Despite being confronted with the full force and influence of Woodside and its bedfellows, dissenting communities are fighting might with right. Woodside Vs The Goodside
Sheffield claims heavy mineral sands discovery at Dampier
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Professor Flannery said in a statement that it was critical for emergency and health services, as well as the public, to have the best information from scientists.
''Ignoring it or shooting the messenger will not reduce the threat of climate change, it will just mean that Australia is less prepared,'' he said. ''We'd be living in the past to think that Australia did not need to prepare for a changing climate.''
Professor Flannery, a palaeontologist and author who was Australian of the Year in 2007, has been seen as a polarising figure by some because of his calls to phase out large-scale use of fossil fuels.
Palaeontologist, Dr Steve Salisbury from the University of Queensland, Goolarabooloo Lawman, Richard Hunter and Scientist and former Australian of the year Tim Flannery on the Goolorabooloo coast early morning over Easter examining dinosaur footprints in collaboration with Broome Dinosaur Trackers.
A Climate Commission report released on Wednesday examined links between Australia's extreme weather and human-induced climate change. It found natural events were being influenced by climate change, because greenhouse gases are accumulating and trapping extra energy in the Earth's atmosphere and oceans.
Broome to be Inpex supply hub |
TOLL Mermaid Logistics Broome, a 50%-owned subsidiary of Mermaid Marine, has won a five-year, $20 million contract to provide supply base services to Inpex in Broome, Western Australia. Under the contract TMLB will develop dedicated infrastructure and provide various services at its Broome supply base to support Inpex’s Ichthys LNG project development drilling works. |
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Mineral Sands
ReplyDeleteNaturally-Occurring Radioactive Material Appendix 1
(Updated December 2010)
• Australia and Africa are major producers of mineral sands containing titanium minerals and zircon.
• A minor constituent of many mineral sands deposits is monazite, which is the main source of thorium.
• As thorium is radioactive, occupational health provisions are required for handling materials containing thorium.
Australia and Africa have extensive deposits of mineral sands which comprise:
•Titanium minerals: rutile – TiO2 with up to 10% iron; ilmenite – FeTiO3 with some manganese and magnesium; and leucoxene – hydrothermally altered ilmenite.
•Zircon (zirconium silicate, ZrSiO4), which may have traces of uranium & thorium (up to 500 ppm) in the crystal structure, along with hafnium.
•Monazite – a rare earth phosphate containing a variety of rare earth minerals (particularly cerium and lanthanum) and 5-12% (typically about 7%) thorium.
•Xenotime – yttrium phosphate with traces of uranium and thorium.
These mineral sands are in placer deposits which have been naturally concentrated by gravity. They have been mined since 1934 and Australia has a major share of the world market for both titanium minerals and zircon. In the mining plant they are concentrated by gravity (in spiral sluices) and magnetically (for ilmenite).
While the main products of mineral sands mining are titanium oxide and zircon, monazite is also a significant component. In some deposits xenotime also occurs. Monazite and xenotime may be processed to recover rare earth oxides a , which are used in electronics and other specialist fields, but the presence of thorium b makes them commercially unattractive. Between 1980 and 1995 some 160,000 tonnes of monazite was sourced from mineral sand mining in Western Australia and exported to France for processing to recover rare earth minerals, but the French plant was closed due to its operators being unable to dispose of the radioactive wastes. Monazite is thus normally returned to the mine and dispersed with the tailings.
Western Australian mineral sands deposits contain up to 10% heavy minerals, of which 1-3% is monazite. This in turn typically contains 5-7% of radioactive thorium and 0.1-0.3% of uranium, which is barely radioactive. However, if decay products of either are present in the minerals, the radioactivity levels may be significant when the monazite is concentrated.
Radioactivity
The occupational health issue of specific relevance to the mineral sands industry is radiation. In ore, or general heavy mineral concentrate, the radiation levels are too low for radioactive classifications. However, when the radioactive material is concentrated in the process of separation and production of monazite, the radiation levels are increased, creating the need for special controls to protect some designated employees in dry separation plants.
