Metals

Another report from the scientists.

Car companies are raising false hopes of emission-free motoring in order to continue profiting from large, fuel-hungry vehicles, according to a study.

Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells are not expected to be available widely until after 2050 because of the high cost of the platinum in their catalysts. Battery-powered vehicles will also remain a niche product because of their limited battery life.

The University of Oxford study, edited by Sir David King, the Government’s former chief scientific adviser, found that the most effective way of reducing overall emissions from motoring would be a “drastic downscaling of both size and weight” of conventional petrol and diesel cars.

The actual report is here.

SOFCs offer two major advantages over PEMFCs:
no need for a platinum catalyst (see section 5.1) and
greater fuel flexibility without the need for external
reforming. SOFCs’ high operating temperatures and
consequent lower durability and long start-up time,
however, pose significant hurdles to use in
automotive applications[64]. Advances in materials,however, have made it possible to create
intermediate-temperature (IT) SOFCs, which
operate at 500-750°C[47]. The lower operating
temperature of IT-SOFCs, and consequently the
faster start-up time, greater durability, and lower-cost
materials, makes this technology a possible
candidate for automotive applications[47]. IT-SOFCs
offer greater efficiency, fuel flexibility, and tolerance
of impurities than PEMFCs, and unlike PEMFCs,
they do not require external fuel reforming when
run on fuels other than pure hydrogen. IT-SOFCs
face the challenge, however, of reduced activity for
oxygen reduction at the cathode (that is, poorer
performance in the absence of a catalyst) compared
to high-temperature SOFCs[103]. Because of their
still-relatively-long start-up time and bulkiness
compared to PEMFCs, however, IT-SOFCs in the
automotive sector might be suitable only as auxiliary
power units (APUs), such as for refrigeration units
in heavy-duty lorries[44].

Oh dear. They seem not to know that this problem has already been solved. By using Yttria/Scandia stabilised zirconia (rather than the Yttria stabilised they are talking about here) you both get faster cycling times (and less cracking and thus a longer lasting fuel cell) and also higher ionic conductivity in the fuel cell. Thus neatly solving all three problems.

And, yes, of course I am biased because this is the day job talking, but IT SOFCs for use in automotive applications, as the power train, not just auxiliary, are thus a great deal closer than the 2050 this report assumes.

That\’s why we\’re trying to build a factory to get the scandium that everyone wants, see?

The larger point is of course that one should beware the experts and their plans: for there\’s no one so expert as to know everything.

When the dust settles, 170-ton dumper trucks close in to scoop up the rocks. They are taken to refineries where rare-earth metals – known in the mining industry as \’unobtainiums\’ because they are so scarce – will be extracted using boiling acid and other toxic chemicals.

Trust the Mail to get such a thing wrong. The point about rare earths is that they are not rare.

And no, the mining industry does not refer to them as \”unobtanium\”. Rare earths perhaps, lanthanides perhaps, possibly even Cerium, Lanthanum and so on.

Avatar is a computer-effects-heavy 3-D space fantasy, set 125 years in the future, about a disabled US Marine, Jake Sully, who is sent to Pandora, a moon of the distant Centauri star system, to find supplies of \”unobtainium\”, an energy-rich mineral.

So, that\’s us having to find a new synonym for weird and wonderful metal then.

I think, as least as far as around here is concerned, \”unobtanium\” was coined by the Remittance Man. Make sure you get your invoice in to Mr. Cameron, won\’t you?

NHS whistleblower \’sacked for revealing dumped x-ray scans\’

The next time you decide to dump X-ray scans, could you dump them my way please?

A nice little furnace disguised as a bonfire and I can smelt the silver out of those…..if you\’ve a few hundred gallons of the developing fluid even better.

This is interesting:

Aaron Regent, president of the Canadian gold giant, said that global output has been falling by roughly 1m ounces a year since the start of the decade. Total mine supply has dropped by 10pc as ore quality erodes, implying that the roaring bull market of the last eight years may have further to run.

