Monday 26 May 2014

Thorium transcript re: Crown Minerals NZ, 24 May 2014



Image source

Also see:  http://www.nzpam.govt.nz/cms/pdf-library/petroleum-basins/continent-of-nz.pdf


This is a discussion I had last Friday evening with an anonymous source. He was very informative. I was lucky to have my voice recorder with me at the time as I was out socially after Eating Media Lunch with other journalists.  Such is the irony...

The conversation begins:


What I wanted to talk about was the Crown Minerals...

So, the United Nations have acknowledged the plate New Zealand sits on, and so our Crown Mineral wealth if you like, as a nation is 95% under the sea, and 5% on land.

And Doctor Elder, the Rhodes Scholar who was a CEO of solid energy –

B: Is that E-l-d-e-r ?

Elder, yeah, yeah… THE doctor Elder… Anyway, I went up to the petroleum conference up in Sky Tower in 2010, and he estimated our Crown Mineral wealth between 5 and 20 thousand billion dollars –

B: That’s huge

Which is in another… 5-20 trillion dollars. And it’s unallocated. And so…

I’ve watched the current, um… Well…

I’ve been involved in gold mining. Just as a hobbyist in a sense, and was able to use the existing legislation which is 100 years old, to claim a gold mine, alluvial. I did some hard rock as well.

B: Where was that? Did you put a claim on it? Was this Coromandel or West Coast, or where abouts was that?

Further down the West Coast down the bottom of the South Island – the river that runs into Te Waewae Bay.

B: Fiordland?

Yeah, well… it runs on the border of Fiordland, and that’s alluvial, and then some work up in the Coromandel, from Thames down to Paeroa and across to the coast. So…

What’s presently happening is they’re amending the… um…

‘Coz at the moment you pay per square kilometre for petroleum. It’s like, $10.

But, because the wealth is such a great vast ocean… it goes further than the 200 mile limit. Yeah… so…

The submission I put in… And I have put in other submissions to select committees before, is that the inshore stuff is the valuable stuff because locals are able to access it, whereas the deep offshore stuff… multinationals have the funds to investigate that.

And what’s happening is that our laws are not reflecting that. Current Crown Minerals is 1% royalty to the government and 99% ownership.

And there’s a time-based…

When New Zealand was 66 million acres and unknown, um…

Well, to go back even further, Crown Minerals were…

If you had two kingdoms next to each other, what happened was, one king would pay gold and silver to have a standing army and then when he ran out of gold and silver the next door kingdom had no standing army but they had lots of gold and silver in the hills, and so invasion happened. And that’s how empires grew, from crown minerals.

Crown Mineral were added to in 1750 when coal was discovered. The use of coal is you put it with iron sand and it takes oxygen off the iron, and it makes pig iron and you can make steel. And if you bang that steel into a steam engine and you put coall in it you can displace a whole lot of human labour for steam power.

So oil is just another continuation… It’s just another mineral

So getting back to the New Zealand setting…

What happened a hundred years ago, was an old guy with a donkey was fossicking around New Zealand, and if he found gold in a river, he could put in a few dollars and get a claim on it for prospecting for two years.

And if it proved to be there, he had to send all that information to the maps office if you like, and then he could get a five year for a few more shekels [money].

And if it proved to be and send that information in, he could then get a 40 year mining license. So as soon as he paid his first two shekels for a prospecting license, he owned all the gold and silver there for the next 47 years.

So, in Dunedin, Gabriel’s Gully in 1861, um… and you know, a large amount of gold, some say 700,000 ounces in the first year, others say a million, and there was more unofficially coming out…

Just as an aside, my interest in public health was one… there was a doctor…

What used to happen was, 30,000 people would arrive in a month just on the side of this hill and unfortunately people in tents would get ill from people just urinating outside their tent and that sort of thing as they scrambled for gold.




B: This was in Gabriel’s Gully, Central Otago?

Yeah, yeah… but happened right throughout the world, so anyway -

This doctor could see that there was a big problem with typhoid and cholera and that sort of stuff. So the council said, “Well, they’re not our people,” and turned a blind eye.

And so in his frustration he ended up going to central government, and he would have got a blind stare from that side of it too, except a million ounces of gold at 2,000 bucks an ounce is like 2 billion dollars, was valued...

So they actually listened to him, and we had some of the best public health legislation in New Zealand because of the gold rush. And we still have it, you know, with the [pools] and that sort of thing.

So the local government has updated to the 1974 act with the Sandra Lee and the Labour-Alliance government. That used to be financial wellbeing, which was just rates, and then they brought in environmental wellbeing in 1991, and then in 2002 they brought social and cultural wellbeing; Social being public health and Cultural being anything to do with communication.

