A minerals fortune in NZ waters - Mach II

I had another crack at this article.  This version tells you a few things different to the first version.  

I hope it's not too technical or confusing...  It may surprise you.  Enjoy.

Image source

A minerals fortune in NZ waters - Submissions invited

by Bronwyn Llewellyn

30 May, 2014

Submissions to NZ Petroleum and Minerals are invited from the public as part of the Partial Fees Review 2014  which closes on June 6. Thorium deposits in our seabed are valued between 5 -20 trillion dollars.

New Zealand's deep sea mining basins contain up to $20 trillion in rare earth minerals, former CEO of Solid Energy Dr Don Elder told attendees at a 2010 petroleum conference in Auckland. 

Attending the conference was Rod Young from Tokoroa, a mining enthusiast who holds claims around Coromandel, Thames, Paeroa, Waihi and north Fiordland.

"New Zealand is the wealthiest per capita populations on the planet behind Saudi Arabia," Young said recently on a visit to Hamilton.

“One of the things I’ve researched is a thing called thorium. Gram for gram it’s got a million times more energy than coal, with no CO2 given off. China’s picked up on this thorium and [will] basically replace all its coal-fired power stations. When people are saying they’re going to get iron sand, they’re not. They’re after rare-earth minerals, and one of them is thorium.”

Overseas mining operations currently pay the Crown as little as 1% in royalties from minerals mined in the NZ’s offshore sedimentary basins.

Young’s submission to the Fees Review says royalties from mining in New Zealand should be 99% to help increase living standards for all New Zealanders, and to honour The Treaty of Waitangi.

Young said that Indonesia had negotiated for 97% in mining royalties and still, the multi-nationals had lined up to develop Indonesia’s oil and gas reserves.

“Norway banked $400 billion dollars over 40 years for the old people super fund. So why is [MP Simon] Bridges keen to give it all away?"

Hamilton business owner and anti-mining campaigner Tom MacRae said, “There’s a part of me that’s not against making a dollar.  I’m disgusted that we only get 1% from the oil and gas companies.  What we have is all these corrupt people doing deals that are not beneficial for New Zealanders.”

When Young was at the 2010 Crown Minerals conference, he talked to some people described as being very high up, who advised the government.

“They told me that Cabinet has been forbidden to use the word ‘thorium’, which I thought was quite interesting.”

Young said after the government’s review of fees process is finished, the multi-national mining companies will all be jockeying for claims, looking for rates reductions and what their total payments will be for the next 47 years.

The timing coincides with NZ’s general elections in September.

“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.”

THE THORIUM PROBLEM - Danger of existing thorium regulation to

Published on Apr 4, 2012

John Kutsch of Thorium Energy Alliance and Jim Kennedy of ThREE Consulting review the hazards maintaining U.S. current thorium policy. Heavy Rare Earth Element mining is impeded. Energy sector innovation is stifled. Thorium is less dangerous, less radioactive, and less easily metabolized than many elements we are exposed to on a daily basis.

Current regulation assists China's capture of high-tech manufacturing sector. Current regulation protects incumbent U.S. [light] rare earth producers who DISPOSE of thorium and valuable heavy rare earths in tailing ponds. Current regulation does NOT facilitate growth of U.S. economy.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle recognize reform is needed. No one is willing to introduce legislation to address the thorium problem. China continues to capture high-tech manufacturing jobs. U.S. private corporations are unable to pursue thorium an an energy resource.

THE THORIUM PROBLEM was delivered at SME - Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration on Feb 20th 2012 [2012-02-20] in Seattle.

Image source:  http://www.thegwpf.org/japan-breaks-chinas-stranglehold-rare-metals/

A Minerals fortune in NZ waters - Submissions invited

by Bronwyn Llewellyn

23:50 Thursday May 29, 2014

Image source    Wiki: Black sands

Submissions to NZ Petroleum and Minerals are invited from the public as part of the Partial Fees Review 2014 which closes on June 6. Rare minerals’ mining offshore has a value of between 5 -20 trillion dollars.