\”There is a strong case to be made that we are already at \’peak gold\’,\” he told The Daily Telegraph at the RBC\’s annual gold conference in London.

Ore qualities are declining, so much so (as has happened before with advancing technology) that some of the richest deposits are in fact the tailings from previous mining attempts.

It\’s also true that gold is a very odd metal in many ways. Speculative demand is vastly higher than industrial and pretty much all gold (not quite but nearly) that is used industrially is reused. I don\’t have the figures to hand but I could believe that the supply of recycled gold is as large as the supply of virgin.

In fact, if you were to look for a resource which came closest to the green dream it would probably be gold. It is very much a \”stock economy\” rather than a flow one (as described in \”Blueprint for Survival\” as the desirable method of using resources). New virgin gold coming onto the market is less than 10% (and I think it might be lower than that, 2,500 tonnes or so annually as against 30-40,000 tonnes already above ground?) of the total stock.

However, and there always is a however here, those who want to use \”peak gold\” as an example of what\’s going to happen with peak everything else have something of a problem. OK, so there are no more nice deposits of 10 to 20 ppm gold ores about (let us assume, I wouldn\’t bet on that though but still). Does that mean that there is no more gold?

Well, no actually, it doesn\’t. Extractable resources are defined as extractable at a price. If the price of the resource rises, or the costs of extraction fall, then new resources become extractable at market prices. The supply thus does rise: for we\’ve no shortage of gold atoms on the planet, we\’ve a shortage of those we know how to turn into nice 40 kg bars at a price that people are willing to pay.

Depending upon who you believe there\’s between 7 million tonnes and 70 million tonnes of gold dissolved in seawater for example. Which should be enough for a few centuries, if only we knew how to get it out. The major cost here at the moment is energy, we do know how to get it out, we just don\’t know how to do it profitably.

If you want to define \”peak\” as a limited supply at current prices and technologies, then fine, I\’m right with you. But using \”peak\” to describe hard and fast limits to supply without taking into account possible changes in prices and technology then, ah, no, I\’m afraid it doesn\’t really work.

All women will eventually turn into their mothers, so the old saying goes.

And now scientists have come up with the proof.

Researchers who examined the faces of mothers and daughters have found they age and wrinkle in exactly the same way.

As I\’ve said before, they\’ll get onto that nice Mr. Darwin soon enough.

Former Tory MP Edwina Currie, 63, and her daughter Debbie, 33, share similar wrinkles around their eyes.

Weirdly, Debbie\’s husband is the only person I know of in the world who has bought scandium metal in the past few years. In fact, he\’s the only person (and do recall that I\’m something of an expert on the uses of scandium) that I know of who actually even has a use for scandium metal: as opposed to the salts of scandium.

This shows how little I know about the tin market then:

China, the world\’s biggest consumer of tin, has already fired up its consumption sharply this year. The nation\’s imports more than doubled to 18,222 tons in the eight months to August, according to customs data. And its purchasing managers index shows that China\’s manufacturing expanded for a seventh month in a row in September.

PT Timah, the world\’s second largest producer of tin, last week forecast that global consumption will jump by 7pc in 2010 and the company\’s stock has advanced 99pc this year.

A major use is for solder, the other for tin cans. The former market I would have thought would be shrinking as lead based (ie, the ones that need tin) are phased out of electronics and the latter are, I would have thought anyway, being replaced by aluminium.

Perhaps the non-lead based solders still need tin (actually, I seem to recall that they do) and tin plated cans are still popular: lucky I\’m not in the tin market really, isn\’t it?

Asks the Telegraph.

No.

Next question?

The reason why not is actually all of the reasons advanced as to why it is.

Industrial demand, catalytic converters, mismatch, depressed car industry, PEM fuels cells etc etc etc.

