Figure the average human produces a few pounds per week of wastes. (note that sewage includes substantial refuse water, not just human wastes per se). Japan has a population around 120,000,000. Figure that each person produces 1 -10 lb per day. Then each person produces 365 -3650 lb per year of sewage Then that means a total of 22 - 220 megatons of waste per year. By your numbers, one part in five hundred is gold.
Then Japan would be flushing, by my figures, 44,000 - 440,000 tons of gold per year. That's somewhere between a quarter and 2.5 times as much as all the gold that has ever been mined in the history of the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Production
IOW, don't believe everything you see on television.
Your figures on gold prices, btw, are also a bit off. At the moment, the spot price of gold is around $900/oz -- half again the price you quote.
So I divided my answer the first part is more direct, the second is all philosophy. But at the end of it, it gets all haughty and directs back to the conversation, so if you are REALLY interested in responding to either of the two I would ask that you read both
( ... )
Uhm. Jarys. The Reuters piece does not say what you say it says.
You said: an average ton of Japanese sewage contains $38400 in gold. But the story says that atone particular treatment plant, downstream from a whole gaggle of factories, their sewage can be concentrated to around 4 lb of gold per ton, if you burn away all the water and all the organics.
This is not the same claim: Almost any material contains four pounds of gold per ton, once you remove huge quantities of stuff that isn't gold. :)
That's true. Of course the title of the article, the ambiguity of the contributors to the plants sewage (outside the guess of a particular plant), and the inparticular requirements of my joke may have all lead to this, truly, noteworthy lapse of judgement on my part. But I am not disinhearted, because I just learned that four pounds pf gold can be found in almost any ton of material, which let's my joke off the hook of specifics, and makes me wonder if four pounds of gold couldn't be found a bit closer to home. In any event, burning away the excess gold, and that a industrial center was in the area doesn't prove to me that the phnemomenea isn't caused by Japanese auravores. So *rhasberry* -> :P
Thanks. I'll take that as encouragement to write more, as opposed to trust in my ability to find value in the piles of crap in which it's hid. Thanks for the confidence in my perceptive abilities. That doesn't happen often.
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Figure the average human produces a few pounds per week of wastes. (note that sewage includes substantial refuse water, not just human wastes per se). Japan has a population around 120,000,000. Figure that each person produces 1 -10 lb per day. Then each person produces 365 -3650 lb per year of sewage Then that means a total of 22 - 220 megatons of waste per year. By your numbers, one part in five hundred is gold.
Then Japan would be flushing, by my figures, 44,000 - 440,000 tons of gold per year. That's somewhere between a quarter and 2.5 times as much as all the gold that has ever been mined in the history of the world: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold#Production
IOW, don't believe everything you see on television.
Your figures on gold prices, btw, are also a bit off. At the moment, the spot price of gold is around $900/oz -- half again the price you quote.
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You said: an average ton of Japanese sewage contains $38400 in gold. But the story says that atone particular treatment plant, downstream from a whole gaggle of factories, their sewage can be concentrated to around 4 lb of gold per ton, if you burn away all the water and all the organics.
This is not the same claim: Almost any material contains four pounds of gold per ton, once you remove huge quantities of stuff that isn't gold. :)
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Of course the title of the article, the ambiguity of the contributors to the plants sewage (outside the guess of a particular plant), and the inparticular requirements of my joke may have all lead to this, truly, noteworthy lapse of judgement on my part.
But I am not disinhearted, because I just learned that four pounds pf gold can be found in almost any ton of material, which let's my joke off the hook of specifics, and makes me wonder if four pounds of gold couldn't be found a bit closer to home.
In any event, burning away the excess gold, and that a industrial center was in the area doesn't prove to me that the phnemomenea isn't caused by Japanese auravores.
So *rhasberry* -> :P
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Thanks for the confidence in my perceptive abilities.
That doesn't happen often.
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