Gold - Mining For The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of | Doc Bites

goat the only currency that has been around for over 5,000 years our reporter Johannes ynglyn travels to Peru where work is mined for gold by hand discovers the world's largest gold recycling center in Sweden the value of this now is around 400,000 euros and learns how China influences the prizes of our gold [Music] Chinese people bought 45% more gold this year than the year before our mission today is to find out where does our gold come from in order to do so you're Hannah's first travels to the original source of gold his first stop is Peru Peru is the sixth largest gold producer in the world it's a good two hours by car between the largest city and Johanna's destination relati a village indians where only miners and their families live it was really difficult to obtain a shooting permit the reason being that working conditions are generally terrible and of course nobody wants to show that on TV but in southern Peru we found a mine where it can actually take a look this mine is one of the first mines in Peru to be certified as fair unlike other mines in the country workers are trained and paid properly they're familiar with safety measures and the adequate handling of their work equipment Christine hi there do you want to take working clothes as well can we meet them johannes is supposed to help out this is the best way for him to see firsthand how the workers here extract the gold gold rich minerals have been mined here for the past 17 years the mine produces 2 to 3 kilos of pure gold per month this tunnel goes hundreds of metres into the mountain this entire mountain range looks like Swiss cheese in essence a 10-minute walk in the dark afterwards you reach the entrance to the mine shaft the gold is down here still waiting to be dug out Johannes and miner Lorenzo have to descend about 50 feet up there's the gold vein that's what we need the - hammer through the rock with chisels and a pickaxe they don't have a way to know beforehand exactly how much gold is there but how did the gold get there actually gold comes from outer space about a million years ago two stars collided when they did millions of gold particles were created they flew into Earth and are now deposited deep in the ground gold is therefore difficult to find Lorenzo and Johannes pack the gold rock into sacks by hand to be moved around each one of them weighs around 90 pounds a heavy load to move around deep in the mountains it's totally different once you feel on your own body how much work is involved in extracting the gold the only underground technology a motorized pulley it pulls up to a ton of dusty rubble however there's no guarantee the rock actually contains gold first the mine car has to go out something also done by hand the miners work eight hours a day in this dark tunnel they extract up to 20 tons of rock a day but how do you get the gold Johannes wants Alex Vasquez to explain that to him since he's the head of processing [Music] Alex I've got this one from the mine but how can you make gold out of it to begin with that's not enough there are only two to three milligrams of gold in the stone in order for gold production to be worthwhile the workers need to extract a lot of rock for just five grams of gold about a ton is needed so what is happening next the rocks are still too big they have to go through this mill now these look like short reports exactly no stones there are several of them in the drum they hit each other and crush the rock yes they're different sizes the material in there Johannes has been working in the mind for six hours and he's yet to see gold the material is still a mixture of sand stones and the still hidden precious metal grinding this rock until it's fine sand is the next step towards gold so that's really gold in it yes that's gold but I can I cannot see it you have to filter the gold out of the powder first Eliseo the mining engineer shows johannes how to do it a handful of powder is enough to prove that gold is really mined here le sale first mixes it with water we know this way of checking for gold from America Gold is still washed in the traditional manner here and it'll be our little test in Peru it takes a few minutes there are very very small particles of gold the yield is low true but then again we only used a bit of powder and there are tons of it here that's why things are done differently on a larger scale the powdered rock first goes into these basins various chemicals remove the gold from the rock after 15 days a gold paste remains it's amazing how much effort goes into getting such a tiny amount of gold but that's what makes gold so valuable as a raw material gold can only be mined on a large scale in a few parts of the world the number one among the six largest gold producers China with over 14 million ounces followed by Australia with eight and a half million ounces Russia is in third place with just under 8 million ounces the United States follow just behind at over just seven and a half million ounces South Africa was fifth largest gold producer Peru came and six [Music] since gold is finit and a valuable commodity a real gold rush is taking place