costs are getting higher so there is a double whammy.

Using Microwave Technology to Assist in Minerals Grinding

Good grief. I didn't realize mining took that much electricity.

Gold Derivatives: Footprints of Retreat

Best, Dan.

Has anyone every graphed gold discoveries, as has been done with oil?

Haven't found a "growing gap" chart yet, but here's something on historical production :

The world gold production since 1840