The most significant potential radiation problem is alpha radiation arising from thorium in airborne dust dust, which may be inhaled. Dust control is therefore the most important objective in radiation safety for the titanium minerals industry. This contrasts with other industries where the focus for radiation protection has been direct gamma radiation from materials in rock. Exposure to gamma radiation still needs to be controlled in the mineral sands industry, due principally to uranium and thorium in zircon.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf30a.html#.UbpGo4yQ99A
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Main Products and Uses
ReplyDelete... rare earth oxides containing thorium which are used in:
Televisions - for luminescence and colour
Electronics - for a variety of components including high-performance magnets (cerium)
Robots - electric stepping motors
Computers - monitor luminescence, electronic components and bubble memory systems
Lighting - energy efficient lanthanum lamps
Medicine - X-ray screens, fibre optics, pain-killing elements
Chemistry - catalysts
Ceramics - pigment.
Products from monazite are also used in metallurgy, flints, ferro-alloys, glass polishing, jewellery, fuel cells, refractories, lamp mantles (thorium) and welding electrodes.
Yttrium from xenotime has been used in the most effective superconductors.
Radioactivity
The occupational health issue of specific relevance to the mineral sands industry is radiation. Western Australian mineral sands deposits contain up to 10% heavy minerals, of which 1-3% is monazite. This in turn typically contains 5-7% of radioactive thorium and 0.1 - 0.3% of uranium, which is barely radioactive.
In ore, or general heavy mineral concentrate, the radiation levels are too low for radioactive classifications. However, when the radioactive material is concentrated in the process of separation and production of monazite the radiation levels are increased, creating the need for special controls to protect some "designated" employees in dry separation plants.
In the past, occupational exposure to radiation levels of 50 mSv/yr, then the limit, were not uncommon.
Dust control is the most important objective in radiation safety for the titanium minerals industry. The most significant potential radiation problem is inhaled thorium in mineral sands dust.
This contrasts with other industries where the focus for radiation protection has been direct gamma radiation from materials in rock. Exposure to gamma radiation still needs to be controlled in the mineral sands industry, due principally to uranium and thorium in zircon. However, safety programs are targeting alpha radiation arising from airborne dust which may be inhaled.
The more precise identification of airborne radiation in mineral sands dry separation plants led to the introduction of voluntary codes of practice in 1980.
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Industry Response to Radioactivity
The industry responded with two major initiatives:
Engineering programs to reduce airborne dust in the dry separation plant. Research programs to improve industry and community knowledge about airborne radiation.
Collectively, the WA companies have spent more than $30 million on engineering programs to improve dust control measures. As a result, average radiation levels have been reduced by more than 70 per cent. Protective masks are no longer required for most plant operators. All new plant is designed to incorporate efficient dust control equipment.
Titanium minerals production is managed under the Code of Practice for Mining and Milling of Radioactive Ores. The current radiation levels are well below the recently set Commonwealth Radiation Protection Code limit of 20 millisieverts per year occupational exposure. Current performance data indicates that Australian producers have no difficulty meeting the new standards. Australia is the first titanium minerals producing country to adopt the new standard of 20 millisieverts per year.
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The main focus of research relating to occupational health in the mineral sands industry is thorium, particularly its biological behaviour. Research will aim to discover more about the amount of thorium which is retained in the body and its potential effects.
Sources
Prepared from Australian Titanium Minerals Industry and CRA information.
Australian Rare Earth Newsletter may contain further relevant information.
http://earthsci.org/mineral/mindep/depfile/minsand.htm
1. Introduction
ReplyDeleteThis paper is concerned with the approach followed in Western Australian for dealing with the environmental
hazards of ionising radiation associated with the mining and processing of titaniferous minerals contained in
mineral sands deposits. There is a growing public awareness of the risks posed by one of these minerals,
monazite, which emits low levels of radiation as it contains thorium and uranium. This concern has precipitated
increased public scrutiny of practices adopted by the mineral sands industry to address the occupational and public
health risks that arise from mining and processing.
