Jeweltree Certified and Out of Space mined precious metals - soon a reality?

Tech billionaires bankroll gold rush to mine asteroids

  CAPE CANAVERAL - Google Inc executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt and filmmaker James Cameron are among those bankrolling a venture to survey and eventually extract precious metals and rare minerals from asteroids that orbit near Earth, the company said on Tuesday.

Planetary Resources, based in Bellevue, Washington, initially will focus on developing and selling extremely low-cost robotic spacecraft for surveying missions.

A demonstration mission in orbit around Earth is expected to be launched within two years, said company co-founders Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson.

Planetary Resources' aim is to open deep-space exploration to private industry, much like the $10-million Ansari X Prize competition, which Diamandis created.

The prize, which galvanized the emerging commercial human spaceflight industry, was awarded in 2004 to Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne for the first flights beyond Earth's atmosphere by a privately developed, manned spaceship. Commercial suborbital spaceflights are expected to begin next year.

Planetary Resources' first customers are likely to be science agencies, such as NASA, as well as private research institutes.

Within five to 10 years, however, the company expects to progress from selling observation platforms in orbit around Earth to prospecting services. It plans to tap some of the thousands of asteroids that pass relatively close to Earth and extract their raw materials.

Not all missions would return precious metals and minerals to Earth. In addition to mining for platinum and other precious metals, the company plans to tap asteroids' water to supply orbiting fuel depots, which could be used by NASA and others for robotic and human space missions.

"We have a long view. We're not expecting this company to be an overnight financial home run. This is going to take time," Anderson said in an interview with Reuters.

The real payoff, which is decades away, will come from mining asteroids for platinum group metals and rare minerals.

"If you look back historically at what has caused humanity to make its largest investments in exploration and in transportation, it has been going after resources, whether it's the Europeans going after the spice routes or the American settlers looking toward the west for gold, oil, timber or land," Diamandis said.

"Those precious resources caused people to make huge investments in ships and railroads and pipelines. Looking to space, everything we hold of value on Earth - metals, minerals, energy, real estate, water - is in near-infinite quantities in space. The opportunity exists to create a company whose mission is to be able to go and basically identify and access some of those resources and ultimately figure out how to make them available where they are needed," he said.

Diamandis and Anderson declined to discuss how much money has been raised for their venture so far. In addition to Google billionaires Page and Schmidt and filmmaker Cameron, Planetary Resources investors include former Microsoft chief software architect Charles Simonyi, a two-time visitor to the International Space Station, Google founding director K. Ram Shriram and Ross Perot Jr.

Planetary Resources also declined to discuss specifics about how and when asteroid mining would begin. A 30-meter long (98-foot) asteroid can hold as much as $25-billion to $50-billion worth of platinum at today's prices, Diamandis said.

The company's first step is to develop technologies to cut the cost of deep-space robotic probes to one-tenth to one-hundredth the cost of current space missions, which run hundreds of millions of dollars, Diamandis said.

Among the targeted technologies is optical laser communications, which would eliminate the need for large radio antennas aboard spacecraft.

"We're taking new approaches at design," Diamandis said. "Part of the philosophy we're taking is building very low cost, very small spacecraft. You put up six or 10 or dozens and you get reliability."

Planetary Resources, which currently employs about 20 people, is overseen by former NASA Mars mission manager Chris Lewicki. It was founded about three years ago, but has been operating quietly behind the scenes until now. 

via:

Meet: Mr Marange of the #Marange #diamond district in #Zimbabwe. Make him famous #mrmarange

Click here to download:
MrMarange 2012.pdf (148 KB)
(download)

Cartier Funds #Diamond #Development Initiative Standards Program

Cartier International provided a grant to the Diamond Development Initiative International (DDI) to focus on implementing "Development Diamond Standards" for artisanally produced diamonds. In Sierra Leone, DDI  is working with local leaders and civil society to identify sites where diamonds are produced in ways that are environmentally sound, and where diggers receive a fair price, working under safe conditions.