New Zealand's deep sea mining basins contain up to $20 trillion in rare mineral assets, former CEO of Solid Energy Dr Don Elder told attendees at a 2010 petroleum conference in Auckland. 

Rod Young from Tokoroa was one of the hobby miners attending that conference.

"New Zealand is the wealthiest per capita populations on the planet behind Saudi Arabia," Young said during a recent visit to Hamilton.

Young holds claims titles in upper Fiordland, Coromandel Peninsula, Thames, Paeroa and in the Waihi district. 

Currently, overseas mining operations retain 99% of the profits from any oil, gas or minerals they mine on land or sea around New Zealand.

This need not be the case, Young said.

Young emailed his proposals to NZ Petroleum and Minerals on May 14 which was the first day submissions were opened to the public.

Young proposes that profits from any mining done in New Zealand would see a 99% royalty return directly back to New Zealand. The mining company would get 1% royalty after expenses.

"Indonesia kept 97% and still multi-nationals lined up to develop their oil and gas. Norway banked $400 billion dollars over 40 years for the old people super fund. So why is Bridges keen to give it all away?"

Young also proposed that claims in the first 12 kms from shore be only owned by New Zealand individuals permanently living here. 

"The inshore stuff is the valuable stuff because locals are able to access it, whereas the deep offshore stuff… multi-nationals have the funds to investigate that."

"What’s happening with this present government is they’ve changed the rules. They want to charge a $50,000 amount and you can claim as much as you like of the sea under time priority. 

"At the moment, it’s $10 a square kilometre. So I put in that [claims fees] go up exponentially – so, let’s say $2, then $4 then $8 then $16 then $32 on each square kilometre you have.

"So it limits the size, because we want lots of small ones. I also made it so that the closer in to the shore, it’s cheaper for the locals to gain, and the further out where we can’t get to, the multi-nationals can start feeding out there."

Image source

Humanity awakens out of the slavery system

Outside The Box With Kate Of Gaia - Mark Passio - Assisting In The Great Work [04/23/2014]

 The Light Workers Media

Published on Apr 25, 2014

Outside The Box With Kate Of Gaia on Critical Mass Radio recorded on April 23, 2014

Guest: Mark Passio 

Assisting In The Great Work

"Mark Passio is an independent researcher, public speaker, radio talk show host, conference organizer and freedom activist from Philadelphia, PA. Mark has undertaken the task of assembling vast amounts of research in the areas of metaphysics, occultism, spirituality, symbology and consciousness studies. 

In 2007, Mark began presenting this information in the form of a presentation series entitled What On Earth Is Happening, with the intention of bringing the implications of this body of knowledge to greater public awareness. 

Mark launched his own web site in 2008 athttp://www.WhatOnEarthIsHappening.com./ 

In 2010, Mark began hosting his own weekly internet radio show, also called What On Earth Is Happening, which continues today in the form of a podcast on Mark's website. 

Mark is also one of the co-hosts of Free Your Mind, http://www.FreeYourMindConference.com/, the Philadelphia-based conference on consciousness, mind control and the Occult.

Image source:  http://vimeo.com/86206986

NZ's Extended Continental Shelf (ECS) defined by UN Convention 2008

If you haven't read the 24 May transcript yet, please start here then you can move on to the other 6 or so posts that i've added this week, in Archives for May 2014.
 

The Continent of New Zealand

-  A SUBMERGED CONTINENT

Image source
http://www.linz.govt.nz/hydro/projects-programmes/continental-shelf/undersea-image



The islands of New Zealand have a total area of about 268,000 km2 and are the emergent parts of an extensive, mainly submerged continental landmass with a total areaof more than 6 million km2. Northwest, south and east of New Zealand are large areas of relatively shallow sea underlain by plateaux and ridges that border deep ocean basins in the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea.

New Zealand established an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in 1977, defined by a line 200 nautical miles from the New Zealand coastline and, in 2004 established maritime boundaries with Australia.

New Zealand’s entitlement to an Extended Continental Shelf (ECS) beyond the EEZ, as defined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), was confirmed by the United Nations in August 2008. 

