Good article!

However, all the talk about peak oil, peak uranium and now peak gold is a little subjective.

For oil, yes the rate of new oil discoveries clearly has not been able to keep up with consumption. However, the percent utilization of known oil fields has steadily increased so the rate of emptyfication has slowed. On the other hand there is tonns of the low quality tar sands and oil schales stuff, but at some point it will take more than one barrel to produce a barrel.

Uranium is unknown since there clearly havn't been that much exploration. The consumption has also partly been covered by weapon's grade material. What is good for uranium is that for the total cost of energy from nuclear, the fuel costs are very, very small(less than 10%), most of the cost is related to capital and investment costs. From this point of view, if push comes to show it should be economic to mine pretty low grade uranium ore and still produce elelctricity at a reasonable cost. KXL is in a good position here.

Peak gold?. There is tonnes of low grade, non-economic stuff. As the price rises, these may become economic. Also gold can be recycled, not like oil which is gone when it is used. I am sure gold is a good investment for the present times, as shown by the graph in that article, the rate of successful exploration has dropped off. There are also technical reasons for some of gold's growth story. In the early 80ties Barrick developed the high pressure acid leaching of refractory ores which then suddenly opened up economic treatment of lots of previously impossible ore. So some of the growth in gold production was not because new ores were found but by this new treatment process. Right now those ores are alos getting far and few inbetween so future growth is questionable.

We should not forget that the big mining companies slow down their exploration when they have enough ore in the bank(20-30 years of consumption). It does not mean that they do not care about long term it is just that they have enough for present and pretty long term planning. I am not sure about gold, but for copper and nickel there is more known stuff in the ground today than 30 years ago in spite of all the mining since that time.

The only peak for sure that has passed, is my physical prowness