That means that he\’s arguing that the platinum price is driven by commercial demand, for the desire to make things of it. Might make it a good investment, might not, but that\’s an entirely different situation from gold. The gold price is almost entirely driven by speculative or investment demand: industrial or commercial usage is a reasonable fraction of annual production, certainly, but is statistically close to zero as a portion of the outstanding stock.

The platinum price changes because people want or do not want to use it. Gold because people do or do not want to own it.

So, platinum is not the new gold, no.

This Observer piece is a curious mish mash.

But an Observer investigation has now uncovered disturbing evidence to suggest a link between the contamination and the region\’s coal-fired power stations. It is already known that the fine fly ash produced when coal is burned contains concentrated levels of uranium and a new report published by Russia\’s leading nuclear research institution warns of an increased radiation hazard to people living near coal-fired thermal power stations.

Yup, indeed, we know that. The radio-nucleide (spelling?) emissions from coal burning are far larger than the emissions from the nuclear cycle itself.

Yes, large amounts of coal burning could indeed have effects both from heavy metal poisoning itself and also from genetic defects caused by the low level radiation. Yes, we know this.

However, the question is, given that we ourselves were subject as a nation to this for a generation or two, why would the relatively recent introduction of the technology into the Punjab have such a large effect? A question to which I really don\’t know the answer: maybe it did have that effect here and we just didn\’t notice?

Or perhaps there\’s something else:

It was staff at those clinics who first voiced concerns about the increasing numbers of admissions involving severely handicapped children. They were being born with hydrocephaly, microcephaly, cerebral palsy, Down\’s syndrome and other complications. Several have already died.

Hmm. Bit of a rag bag of symptoms there. Some genetic, some possibly heavy metal poisoning but cerebral palsy? Isn\’t that oxygen starvation during birth?

Dr Carin Smit, the South African clinical metal toxicologist who arranged for the tests to be carried out in Germany, said that the situation could no longer be ignored. \”There is evidence of harm for these children in my care and… it is an imperative that their bodies be cleaned up and their metabolisms be supported to deal with such a devastating presence of radioactive material,\” she said.

Ah, and there we have the first sight of a possible nutter. Chelation therapy anyone?

2. Defeat Autism Now! Practitioner – Attended and am accredited by the Autism Research Institute, USA, to
offer bio-medical recovery consultations for individuals with autism.

We also get this:

There have also been claims that the contamination may have been exacerbated by depleted uranium carried on the wind from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. At a seminar in Amritsar in April, Admiral Vishnu Bhagwat, a former chief of the naval staff, suggested that areas within a 1,000-mile radius of Kabul – including Punjab – may be affected by depleted uranium.

No, sorry, just ain\’t gonna happen. The relative amounts make it simply not possible.

As I say, this Observer piece is a bit of a mish mash. Yes, it really is true that coal burning releases both uranium and thorium. Yes, both heavy metals and yes, both radioactive. No, not things you want the children or anyone else to be ingesting.

However, the presence of nutters and nutters\’ theories in the piece makes one wonder.

1) Are the diseases actually being caused by heavy/radioactive metals exposure?Or have we got every disease extant being blamed upon them?

2) Is the exposure coming from the coal fired plants or changes in the source of water?

3) What should be done about it all? And no, using someone who thinks that chelation will cure autism ain\’t gonna be part of the solution. Sorry Dr. Smit.

Ambrose E-P tells us that China is going to restrict its exports of rare earth metals.

A draft report by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has called for a total ban on foreign shipments of terbium, dysprosium, yttrium, thulium, and lutetium. Other metals such as neodymium, europium, cerium, and lanthanum will be restricted to a combined export quota of 35,000 tonnes a year, far below global needs.

China mines over 95pc of the world’s rare earth minerals, mostly in Inner Mongolia. The move to hoard reserves is the clearest sign to date that the global struggle for diminishing resources is shifting into a new phase. Countries may find it hard to obtain key materials at any price.

Hmmm….

The Mountain View mine in California will reopen but from memory it only contains the light rare earths, not the heavy. However, there\’s one error:

The rare earth family are hard to find, and harder to extract.