The outer limits of the ECS north of New Zealand are currently subject to delimitation with Fiji, Tonga and France in respect of New Caledonia.

New Zealand now has sovereign rights over more than 5.7 million km2 of seabed. 

This is an area more than 21 times greater than its land area and is equivalent in size to the European Union, the North Sea, and a quarter of the Mediterranean combined.

Image source:  
http://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Our-Science/Energy-Resources/Oil-and-Gas/NZs-Sedimentary-Basins

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


New Zealand’s sedimentary basins

A large area of New Zealand’s offshore territory is covered only by reconnaissance surveys, however the available data suggest large sedimentary basins that may host oil and gas cover about 20% of New Zealand’s territory – more than 1 million km2. For some of the basins, present understanding is based on modern, industry-standard seismic surveys, eg: Deepwater Taranaki 2001–2009, Raukumara 2005–2007, Reinga 2009 and Pegasus 2010.

For other basins there is a range of seismic data acquired from the 1970s onward, of variable quality. For remote areas there are limited seismic surveys completed for the 2008 New Zealand continental shelf submission to the United Nations. Additional information from gravity and magnetic surveys and satellite data help define little known basins.

The basin boundaries shown on the map (on page 14) are mainly determined by major geological structures
or seafloor physiography. In general, regions with stratigraphic continuity and a common geological history are included within a single basin. In places, the basin limits are set at a minimum sediment thickness.

For some, sub-basins and provinces can be differentiated on geological or geographical criteria respectively.
Modern setting New Zealand’s land area straddles the active boundary between the Australian and Pacific tectonic plates, and is above sea level mainly because of deformation and uplift in the last 20 million years.

The North Island is a part of the Australian Plate and the South Island is mainly on the Pacific Plate. In the east, the Pacific Plate is moving southwest and downward beneath the North Island but southwest of the South Island the polarity is the reverse; the Australian Plate is being forced eastward and down beneath the South Island. These opposing subduction systems (represented by the Hikurangi Trough and Puysegur Trench) are connected by the Alpine Fault, a major strike-slip zone that borders the Southern Alps. Close to the active plate boundary, deformation is moderate to intense but, away from it, seismic surveys show that in many of the basins the thick successions of sedimentary rocks are little disrupted.


Mesozoic bas in initiation

In Paleozoic and early Mesozoic time, the basement rocks of New Zealand’s islands and offshore plateaux were part of the Pacific margin of the Gondwana supercontinent, adjacent to the continental hinterlands of Australia and Antarctica. Triassic and Jurassic sedimentation in back-arc settings close to the Gondwana margin formed the thick marine and non-marine, structurally simple, low metamorphic grade Murihiku rocks of western and southern New Zealand, traditionally considered as economic basement.

Evidence from radiometric dating indicates that subduction persisted at the active continental margin until Early Cretaceous time (about 100 to 120 million years ago). After subduction ceased, the subsequent Gondwana continental break-up was preceded by a period of extensional tectonics, including rifting, with one marginparallel rift basin becoming the Tasman Sea.

Basins initiated during this period contain both marine and terrestrial sediments, including coals. Although many onshore outcrops exhibit low-grade metamorphism, samples from offshore wells remain un-metamorphosed and immature for petroleum generation. Although no petroleum accumulations have yet been geochemically typed to source rocks older than Late Cretaceous age, where carbon-rich facies are present under the right conditions, they may be effective source rocks, particularly in the deep-water frontier basins.


Rifts and a passive margin

In onshore and near-shore New Zealand, an unconformity representing Early Cretaceous uplift and erosion
separates the Cretaceous and Cenozoic sedimentary rocks from underlying basement. A large part of the
New Zealand region was land in Early Cretaceous time. Early basin-fill sedimentary rocks remain poorly dated. By the late Early Cretaceous, non-marine clastic sediments were accumulating in fault-controlled basins.