Those diggers' diamonds will be tracked through the trading, polishing and retail system to provide customers with gems that go beyond standard definitions of "ethical" and "fair trade" products. If successful, this pilot program stands to revolutionize the development prospects for miners  -- where an estimated 15% of the world's gem diamonds are produced.

The Cartier grant will also provide general support, assisting DDI in several projects now under way, including human rights training in Africa, and a major registration project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is bringing more than 70,000 miners into the formal sector.

Inverted-commassmall
  I have just returned from a month in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and I can say that Cartierís [grant for 'Development Diamond Standards' for artisnal diggers] is not just a vote of support for our work, it is a solid example of how the concept of corporate social responsibility has expanded beyond the immediate corporate environment to a wider world of development possibilities. 
Nverted-commas
 

Dorothe Gizenga | Diamond Development Initiative Intl.

via Rapaport

more:

Check out April Doubleday's #Fair Trade gold ring set with Jeweltree Certified Diamonds!

Pastedgraphic-1

18kt white gold ring set with 8 2mm diamonds (can also be made with yellow gold)
Diamonds from Diavik Canada or Argyle Australia.

Know where your diamonds come from!
Ask: http://jeweltreefoundation.org/#contact.php

Pastedgraphic-2

#Transparency in #mining - Interview with Martin Creamer on the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative #EITI

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI)

The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) aims to strengthen governance by improving transparency and accountability in the extractives sector.

The EITI supports improved governance in resource-rich countries through the verification and full publication of company payments and government revenues from oil, gas and mining

The EITI sets a global standard for transparency in oil, gas and mining. It is...

An effort to make natural resources benefit all

A coalition of governments, companies and civil society

A standard for companies to publish what they pay and for governments to disclose what they receive

view the interview here:
http://www.miningweekly.com/article/second-take-transparency-in-mining-2012-03-01

More on EITI here:

#FairTradeFacts 2- Fair Trade does not aid economic development. It holds back diversification and moves up the value chain

Fair trade does not aid economic development. It operates to keep the poor in their place, sustaining uncompetitive farmers on their land and holding back diversification, mechanization, and moves up the value
chain. This denies future generations the chance of a better life.

Free trade relies on free individuals voluntarily seizing market opportunities, rather than attempting to manage production and restrict the marketplace. In contrast to Fair Trade, free trade relies on the absence of the price-fixing arrangements and tariff barriers that restrict international trade.

By incentivising unsustainable (...) practises, Fairtrade encourages oversupply where it will do most damage: among marginal producers, who should be helped to diversify and develop economically, not subsidized to stay poor.

At the end of the Second World War, Hong Kong was poorer than many African countries. Advocates of ‘fair’ trade argued for boycotts of items produced in Hong Kong ‘sweatshops’. Yet by working with the free market – abandoning tariffs and resisting regulation – Hong Kong’s economy soon
outstripped not just the African economies it once lagged behind, but overtook the UK within thirty years.

source:
Unfair Trade by Marc Sidwell, Adam Smith Institute

#FairTradeFacts -1- Fair Trade is unfair, it leaves the majority of farmers worse off

Fair trade is unfair. It offers only a very small number of farmers a higher, fixed price for their goods. These higher prices come at the
expense of the great majority of farmers, who – unable to qualify for Fairtrade certification – are left even worse off.

The essential concern is that the Fairtrade Foundation discourages individuals from even exploring other options, which may well be more effective.

[ Moreover, the Fair Trade system requires an audit payment from the farmers/miners.
Unable to pay these fees the farmers/miners are offered a loan which binds them even more to the so called fair trade certification scheme.
In our view, answering to a different master doesn't make you anything less then a slave! ]

Free trade is the most effective poverty reduction strategy the world has ever seen. If we really want to aid international development we
should abolish barriers to trade in the rich world, and persuade the developing world to do the same. The evidence is clear: fair trade is
unfair, but free trade makes you rich.

Free trade relies on free individuals voluntarily seizing market opportunities, rather than attempting to manage production and restrict the marketplace. In
contrast to Fair Trade, free trade relies on the absence of the price-fixing arrangements and tariff barriers that restrict international trade.

source:
Unfair Trade by Marc Sidwell, Adam Smith Institute

except between [ ]