So getting back to the Crown Minerals of New Zealand – It’s unallocated at the moment. And, in a sense, what’s happening with this present government is they’ve changed the rules. And they want to charge a $50,000 [bulk] and you can claim as much as you like of the sea under time priority.

B: A 50,000 “volt” ??

No, no. 50,000 dollar amount.

At the moment, it’s $10 a square kilometre, and so it’s more expensive for the multi-nationals to pay a yearly fee of that than the one-off fee, because…

Really, what the banks offshore, whatever bank gains that 20 trillion dollars on their balance sheet, they don’t even have to mine it. It’s just knowing that it’s there, and immediately they get 99% of it, just like the little old guy on the donkey, and 1% of it is royalty to New Zealand.

I’m a fan of 33% to the people that live on that resource, doesn’t matter if it’s fishing or forestry or coal or gold, and that’s locals. You’ve got to live on the location to get the value. But our…

B: So does that include the 200 kilometre exclusion zone?

But the United Nations has recognised the plate, which is even further extending from that.

And we’re on the gateway to Antarctica. Now Antarctica is 1.6 times bigger than Australia, so the mineral wealth down there… And New Zealand and Australia’s claim on it is just under 50%. Britain couldn’t hold it all by itself so it split it up amongst its dependencies. So the northern nations require minerals, and our world population in 1820 being 1 billion, and it’s now 7 billion in 2013.

And so, what’s happening in New Zealand is a gateway of what’s happening in Antarctica and on the seabed.

So, this submission is out at the moment, and so I put in that we need to not only have the $10 per… but that it goes up exponentially – so, let’s say $2, then 4 then 8 then 16 then 32 on the square kilometres you have.

So it limits the size, cos we want lots of small ones, and I also made it so that the closer in to the shore it’s cheaper for the locals to gain, and the further out, way out where we can’t get to then the multi-nationals can start [feeding] out there at a cheap rate, and then they basically can’t afford to do the stuff in New Zealand in the first 10 mile limit.

So that was my submission.

De Beers came in with – they mine diamonds under the sea.

B: De Beers of South Africa?

Yep, well that’s similar… they have a big ship that goes through.

B: Is that not a subsidiary of the Rockefeller ?

You’re starting to get into some of those… ahm

-  So one of those things is there’s a 12 mile limit, and they weren’t allowed inside that.




But 20,000 years ago, the sea level was 125 metres lower than it presently is today, and so, the major thaw happened between 14,000 years and 12,000 years. And if you lived… a generation is 25 years… the sea-level would have risen say 30cm.

In the life-time of a 70 year old person sort of thing, a 75 year old person it would have gone up a metre, and that’s at the maximum thaw.

So a lot of our river ways and stuff were created when that thaw happened, and we’re left with them now.

We’ve had a 10,000 year relative…

We’re 98% full at the moment. The sea levels have only ever been higher than the 98% - six million years ago and two millions years ago, and apart from that they’ve been less.

B: You sound like a geologist…

Well…

A lot of the gold sits to that 1.2 kilometres or 1.3 or .5 kilometres or, the first sort of 3 kilometres out from the shore. And so when this legislation comes through then we’ll see these ships that can mine under the sea coming right up to the coast and getting the really rich… which none of the gold miners can get with their pans and shovels.

B: So how close to the coast? And i’m wondering how this Foreshore and Seabed legislation influences all of this.

In a sense Maoridom should have out to the United Nations limit, because part of the Treaty was the treasures and the sea.

B: And so is that the 200 kilometre limit?

Yeah… but it’s even further now with the United Nations recognising the plate. And the other side of it is that you’ve got a portion of the Antarctic, so technically Maori should have had sovereignty over that because of New Zealand’s sovereignty claim, which they’re only allowed to go out to the 12 mile limit I think, which is part of the legislation. Again, another huge land alienation if you like, which is happening now you know, and that’s quite interesting.

So, this interview in a sense may become a touch-stone for the next hundred years of academic research, depending in how it’s written up, and that sort of thing.

Because it’s a snap-shot of the transition between the donkeys and the… that – to work out what’s here.

When I was looking at gold back in 1997, I went to the map room in Bowen House in a Wellington, and all of NZ was claimed by big multi-nationals - Big cubes and squares and rectangles and that.

B: In 1997.

Yeah. And I was very disappointed because I couldn’t get enough gold for a wedding ring. So… When the National government came in, they said they were going to do mineral exploration in their first term after 9 months, so I went down with a mate, and the Labour-Alliance government with the goons in there had completely frog-marched every multi-national off New Zealand, and the whole of the country was able to claim under the existing legislation, so that’s when I was able to do it.