The oldest basin-fill rocks are typically coarse-grained alluvial fan, fluviatile and lesser lacustrine facies,
restricted to grabens and half-grabens. Deposition of thick passive margin marine sequences also began in
the New Zealand region of the Gondwana margin in the late Early Cretaceous. Magnetic anomalies show seafloor spreading in the Tasman Sea was well established in the Late Cretaceous (83-79 million years ago), by which time most of the major seafloor physiographic features of the New Zealand region had been formed.

Large river systems developed and thick accumulations of non-marine and paralic sediments, including coal measures, accumulated in the valleys and extensive coastal plains. A thick progradational sequence that is present offshore from Taranaki represents the delta of a major river, built out into the accommodation space of a failed rift basin. It is capped by Late Cretaceous coal measures. In Taranaki, these coal measures became the source rocks for a large proportion of the oil discovered to date. Late Cretaceous marine shelf and slope sediments accumulated adjacent to the paleo-Pacific continental margin and in the more restricted seaways elsewhere.


Quiescence and transgression

Active seafloor spreading in the Tasman Sea and southern Pacific Ocean prevailed in Late Cretaceous, Paleocene and earliest Eocene time, when the New Zealand region was tectonically stable. With post-rift thermal subsidence and associated marine transgression, early-formed rift basins were progressively inundated. By Paleocene time, rift sedimentation was confined to small sub-basins while, at the margins of the land, coastal plain, marginal marine and shelf deposits accumulated. They include thick units of coal measures that are source rocks for oil and gas accumulations. Eocene deposits represent late-rift and post-rift transgressive sequences and, by Middle Eocene time, the reduced landmass was surrounded, in the west
and south, by extensive coastal plains. Fine-grained clastic sediments and carbonates accumulated in marine settings distal from land areas.


Plate boundary propagation and inundation

Seafloor spreading ceased in the Tasman Sea in Early Eocene time but continued in the southern Pacific Ocean. A new Australia-Pacific plate boundary formed south of New Zealand, where opening of the Emerald Basin resulted in anticlockwise rotation of eastern New Zealand relative to the west. For much of the region there was only minor deformation. In Southland there was rifting and the rotation resulted in compression in the Reinga Basin. By Late Oligocene time, the land area was greatly reduced and New Zealand may have been completely submerged. The Oligocene rocks are mainly calcareous. Differential compaction across basement highs and deformation associated with the new plate boundary formed a range of structures during this time.


Neogene plate boundary – Uplift and deposition

By earliest Miocene time, a southwest-dipping subduction zone was present in northern New Zealand. Large
calc-alkaline stratovolcanoes erupted on and immediately west of what is now Northland, a part of the overriding Australian Plate. The Reinga Basin, originally a rift, became an intraplate back-arc basin. The thick Cretaceous to Oligocene passive margin sedimentary sequence which had accumulated northeast of the New Zealand landmass was obducted and emplaced part-way into the Reinga, East Coast and Raukumara basins as a series of thrust sheets (Northland and East Coast allochthons). Southwest-directed subduction in northernmost New Zealand was short-lived and calc-alkaline volcanism had all but ceased there by the end of the Early Miocene. Allochthon emplacement took place over about three million years.

Southwest-directed oblique convergence at the plate boundary east of North Island and Kermadec Ridge
continues at the present day. The Kermadec Trench and its prolongation as Hikurangi Trough extend south to meet Chatham Rise just south of Cook Strait. In South Island, deformation on the Alpine Fault is mainly strike-slip, with about 480 km of dextral offset in the last 20 million years.


The rate of plate boundary convergence accelerated from Middle Miocene time, resulting in increasingly rapid uplift, with erosion of Northland volcanoes, the axial ranges of the North Island, and the elevated mountain chain of the Southern Alps. The supply of vast amounts of sediment resulted in progressive infilling of marine depocentres and progradation of the continental shelves. Most New Zealand basins have thick Neogene successions of slope and basin floor mudstones, with intercalations of turbidite sandstones. Burial by thick Neogene sequences has raised the maturity of underlying Cretaceous and Paleogene rocks to levels
sufficient to generate and expel hydrocarbons.

