alt Hacker News2-3% of 1 ton is 40-60 pounds of gold, and that's using the smaller, non-metric tons. 200g is about half a pound, so you'd be looking at 80x more gold per ton from traditional mining on the low end
2-3% of 1 ton is 40-60 pounds of gold, and that's using the smaller, non-metric tons. 200g is about half a pound, so you'd be looking at 80x more gold per ton from traditional mining on the low end
And the gold in electronics is usually in microscopically thin layers, so it only makes commercial sense to extract it when other sources become more expensive... and at that point, doing an ecological extraction won't be a top priority.
Really, the reduce and reuse parts are our best bet, because recycling only delays the inevitable, unless some groundbreaking technological change achieves 100% electronics recycling.