Efforts to replace the use of mercury with other methods will affect the fact that approximately 20% of the world's gold supply comes from artisanal gold miners, making processing gold more labor intensive and more expensive. There are numerous ways to adopt gold as an investment, from futures markets and “gold on paper” ETFs to investing in physical gold bars, coins and jewelry. Gold should continue to be sought as a safe haven if there is significant uncertainty about future interest rate levels. If producers don't start mining gold from great depths, gold will soon run out and in the next 20 to 30 years gold prices will rise sharply.
There are too many good things happening for gold and, in the next decade, they could really give the yellow metal a boost: reckless government spending around the world, central banks are buying gold, the qualities of gold on the ground are declining, exploration spending falls and the list goes on.