So since then, this present government has… for example, between Taupo and Tauranga, there’s a big international tender process going on, which is a change as well… and if you…

B: Yeah, I’ve heard that there’s 37 square kilometres of land that’s up for mining just South of Kawarau.

Ah, yeah… Well…

B: And so there’s going to be mining in our forestry, you know?

Well, it goes right from, um…

And one of the things with Harvard University Alumni Fund gaining the forests and Carter Holt Harvey, and the trees…

But the government’s changing the rules now where the landowner has rights to the minerals, and yeah… and so these are huge changes because…

A lot of the work I did was with Google Maps, and old existing maps and present maps, and I’d lay them over and I’d find out, and with geology maps too and I was able to then work out where the new claims would be just because of the geology and where the old ones were and what the minerals look like.

And so, even a little guy in his bedroom was able to work out where billions of dollars worth of resources were, and so with satellites and um… helicopters flying around, and magnetometers, and stuff like that.

They were able to find out a lot easier.

B: So… Who are  you?

I’m just a little…   Coz one of the things in the law, is there’s a ten year statute of limitations, and anyone that digs in a river longer than one hour intending to keep gold without having one of these claims has a two year prison and a $250,000 fine… Yeah… So it’s quite a serious thing.

But just an aside from that…

1750 was an interesting time, because that’s when coal came in. 
 

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One of the things I’ve researched is a thing called thorium it’s number 90 in the Periodic Table, Thorium 232.

Gram for gram it’s a million times more energy than coal, with no CO2 given off.

Back in Oakridge, they had in the 50s, they wanted to create an engine that could fly a plane that wouldn’t need to land for four months, and they used thorium ‘cause they couldn’t use uranium or plutonium.

They never flew it, but they made the engine and the design of the plane, and they strapped it to the ground and had a 5 megawatt power station.

So China’s picked up on this thorium. In the next twenty years, it’s going to develop thorium power, and basically replace all its coal-fired power stations throughout China.

As I said, it’s about a million times… It is as common as lead. So for me, I did some research around New Zealand where the thorium deposits were.

So when people are saying they’re going to get iron sand, they’re not. They’re after the rare-earth minerals in it, and one of them is thorium, which is the new…

And I’m talking about 500,000 years of human power production without any CO2. It’s a great revolution.

And when I was at the 2010 Crown Minerals conference, I talked to some people that were very high up advising the government, and they told me that Cabinet has been told they are forbidden to use the word “thorium”.

The Prime Minister told all cabinet ministers they’re not allowed to utter the word “thorium”, which I thought was quite interesting.

And two years later when I was at the select committee, I saw one of these guys, and I said, “Oh, How’s thorium going?”

Complete amnesia. You know, they’ve become seasoned with it and they didn’t even acknowledge it at all. And I shared with the select committee about the potential we have.

So this is a really interesting time.

One of the reasons that people are anti-mining is because 1% goes to royalty to the government and filters through and 99% goes to whoever claims it.

B: Anadarko

Yeah… that’s right. And that’s for a 57 year right to it, because it’s time-priority. And so in a sense. Let’s turn it around…

Would you be anti-mining if 99% came to the locals that lived on the land and 1% went to the mining companies?

And that really changes the debate because people are like, “Well hey… And why do we even need to dig it up?”  Well that’s right.

So, it’s because of this 1% - 99% royalty regime, which was great for the Queen, because that’s how she funded all of the Empire wars.

B: This is something along the lines of a security… It’s not even real money. It’s not even really mined. It’s just a promise that there is the resource and there’s going to be payment of… It’s not real money at all which is the whole balls up of our economic system currently

Well, one of the interesting things is when I had these Crown Mineral rights of gold and silver, I had more rights than the farmers did, because… the Empire is not built on chicken farmers, or cattle farmers or sheep farmers. The person who digs Crown Minerals out is the one that funds the armies. And so even though people had been on the land for five generations, I had more right to walk across their land and dig holes and stuff and there was nothing they could do about it …which was quite an interesting situation.

So I joked with some people, “If you want to go deer hunting in a lot up there, just get a crown mineral license across it, and then you have free access to that land, and if you shoot the odd deer as a part of it…

So these were some of the anomalies which are being changed.

And if they do change them with regards to the land owners having access, it alienates anyone to go and have that.

So i’ve experienced what a hundred year old law was like, and the twilight. So that’s why I know so much about it.

But getting back to the 10-year statute of limitations, um… 2 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Cos, there's only two places in the world you will find gold in the black sands and that’s in New Zealand in Hokitika and in Alaska. And there’s only two places in the whole planet that’s so rich that it’s just sitting in the beach sands that get washed up. It’s just incredible.

