This week again in Santiago, Chile.: exhausting meetings; deep & intense deliberations; keeping up with mining geniuses; writing reports of profound importance; trying to expedite significant decisions; and trying to make mining happen in large projects. The issues are lack of power and the cost of water ($2.50 per cubic meter.) The challenges are multiple models that seek to solve the same problem, yet produce vastly divergent results. Add to that the diversity of the ore body, an absence of full quantification of variability, and the statistics of risk tolerance.
The only solace has been great food, superb beer, great wines, and lots of cognac. Damn those morning pains and ennui.
This is the planning of real mining projects that may not materialize until 2019. Will I still be blogging then? If I am, then I will brag and give details.
Meanwhile, we can only enjoy the pleasures of being alive: tough problems solved; the challenge of bright people; the indulgence of the flesh; and at last a quiet evening drinking and writing. Blogging is a solace. It lasts longer than sex.
So to change the subject (although it fun to expand on the last topic) I write of the National Mining Association’s latest e-publication, Mining Makes America. Go to this link, if you want these statistics confirmed: 1.2 million people in the USA work in mining; total income per year from USA mining is $32 billion; and many more impressive numbers.
Why bother to watch presidential debates, when reading this new e-publication gives so much more reason for pride? Why bother about the definition of rich, when we can stay at the Marriott in Santiago (incidentally a terrible place: overly large with loud, loud music turning the foyer into a place to avoid in the interests of auditory health & sanity.) Mining makes it possible to stay at the Marriott; but who would want to return? I, for one, will go back to those cheaper, more intimate hotels unplagued by loud music and vast, impersonal spaces.
I talked lots with a long-time friend who is on his way to LAX to buy yet another of those small mining consulting companies owned by an old man who seeks to sell and take his money to sail, drink, and pontificate. I have a personal interest in this take-over, for my daughter works for the target company. If she is traded as part of the take-over by an international mining consulting company, her career will blossom. Hold thumbs.
I know that I should provide a more insightful and detailed review of the NMA publication which Jamie Caswell has kindly brought to my attention. But after a rambunctious evening, all I can do is post this piece, and urge you, as one interested and supportive of mining, to go read it, internalize it, and use it in support of making life better by mining.