Taharoa Ironsand, King Country, North Island | Doug Hood Mining Ltd

Image source:
http://doughood.co.nz/projects/open-cast-mining/taharoa-ironsand-king-country-north-island/

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.

Image source

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.

Image source

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. 

 

Image from:  

Is thorium energy’s silver bullet? 

By George Dracoulis, Professor, Department of Nuclear Physics at Australian National University. 

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.

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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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New Zealand government does not acknowledge thorium to be here

That's right...  It's all very hush-hush.  Presumably so the old boys club can get together to try to out-swindle the people, yet again, by giving the best benefits to the corporations. 

It's time to stand up and make a submission. Please see the following posts.

Please see this article below regarding rare minerals deposits in New Zealand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huttonite

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An Indian example:

Thorium reactor design ready: 

DAE. Next Govt. after LS Polls should announce a thorium-based nuke doctrine.

Advanced Heavy Water Reactor is the latest Indian design for a next-generation nuclear reactor that will burn thorium as its fuel

by Virendrasingh Ghunawat Mumbai, February 27, 2014 | UPDATED 15:34 IST

The wait is over. Design of the world's first mainly thorium-based nuclear reactor is ready.
Indiatoday.in brings you the first look of the design and prototype of the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR). It is the latest Indian design for a next-generation nuclear reactor that will burn thorium as its fuel.

The design is being developed at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in Mumbai and is an important step towards the third stage of Indian nuclear power programme, which envisages use of thorium fuel cycles for commercial power generation.

The AHWR is a vertical pressure tube type reactor cooled by boiling light water under natural circulation. The unique feature of this design is a large tank of water on top of a primary containment of vessel called gravity-driven water pool (GDWP). This reservoir is designed to perform several passive safety functions.

Dr R.K. Sinha, chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, in an exclusive interview to Indiatoday.in said: "This reactor can continue to cool its core after passive shutdown without an external source of cooling water and electricity and even without any operator action for nearly 110 days."

The AHWR will be fuelled by a mix of uranium-233 and plutonium, which will be converted from thorium and uranium-238 respectively by previously deployed and domestically designed fast breeder reactors. Another version of the AHWR called AHWR-LEU will use low enriched uranium along with thorium.

Thorium is an element that is three times more abundant globally than uranium. India's reserves of thorium constitute 25 per cent of the world's total reserves.

Earlier, India had set up KAMINI - a 30 kWth experimental reactor at Kalpakkam which incidentally is the world's only reactor fuelled by U-233 derived from thorium.

Thorium is slated to form the fuel resource for the third stage in India's three-stage nuclear power programme.

The AHWR, a technology demonstrator, is supposed to be launched during the 12th five-year plan and will take seven to eight years for completing the construction. Thus generation of electricity from AHWR is expected to be somewhere in 2025. Site for it has not so far been announced but it will come up at an existing site.

"Utilisation of thorium in the third stage of our nuclear power programme will reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, mostly imported, and will be a major contribution to global efforts to combat climate change," Dr Sinha said.

It is also said to be the most secured and safest reactor, which in future, could be set up close to densely-populated regions without any need for an exclusion zone.

The latest AHWR design incorporates several passive safety features.

These include: Core heat removal through natural circulation; direct injection of emergency core coolant system (ECCS) water in fuel; and the availability of a large inventory of borated water in overhead gravity-driven water pool (GDWP) to facilitate sustenance of core decay heat removal. The emergency core cooling system (ECCS) injection and containment cooling can act (SCRAM) without invoking any active systems or operator action.

The reactor also incorporates advanced technologies together with several proven positive features of Indian pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs). These features include pressure tube type design, low pressure moderator, on-power refuelling, diverse fast acting shut-down systems, and availability of a large low temperature heat sink around the reactor core.


Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/advanced-heavy-water-reactor-ahwr-thorium-reactor-bhabha-atomic-research-centre-mumbai-india/1/345888.html

Your submission is needed. Deadline: Friday June 6, 2014

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May 2014

National Manager, Minerals
New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals
Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment

Good afternoon,

New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals is reviewing the fees charged for petroleum prospecting permits and offshore minerals permits. I would like to invite you to make a submission as part of consultation for this review.

