Medals at Tokyo olympics are recycled from discarded electronic equipment

As to economic viability, 44g/ton is the highest grade bulk ore being extracted, but much lower concentrations can be viable. Heap leaching is pouring diluted sodium cyanide over a pile of crushed ore this cheaply processes vast quantities of material which scales based on how cheap it is to extract the ore from the ground. For example at current gold prices an open pit mine with ore concentrations of 1g/ton is likely viable, but the deeper the mine the more expensive extraction becomes. 4g/ton is roughly the minimum for traditional mining. Similarly the total quality of ore available must be large enough to justify associated investments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heap_leaching#Precious_metals

As to gold content of electronic waste “ The electronic waste gold contents vary from 80 to more than 800 parts-per-million (ppm), and silver contents range from 250–350 ppm; no gold or silver is observed in the automotive waste material.” https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40831-016-0051-y

Anyway, 1 g/ton is ~1ppm so the 100 times number is a reasonable ballpark compared to low grade ore. The issue is Heap leaching doesn’t work on electronic waste and open pit mines are extracting at 10$/ton where handling costs for e-waste is vastly higher.

There is a lot of self-fulfilment when it comes to London spending vs London generation of revenues.

It's famously the case that London props up almost the entire rest of the country. Scotland itself being a net-loss in terms of GDP.

I come from a City called Coventry, "investment" in the city is non-existent; the only investor right now is the University which has essentially bought the entire City over the last 10 years.

Why? Because "Coventry doesn't make money". Why does Coventry not make money? -- well, companies would never headquarter there because the infrastructure is not good enough and the networking connections are not compelling; even if you think it will save you money because it's cheaper to hire in Coventry (somewhere in the order of 1/3rd london salaries, 1/5th London commercial rents) it's still awkward because navigating the city requires making use of the awful public transport or buying a car[0] (which the city is close to capacity with already!)

Birmingham, Britains "second city" has only moderate investment compared to London (though insanely more than most other UK cities), but also feels destitute in the majority of areas, _especially_ when compared to London, the infrastructure is marginally better than Coventry but the prestige/networking/access is nearly no different.

This is many decades in the making, there is absolutely no way to compete with a city like London which is reaping the rewards of many decades of incredible investment which creates network effects which only serve to increase the gravitational pull of the city.

[0]: https://youtu.be/Mxvk3KO8p20

To me (european, doesn't follow sports at all), the name is an obscure reference.

> We simulated the behaviour of industries, households and government resulting from hosting the Games for each of eight Australian regions over the years from 1997 to 2005. Our results revealed that rather than producing an economic benefit the Sydney Games actually reduced Australian household consumption by $2.1 billion.

For comparison there are later reviews of the economics of the town with the 6 years after Olympics, with less simulation apparently, which come to a different conclusion https://repository.tcu.edu/handle/116099117/10360

I honestly don’t know which one is more trustworthy