The very controversial Pebble mine may prove to be yet another empty promise of vast riches for Alaskans.

The copper and gold prospect in salmon-rich Southwest Alaska holds about 72 billion pounds of copper and 94 million ounces of gold, according to the estimate published Thursday by one of the companies advancing Pebble.

What's the value of all that metal?

At today's swooning metal prices, Pebble's mineral resource is still worth about $236 billion. But six months ago, when metal prices were soaring, the same amount of copper, gold and molybdenum was worth $500 billion.

Those numbers don't include the cost of prying the metal from the rock or harnessing the electricity needed to power a massive, remote mine. The project -- deeply controversial for some Alaskans because of its location near the headwaters of two rivers that feed the world-class Bristol Bay salmon fisheries -- could turn out to be uneconomical to build despite the huge value of the minerals there. The mining companies with rights to Pebble are a couple of years away from deciding whether to build a mine.

Pebble critics include commercial and sport fishermen, villages located downstream of the mine, environmentalists and hunters. Many of them hope to prevent any future mining in the drainages where Pebble is located because they are worried about a mine polluting salmon streams.

Alaskans must seem like the biggest rubes on the planet.

It seems like every charlatan, Three Card Monte dealer, and get rich quick schemer eventually finds his way to our beautiful state with its abundant resources.

From the days of the Gold Rush, where thousands of hearty prospectors found crippling conditions and sometimes death, to the various big time operators promising Alaskans a life of eternal leisure if they will just sign away the mineral rights that seem to be in every body's backyard, the promise of fast money and streets paved with gold have been a part of life in the Last Frontier since well before the days of statehood.

For many who consider themselves Sourdoughs this is all taken with a grain of salt, but for the new comers who followed the smell of oil money up here, these are the opportunities of a lifetime. Sadly it seems that many of Alaska's voters and politicians fall into that second category. Fools who are waiting to be parted from their money.

Sure the oil pipeline was definitely a scheme which paid off huge dividends, but ever since then every other roll of the dice has come up snake eyes.

And yes I include the much touted, and very unlikely, gas pipeline as a roll of the dice which is going to crap out. And cost us enormously.

The idea has merit, but it was poorly constructed and, as it currently stands, doomed to failure. Here is but the latest obstacle standing in the way of progress on this shiniest of Alaska's "we are all going to get rich" schemes.

Frank Richards, deputy commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, told legislators in June that $2 billion would be required for infrastructure work to prepare for gas pipeline construction.

And that is on top of a 500 million dollar investment that Alaska has already promised to get the ball rolling for TransCanada to start construction on a gas pipeline.

So to sum up, before ANYTHING can even begin on this huge financial gamble, Alaskans have placed 2.5 billion dollars on the table. And with oil prices dropping like an anchor, exactly how much longer is our oil money cushion going to last? A loss like this wil lsurely be followed by even more money being funneld into the project before its final death rattle.

So do I have faith that the Pebble Mine is every going to make any real money for Alaskans? No.

Do I think it will even be built? Not anytime soon.

Do I think that there are better places for Alaskans to invest there rapidly dwindling resources? Yep!

What are they? Alternative energy resources. Alaska has the potential to lead the nation in developing alternative energy for this country. But to do it, Alaska needs to cut the oil umbilical cord and move in a fresh direction, with a reasonable, and well thought out plan.

No more half baked schemes conceived by tricksters who have one foot out of the door even as they shake your hand to seal the deal, no we need to come together and make this happen on our own. We have the resources, and the expertise (Alaskans are incredible inventive), we simply need the will.