This partial review focuses on issues that need to be addressed this year. We will complete a full review of the fees regime in 2015-16, once operational changes to support the 2013 amendments to the Crown Minerals Act are fully implemented.

This partial review will focus specifically on annual fees for petroleum prospecting permits and offshore minerals permits. Our analysis suggests we are charging more for these permits than we should be.

Our aim is to ensure the regime is transparent, fair and consistent with public sector best practice. We are consulting on the proposed changes with industry stakeholders and iwi. In particular we would like feedback on the following questions:


1. Do you agree with the analysis of the proposed fees for offshore minerals permits? If not, why not?

2. What are the effects of the proposed fees on your organisation?

The consultation closes on Friday 6 June 2014.


More detail on the review, including the consultation document and information on how to make a submission is available on our website.

Please let me know if there is a better contact person for this email. If you have questions about the review please contact me.

Yours sincerely,
Sefton Darby

Freephone (within New Zealand): 0508 263 782
International calls: +64 3 962 6179

NZPAMfeesreview@mbie.govt.nz

Letter source

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NZ Government - Partial Review of Crown Minerals Fees

Government announces Partial Review of 

Crown Minerals Fees

14 May 2014 - New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals (NZP&M) has begun a partial fees review. This focuses on the fees charged to industry for petroleum prospecting permits and offshore minerals permits.

NZP&M consider the annual fees currently charged for these permits to be disproportionately high compared to the cost of their administration. A number of operational changes are being implemented to support the 2013 amendments to the Crown Minerals Act. In 2015-16 NZP&M will fully review the fees regime for petroleum and minerals. The consultation document below outlines changes proposed for this year. These changes will address immediate issues for petroleum prospecting permits and offshore minerals permits.

We are currently consulting with iwi and industry stakeholders. The closing date for submissions is Friday, 6 June 2014.

Submissions can be made by email: NZPAMfeesreview@mbie.govt.nz or can be sent to:

The Manager, Business Performance
New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals
Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment
PO Box 1473
Wellington 6140

Downloads

• Partial Fees Review - Consultation Document [797 KB PDF]

Source:  http://www.nzpam.govt.nz/cms/news_media/2014/government-announces-partial-review-of-crown-minerals-fees

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Sample submission: Offshore mining NZ - Closes June 6, 2014

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From:  https://sites.google.com/site/crownmineralsnz/home/2-invite/3-pdf/submission


This is an example of a submission. 
Please feel free to use this as a template...


From: your name
Date: before 6 June 2014
Subject: Submission to fees on permits consultation
CC: your email address
To: NZPAMfeesreview@mbie.govt.nz

Email: NZPAMfeesreview@mbie.govt.nz

Post: Donna Royal
Manager, Business Performance
New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment

PO Box 1473 Wellington 6140


Submission
By You

Question 1:
Do you agree with the analysis of the proposed fees for petroleum prospecting permits? If not, why not?

Question 2:
What are the effects of the proposed fees on your organisation?

Question 3:
Do you agree with the analysis of the proposed fees for offshore minerals permits? If not, why not?

Question 4:
What are the effects of the proposed fees on your organisation?


Background:

Crown minerals arose when a kingdom paid for its armed forces with gold and silver. When that ran low the kingdom invaded another kingdom that had less ability to defend its crown minerals. That is how empires grew. The Roman Empire, the Ottoman empire, the British empire.

Dr Elder was a Rhode Scholar and CEO of Solid Energy and estimated the value of the crown minerals in New Zealand and reported it to the 2010 NZPAM conference in Auckland. Land and sea bed $NZ 5 trillion to $NZ 20 trillion ($NZ 20,000,000,000)

95% of wealth offshore.

This current Government presides over one of the largest wealth transfers in this century.

New Zealand is the second wealthiest nation per capita on the planet behind Saudi Arabia.



Quick answer to questions:

Question 1:

Do you agree with the analysis of the proposed fees for petroleum prospecting permits? No

If not, why not? Does not encourage big money from over seas to investigate the resoures furthest from land and in the deepest parts of the sea.

