Goldis a chemical element, with symbol Au and atomic number 79.

This precious metal is the sixth non-renewable resource set to disappear thanks to intensive exploitation by mankind, at the same time as zinc and indium.

Gold was created when a star exploded and the Sun and the Earth were formed from the debris, over five billion years ago.

Remaining workable deposits are estimated at 42,000 tonnes.

June 2008: at current rates of production, 2,500 tonnes per year, deposits will last 17 years.

Extractable deposits of this yellow metal will therefore disappear for good in 2025. At the same time as zinc and indium.

This date is only a rough indication. Sources differ, and it could change with the evolution of our civilisation.

86% of world production is used in jewellery. But gold is also used in electronics, dentistry, coinage and medals.

Problems arising from its disappearance will start to make themselves felt well before this fateful date.

Of course, there will still be gold in the ground, but in extremely diluted form, rendering extraction impossible. Specks of gold will still be found in the alluvial deposits of rivers but in very small quantities.

The Moon and the asteroids do not contain the metal in an extractable form. And just imagine the energy it would take to bring some back from Mars or Venus!

There will still be recycling but demand, which will keep growing exponentially with the development of the emerging economies, will far outstrip supply.

Known reserves are widely dispersed around the world. 34% are to be found in South Africa, Australia and Peru.

Even if, thanks to advances in technology, we find new deposits by digging deeper and deeper into the Earth"s crust, this will afford us only a few years"reprieve and will not make a major impact on the situation.

As a matter of interest, Russian scientists have succeeded in transforming a few microgrammes of lead into gold in a nuclear reactor, but at an astronomical cost. Similarly, it is possible to produce minute quantities in particle accelerators, but at the expense of huge energy inputs.

To learn more about gold, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold

Translation Nicholas ROSE

Don"t miss reading Point of view by Michel Walter, a programme for the end of our civilisation of wastage.