Questioning of the industry’s standards has come from a broad cross section of the public, including
environmental organisations, farmers and local community groups. The spotlight of public attention may have
somewhat tarnished the industry’s well-established “clean” image derived from it’s major end product, titanium
dioxide (TiO2), which is widely used in paints for its whiteness and in sunscreen products. This opposition is
surprising as mineral sands mining has occurred continuously in Western Australia (WA) since the mid 1950s
with little apparent opposition about environmental impacts.
The recent example of environmental concerns being associated with the industry is illustrated by the proposal to
construct a rare earths oxide (REO) processing plant, which involves the processing of monazite at Pinjarra2 and
the transport of radioactive wastes for burial at a designated site.3 While opposition to the Pinjarra REO plant
involves issues related to the transport, processing and disposal of low level radioactive waste, it has also
triggered a wider debate about the benefits and costs of minerals sands mining. Examples of wider concern about
environmental concerns include:
· pollution of local groundwater supplies and river systems through leakage from settling and evaporation
ponds;4
· the transport of minerals by heavy haulage vehicles along local roads;5
· dredging operations in fragile costal dunes;6
· the clearing of forest to construct high voltage distribution systems to mine sites;7 and
· the loss of remnant stands of native forest.8
The State’s environmental impact assessment regime appears to discount this growing chorus of concerns about
the adequacy of the environmental safeguards applied to the mineral sands industry due to an overemphasis on
projected economic and social benefits by proponents in their environmental review and management plans
http://www.planitaerth.com/PDFs/environmental/RadiationHazardsMineralSandsMiningWA.pdf
http://www.abc.net.au/news/topic/mineral-sands
ReplyDeleteMineral sands miner Iluka to slash jobs
Updated Thu Feb 21, 2013 1:44pm AEDT
The mineral sands miner Iluka Resources says its full-year profit has fallen by a third and it is planning on cutting up to 200 jobs.
The company made $363.2 million after tax last year.
That is down 33 per cent on its 2011 profit.
In an effort to reduce its production costs, the company says as many as 200 positions within its Australian operations will be made redundant.
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Sandmine expansion raises pollution, tourism concerns
Posted Wed Feb 13, 2013 6:44am AEDT
Central Coast Tourism and the Darkinjung Aboriginal Land Council are among several community groups to speak out against a $5 million sandmining expansion plan near Gosford.
New South Wales Planning has received 15 submissions from residents, community groups and government agencies over Rocla's plan to mine up to 500,000 tonnes of sand a year for three decades from its Calga operation.
Most of the concerns relate to its affect on local air and noise quality as well as increased truck movements.
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Malaysia convoy protests Lynas rare earths plant
Hundreds of cars have driven across Malaysia in the latest show of protest against a controversial Australian rare earths plant.
The Lynas corp plant began operations last month after a delay of more than a year due to strong opposition from local residents and green groups, who fear radioactive contamination.
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Japan to survey Pacific seabed for rare earth
Japan will launch a survey of its Pacific seabed in the hope of finding rare earth deposits large enough to supply its high-tech industries and reduce its dependence on China.
Researchers from the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology will start the probe from January 21 on the seabed near Minamitorishima island, some 2,000 kilometres southeast of Tokyo.
Finding large-scale proven reserves inside Japan's exclusive economic zone would be a boost to Japanese industry, which currently relies on imports from China.
These imports have in the past fallen victim to the delicate political relationship between the two countries, notably in 2010, when manufacturers complained supply was being squeezed during a spat over disputed islands.
The row, over a Tokyo-controlled archipelago known as the Senkakus that Beijing claims as the Diaoyus, has flared anew in recent months.