It also does not offer close to land access to those that live closes to the Resourse to access it.



Question 2:
What are the effects of the proposed fees on your organisation?

Organisation is of public good not is of club good. The New Zealand public will cede 99% ownership of crown minerals to big money off shore.



Question 3:
Do you agree with the analysis of the proposed fees for offshore minerals permits? no

If not, why not?


Same as petroleum above. Push exploration money from big organisations based over seas to the deepest and furthest parts away from the shore.

Offer incentives local home grown interests close to shore.

Also over the next 50 years others may want to grow a business using crown minerals and higher fees in close to the shore will let marginal areas remain unlocked up and not tied down in big cheap to hold claims.

This submission supports smaller areas and geometrically dissuades large holding close to shore. It does not forbid but it regulates. Letting small enteritis room to grow bigger.

For example mining 12 miles into shore is very attractive for overseas. But so too should that exploration venture be for New Zealand locals born and bred in New Zealand


This current suggestion by NZPAM is a reflection of lobby activity from large over seas interests wanting access to a vast huge crown mineral asset.

It is time that geometric disincentives for big holdings was introduced and also increase these close to shore lines.


Question 4:

What are the effects of the proposed fees on your organisation?

Again for the public good. Concentration or wealth.

Counter proposal.

1. That fees be divided between New Zealand owned businesses/individuals and offshore corporates.

2. That fees are least for offshore corporate at the edge (furtherest away from shore) and most expensive (prohibitive) close to shore (for both mineral and petrolium)

3. That fees are least for New Zealand owned businesses / individuals closest to shore.


The above three points are to encourage local investment and partnerships where the resourse is cheapest to extract close in.

This would include minerals in the 12 mile limit are accessible by citizens and permanent residents of New Zealand because the fees are less. The offshore corporates are close to prohibitive in close and reduce as distance out increases.



20,000 years ago see level was 125 metres lower than in the past 10,000 (98% full and only higher (fuller) than today 2 million and 6 million years ago)

That makes the first 2 km out into the see the most potentially rich in minerals and easiest for extraction.

The United Nations recognises the plate New Zealand sit upon and the minerals that lay there. So this area is under deep waters and far from land and needs the most investment to explore and so letting overseas corporates access this for less price is encouraged.

A formula need be worked out so that all can have access to all areas.

Flat fees are not acceptable $50,000 cited as an example puts no limits on first in first served. It also let's large areas be tied up and bars other who come later with data pointing to a depost.

So stratify the fees out from the shore:

The first square km from shore is a geometric progression fee per square km.

Eg: With in the first km from shore over seas corporates are charged Per square km $1, $2, $4, $8, $16, $32, $64, $128.....

The idea is to have smaller claims closer to shore.

As the distance from shore increases the reduce it

1-2km from shore $0.10, $0.20, $0.4, $0.8, $1.6, $3.2....

2-5km from shore $0.01, $0.02, $0.04, $0.08, $0.16, $0.32, $0.64,

5-20km from shore $0.001, $0.002, $0.004, $0.008, $0.016, $0.032, $0.064,

20-400km from shore $0.0001, $0.0002, $0.0004, $0.0008, $0.0016, $0.0032, $0.0064,



The local individuals are charge the same so more people can have smaller areas.

It requires tweaking so that further out becomes more attractive for overseas interests.

The locals want to have the access to onshore resourse.


Conclusion.

The suggestions in this proposal are offering $20 trillion dollars worth of crown minerals in a way that does not see 33% of the mineral resource become the property of those that live closest to it!

The proposals are offering time priority rights for 50 years to those prepared to grab now. Others over the next 50 years will be shut out of access to crown minerals.

The proposal does not recognise proximity to land and the ease of land based operations to gain access to sea bed minerals.

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Related viewing:

Ratu Mataira - "Thorium and New Zealand"

from Rotary Club of Wellington

Source:  http://vimeo.com/70672502


Also see:  http://energyfromthorium.com/