worldwide in Alaska gold seekers vacuum sea beds with a special model in Calcutta people even trawl through India's drain pipes all in the name of a bit of gold all because it's finished that's why there are companies that rely on a different sort of gold mining our next stop is Sweden in the north of Scandinavia a factory now recycles electronics from waste into gold bars [Music] Johannes visits the world's largest gold recycling center in scale of T and meets up with production manager Ola Bowman nice to meet you yeah hello Johannes may only enter the premises wearing protective gear and under permanent supervision the industrial island mainly processes copper from the nearby mines but recycling gold from electronic waste is always more profitable income source what do you think how many gold can you make out of it well I think it's around 100 grams per tonne so it would be about one and a half kilos of gold in this pile so you need a really large amount of ways to get some gold if any at all it's hard to imagine this turning into a shiny gold bar which part do you exactly need for the gold production so we need the complete circuit board so the gold is a little bit distributed everywhere the factory recycles 120,000 tons of electronics every year 90% of these come from Europe alone the first step to get gold shredding be with all of this will be sent to the process and will be smelt it down and out of the smelting of the of the material we will then refine out the gold but why are you not talking at the phone to talk now you have a lot of more pieces yes so the thing is that the gold is distributed a little bit here and there so we have to put everything into the furnace in order to capture all the gold that is inside this material but can you show me how the East trap is shattered and what we have at the inside is too silly but it's a closed operation okay but I can have no look no we don't go in there - why dusty I mean just sweater yes do you have to use I don't know chemicals no it's it's in fact it's just it's a process that is generating a lot of dust and stones which have working where I'm and think why we don't go into that kind of building but the workers are going in yeah without protection how about mainly they're sitting in this kind of the reloaders and so on so they are protected from that point of view we don't know whether the production manager really wants to protect your harness from the metal dust or if he's just unwilling to show the exact structure of the system Johannes may only observe the melting process from a control room the melters electronic garbage is now a liquid mass burning at more than 2,000 degrees it's still a blend of 98% copper and thoughted precious metals such as gold and silver it's poured into special shapes and hardened into large heavy metal plates - so hold a notes gold is hidden inside these and visible the gold is only separated from the metal plate by a special magnetic process called electrolysis after some discussions Johannes is allowed to enter the room in which the electrolysis takes place at his own risk yes you can see that there is a specific smell in here that is coming from the chemicals being used in this process it's not dangerous at all but it's just fine kind of stickers now the smell comes from the sulfuric acid in the pool the magnetic field is formed in it because of the electrolysis the magnetism is so powerful that even our camera seems affected to it but how do you get gold out of this we don't touch anything but I show you you recognize the anodes the copper has been into the cathode the rest of the methods has ended up where the gold is it ends up in the bottom of the tank as a slime the liquid is energized so that all metals to solve this current electric flow dissolves copper silver and gold the most important step is currently underway the production manager allows your Hana's to enter the gold room the security precautions are very strict in order to be allowed to be in this room at all we have to sign a permit allowing them to frisk us and confiscate the camera if we film something they don't like the closer Johannes gets to the gold the higher the security measures are it's a matter of a few seconds until pure gold is created [Music] liquid gold gold from old computers or cell phones gold from electronic ways that would have actually ended up in the trash [Music] here it sport into especially made mold that produces standardized gold bars a bar of gold ten by four inches weighing twenty seven point five pounds more on it's worth later how can you protect yourself from theft internal and external so we really have limited access to this area may have ever secured transport vehicles for the material that is coming in and out and the transport way is the secret yes nobody knows that nobody knows now and it's changing all the time while we specifically don't comment anything about how things are transported to do stuff they when it comes to the go nobody knows nobody knows nobody knows like in the movie the gold bar is ready cold water reduces its temperature and gives it a smooth surface how much is it know the value of this now is around 400,000 euros the miners in Peru would have to work