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I want to start a mining operation and I need help figuring out what the best way to get off the ground is with limited starting capital and only a modicum of technical know-how.
Normally, this would be a pie-in-the-sky nonsense dream, but I have an unusual set of circumstances. I have inherited a 400-acre mountain property which was the site of an old mine about 100 years ago. That mine was started by my great^4 grandfather, but it died in the fuel-rationing of the World Wars.
My father attempted to start a new operation, but a lack of business-acumen, determination, and time prevented him from doing so.
The property itself is loaded. The 20th century operation was attempting to mine copper, not realizing the immense mineral wealth they were casting aside as refuse. Of particular interest to me are two things:
There is a particular mineral vein (about a 100ish feet wide, around 1000 deep) that tests show containing several ounces per ton of gold, an obscenely dense amount. However, this gold is AuO2, or gold oxide. I’d you’re thinking “gold doesn’t oxidize!” you would be mostly right. AuO2 has been made in labs, but I can’t find much info on it. A PhD student from a local college went and did a paper about it, but had few answers. No idea if it complicates extraction at all.
There is another deposit that tests show as containing around a half an ounce per ton of Rubidium. For those who don’t know, rubidium is a rare-earth metal used in many electronics which the US is currently 100% reliant on imports from China for. It is worth somewhere in the ballpark of $100 per gram.
It’s definitely an opportunity, but getting off the ground will be difficult with me having no idea what I’m doing. My circumstances are as follows:
Bank loans are usable, but the property must never be used as collateral.
I currently make $45,000/year in a low COL area, and don’t pay rent as I live in an RV on the property. I work 45 hours/week
I have a friend who inherited a fortune and is willing to bankroll me effectively for free but only if I have clear, well defined checkpoints and goals.
I need help figuring out where to start. I messed around with acid leaching in high school, and I’ve looked into making an arc-welder furnace, but I’m somewhat lost as to what the extraction process should even look like, or where I should start. I’m just rather scattered.
If anyone here can help, I’d greatly appreciate it. If there’s any interest, I can post mineral tests.
PERMITS AND ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATIONS. If you're going to do this at any kind of scale to actually make money, this is going to be the number one problem you face. I know nothing about your local regs or the local enforcement of them, you need to know everything about them before you sink a dime into this. Rivers or wetlands on your property? Whole nother set of regs. Employing any help? Whole new set of problems. No way around it in the end.
What you don't want to do is get the equipment and then get shut down, get started and get buried in fines, run it low key and get sued for noncompliance. That kind of thing.
A very good point. Due to some strange workings of my states regulations, I am “grandfathered in” to the rights equivalent to a small-scale mining permit, or 5000 tons/year. Expanding beyond this would be difficult because of a recent push by environmentalist groups to halt all mining in my area.
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