Mining

Gold in the United States of America

Published

8 years ago

September 8, 2014

Jeff Desjardins

Thanks to our friends at Gold Eagle for sponsoring this piece.

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Gold in the United States of America

Thanks to our friends at Gold Eagle for sponsoring this piece.

The United States has always had a love affair with the yellow metal. It all started in Stafford, Virginia in 1782, when Thomas Jefferson documented the first gold discovery himself.

Since then, Americans have been searching for gold far and wide. The California Gold Rush brought hundreds of thousands of people to the West in search of new found wealth. Years later, many more ventured into Alaska’s wilderness to hit it rich.

Even today, there is a modern gold rush in Nevada, where the five biggest gold mines (by contained oz) are located. The US produced 8.2% of the world’s gold in 2013, which puts it in third place for annual production.

It’s also no secret that the US also holds the largest reserves of gold today, primarily located in the Fort Knox and Federal Reserve Bank of New York depositories. Between the two locations, a hefty 8,133.5 tonnes of gold are vaulted.

The future is still bright for gold in America: in fact, just three undeveloped deposits in Alaska (Pebble, Donlin, and Livengood) hold a potentially game-changing 180,000,000 oz of gold combined.

While it is true that there have been some hiccups along the way, such as Roosevelt’s confiscation of gold in 1933, it is unlikely that America’s fixation on gold will end any time soon.

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Energy

Visualizing U.S. Consumption of Fuel and Materials per Capita

Wealthy countries consume large amounts of natural resources per capita, and the U.S. is no exception. See how much is used per person.

Published

1 day ago

January 27, 2023

Bruno Venditti

Visualizing U.S. Consumption of Fuel and Materials per Capita

This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on natural resource megatrends in your email every week.

Wealthy countries consume massive amounts of natural resources per capita, and the United States is no exception.

According to data from the National Mining Association, each American needs more than 39,000 pounds (17,700 kg) of minerals and fossil fuels annually to maintain their standard of living.

Materials We Need to Build

Every building around us and every sidewalk we walk on is made of sand, steel, and cement.

As a result, these materials lead consumption per capita in the United States. On average, each person in America drives the demand of over 10,000 lbs of stone and around 7,000 lbs of sand and gravel per year.

Material/Fossil Fuel	Pounds Per Person
Stone	10,643
Natural Gas	9,456
Sand, Gravel	7,088
Petroleum Products	6,527
Coal	3,290
Cement	724
Other Nonmetals	569
Salt	359
Iron Ore	239
Phosphate Rock	166
Sulfur	66
Potash	49
Soda Ash	36
Bauxite (Aluminum)	24
Other Metals	21
Copper	13
Lead	11
Zinc	6
Manganese	4
Total	39,291

The construction industry is a major contributor to the U.S. economy.

Crushed stone, sand, gravel, and other construction aggregates represent half of the industrial minerals produced in the country, resulting in $29 billion in revenue per year.

Also on the list are crucial hard metals such as copper, aluminum, iron ore, and of course many rarer metals used in smaller quantities each year. These rarer metals can make a big economic difference even when their uses are more concentrated and isolated—for example, palladium (primarily used in catalytic converters) costs $54 million per tonne.

Fuels Powering our Lives

Despite ongoing efforts to fight climate change and reduce carbon emissions, each person in the U.S. uses over 19,000 lbs of fossil fuels per year.

U.S. primary energy consumption by energy source, 2021

Gasoline is the most consumed petroleum product in the United States.

In 2021, finished motor gasoline consumption averaged about 369 million gallons per day, equal to about 44% of total U.S. petroleum use. Distillate fuel oil (20%), hydrocarbon gas liquids (17%), and jet fuel (7%) were the next most important uses.

Reliance on Other Countries

Over the past three decades, the United States has become reliant on foreign sources to meet domestic demand for minerals and fossil fuels. Today, the country is 100% import-reliant for 17 mineral commodities and at least 50% for 30 others.

In order to reduce the dependency on other countries, namely China, the Biden administration has been working to diversify supply chains in critical minerals. This includes strengthening alliances with other countries such as Australia, India, and Japan.

However, questions still remain about how soon these policies can make an impact, and the degree to which they can ultimately help localize and diversify supply chains.