almost four months for a bar of gold like this one around the million dollars are now in this container but the company doesn't produce that much gold on a regular basis how many bars they pour each day depends on how much electronic waste there is today around seven bars could be made from recycling each one of 24 carats they all look the same are just as heavy and just as valuable at this point it's impossible to tell the difference of whether the gold is made from scrap or comes from the mines only the last step is still pending the minting of the gold bars every single bar gets a number each number is written down and documented in detail it's the only way to check in the free market where a gold bar comes from and in whose possession it currently is it's a view yeah it's heavy it's twelve and a half kilos four hundred thousand euros may I take it yes yes it's the first and probably the last time that I'll have a hundred percent real gold bar in my hand what I've witnessed in Sweden is a special kind of gold mining especially when compared to the rule but the question is is it still worth investing in this gold nowadays not invest in that's because the gold price fluctuate from year to year Johannes wants to know from an expert why that happens this trip takes him to Germany Frankfurt is Germany's most important financial center numerous large financial institutions are located here Gianna's comes here to learn more about the price of gold he meets Boykin Weinberg a gold expert mr. Weinberg hello Johannes Tingler organ Weinberg has been analyzing the gold market for years that's the current price of gold the price of gold is stabilized again after more attention the subject gets the stronger the demand for gold and the higher the prices one of the main culprits of this is the Chinese gold rush the import their importing more goal than ever before they purchase gold as an investment they buy it as jewelry they've become more relevant than India and India has always been the most important customer for gold now it's China you know Janice wants to find out why a real gold boom is currently taking hold of China next stop the Far East [Music] Johannes is traveling to Beijing the capital of the People's Republic what's all about this Chinese gold illusion our reporter has an appointment with the Chinese Gold Association an association that controls all of the country's gold [Music] there's not much gold here for an office of the gold Association except up there [Music] the Chinese have only been allowed to buy gold since 1979 owing to a currency crisis owning gold privately was prohibited for 30 years now the Chinese are allowed to buy as much gold as they want we Chinese have a thing for gold the Chinese got 45% more gold last year than the year before there are several reasons for this wages are rising and we're richer and richer so the Chinese can spend more money on gold and gold is very important in our culture the Chinese process most of the gold into jewelry since this is a status symbol and shows us the wealth of a family so the gold that wasn't in the gold Association is definitely here there are a couple of really nice pieces around here China itself extracts around 420 tons of gold annually another thousand 66 stones had to be imported last year among the sources Peru experts therefore call China Asia's gold vacuum cleaner it's heavy the equivalent of $8,000 hmm that one was actually too subtle for me anyway another reason why the gold price is rising is the fact that the demand in China can hardly be stopped but international gold reserves are finit a fun fact if you kept all the gold backed out on earth in a pile you would only have a cube of 60 by 60 feet around the size of a single-family house sales manager mrs. Ching is also aware that gold boom is currently underway in China are you Chinese people crazy about gold yeah whyatt it shows off wealth and it's a status symbol we Chinese like that and it's part of our culture and tradition for example as a wedding gift gold is part of everyday life in China no country in the world bought as much jury as China did last year the country is buying out all gold available the Chinese are hooked on gold whether bars or jewelry no matter what the gold prices they'll buy it a completion of the mission gold can only be mined in a few regions worldwide extraction is difficult and it's finished this is why there are alternatives like gold recycling methods gold remains one of the rarest precious metals in the world and will remain the most stable currency for decades to come you

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Rating: 4.7468352 out of 5

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, Short Documentary, Short Docs, Documentary (TV Genre), Documentary - topic, Doc Bites, Gold, Gold Mining, gold nuggets, gold bar, mining gold, pure gold, gold rush, Mining, Ore Mining, Ore, gold ore, Peru, Peru Gold Mining, gold recovery, Electronic Waste Recycling, e waste recycling, electrolysis, China, Chinese Gold Rush, gold mining, Jewelry, Open Pit, Open Pit Mining, Diamonds, Diamond Mine, Klondike

Id: 81doICc2PBg

Length: 21min 2sec (1262 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 19 2020