So it’s just been a fascinating journey.

So this interview here is important, because I think it closes in early June, umm… the submissions… and it’ll just go through…

And they’re doing it before the election, so that the election hype and all the rest of it…

In the meanwhile, all the multi-nationals will be claiming hard-out coz they’re getting a rates reduction on what they can claim and how much they have to pay for the next 47 years.

And so while we’re talking about who won and what the coalition arrangements are going to be, all the multi-nationals will be claiming up large, all of the Crown Minerals, 20 thousand billion dollars.

We’re the most wealthiest per capita population on the planet behind Saudi Arabia.

...  One of the things about the drinking age being lowered, and synthetic cannabis shops that have just been closed down it’s all to stupefy the population in New Zealand, because, as the candy’s been taken with the Crown Minerals, they don’t want to have a sober, educated population, who’s able to react and respond to it in a coherent way. And so, in a sense a lot of the things from the 90s have, and even the 2000’s in the last 15 years, I can see are in place so that people are unable to get a… um…

B: I’ve been thinking this but you’re saying it now… and you’re pointing to reasons why…

B: This is scary

Yeah, but it’s nice when the tumblers of the lock fit in and the key turns. And it’s important for you, because really the big story, bigger than the Crown Minerals is the thorium story… And India has…

B: Do you know a dude called Malibu Hamilton, an older Maori guy who actually talks about this stuff as well, kaumatua out Raglan ways… He talks about thorium and the huge mineral deposits, and he also referred to iron sand when I attended a, you know, a speech.





Well, that’s interesting, because… I grew up in Raglan, and thorium, I didn’t know much about it, but I got, as a young person quite despondent because, with the CO2 and the fossil fuels, I saw no alternatives, until thorium came up. Because one of the things after the 10,000 years of relative warmth which we’ve had, we’re going to go into an ice age. And the only way we can keep warm is through thorium - not wind, not wave power, not solar, not green, not coal, not anything, but thorium.

And so that’s why I promote it because once the earth freezes over and the sea level drops, not rises - drops 125 metres, we need to have cities of hundreds of thousands of people that can stay warm for the next thousand years… sort of thing, or longer.

B: So in your pursuits in energy, you’ve possibly would have also looked into Nikola Tesla, the free energy supply of 10,000 homes in New York based on his systems.

Yeah, Tesla and Edison had a good fight and Edison, he set up the electric chair to show how dangerous alternating current was.

There’s a thing on the YouTube where Edison organised a big elephant to be electrocuted with alternating current, and when the switch is flicked, this elephant goes stiff and smoke and steam start pouring out of the feet, the pads of its feet and it just gradually then keels over and it’s dead. So it’s interesting you mention about Tesla and Edison, because you’re right…

The ability to charge for electricity was one of the… so the present irrigation of a/c power…

For me… the thing with thorium is that it’s democratised and decentralised – ‘cause you have the shipping container that can supply 30,000 homes for 15 years without even having to touch it, and so it’s democratised.

But thorium is even bigger than that, because when we’re facing an ice age, to go from a billion people to say 10 billion people in 200 years, we can also see that population drop by the same amount…

B: Absolutely, Michael Ruppert also says this in “Collapse”

Yeah, yeah, yeah…

And so for me, that’s why my energies are in thorium. But the interesting thing is, just to look at the Crown Minerals…

‘Coz technically, I wanted to do gold mining so I could fund independent research for thorium.

‘Coz our universities are in a sense corrupted. We really need a university for the whole nation where the brightest and best go… and as the conscience and critic

But having regional universities everyone just doesn’t say anything and our politicians get a free reign. And bringing in the student loan in 1991 was to undermine universities, um… and so they have, and so there’s no voice of opposition. And so… I don’t know if they’re ignorant or stupid, but I think our universities, um…

The brightest and best are not at our universities, put it that way.

B: Where are the brightest and the best? - sitting in Tokoroa?

Sitting in Hamilton talking NOW, like we are.

B: Thank you for the compliment

Well, you got your recorder out. This voice thing will last for longer than that. It will be one of those archives where they look back in 10,000 years’ time and go ‘Wow… they were talking about it in New Zealand.”

And maybe something will come from this… For example, Rutherford in the top of the South Island, he… the… he discovered… That’s why he’s on the hundred dollar bill in New Zealand, coz he discovered stuff about the nuclear… the smaller than…

B: Split the atom

Yeah, that’s right… The atoms, not the… When you say about splitting it, protons, neutrons, and electrons, and then it gets down to quarks, bosons, fermions, that sort of stuff…

So anyway, we’ll leave it there, cos it’s been a fantastic discussion

Thank you for the monologue.

B: Thank you.



 


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