No, the thing about rare earths is that they are not in fact rare nor are they all that difficult to extract. Certainly far easier than gold or platinum.

Wait, but there\’s more! For your humble Timmy knows where to find all of these rare earths. He\’s even paid to have one version of an extraction technology developed. And no, it\’s not some hole in the ground in some dodgy area of the world. It\’s in processing the waste from another industrial process. In fact, clean up the waste from an industrial process, save the producers of that waste pots of money and get the rare earths as a by-product.

Anyone got a spare £10 million or so? Err, yes, this is in fact at least mildly serious. It really is possible to produce these metals, at the right price, from what is currently thrown away at some 35 different sites around the world. Money requirements would be around $500,000 or so to do proof of technology, $5 million or so to build and operate first plant (very rough numbers) and while I know about The City intellectually, I have no idea of real world workings.

For, if we cannot get lutetium from China, how are we going to make MRI machines?

So a possible customer comes along and asks for some squiddlepop oxide.

Fine, fine, what purity?

Umm, well, …..so we discuss and settle on a high purity.

So what will the price be?

So we discuss, and over the course of about 18 months this potential customer has been running around the world trying to find someone cheaper than our (extortionate, but cheaper than everyone else) price.

We agree on the price and then I ask, so, how much do you want?

Blibbley kilos a month, every month.

Ah, you umm, do know that blibbley x 12 kg is more than current total annual, global, consumption of squiddlepop oxide?

No, but is that a problem?

Well, yes, it is. Someone\’s going to have to open a new squiddlepop mine somewhere.

So, err, we can forget everything we\’ve already said about price then, eh?

Sigh.

Last night Liberal Democrat Olympic spokesman Don Foster MP called on the Olympic Delivery Authority to reveal scientific proof that the site would be safe for future generations.

The soil was contaminated by several former industries, including plants which made luminous dials for military use. Thorium, a radioactive isotope with a half-life of more than 14 billion years, was used in making London’s gas street lights.

Hmm, so, that half life (which I haven\’t bothered to check btw, but it looks like around and about the age of the Universe) shows, by definition, that it isn\’t very radioactive.

Just as an example of how not radioactive thorium is you could have a lump of a few pounds sitting on your desk and you wear a radiation detector (one of the film ones, not a Geiger Counter) and over the course of a year you wouldn\’t fog the film at all.

Yes, it was used in making gas street lights: to make the mantle. It was also used in all of those Calor Gas and the like camping lights. So anyone who went camping before the 80s (when use was gradually phased out) should be dead now of course.

Radium, used in the manufacture of luminous dials, decays into radon which can seep into the atmosphere, into water and into homes.

That is a slightly more valid worry, radon can indeed build up in homes and can and does kill people. However, we know how to deal with this, just ventilate the house properly. The odious Don Foster (my local MP for whatever sins I\’ve committed) only needs to travel some 10 miles outside his own constituency to the Mendips to see people who face much higher radon concentrations than anything which is likely to occur in London.

Or to Cornwall: or is Donny Baby insisting that London be safer than an entire county in the SW of England?

Erm, really?

Industrial demand for silver, including from the photography industry, is reckoned to be about 65 per cent of total global supplies estimated at 895 tonnes. For gold industrial and dental demand the figure is about 11 per cent of supplies estimated at around 3,880 tonnes, according to consultants GFMS.

OK, I realise, this is a Reuters staff report, not directly from The Telegraph.

But someone is seriously suggesting that global gold output is a multiple of global silver output?

Jeepers, someone capable of that shouldn´t be allowed near a typewriter let alone a financial reporting wire.

The gold number looks roughly right (although it´s important to understand that virgin production is a tiny part of the global gold and or silver market….recycling plus stock is many many times larger) but the silver one?

Total silver mine production reached 670.6 Moz

670 million ounces, divide by 1,000 and divide by 32 (very roughly, 32 troy ounces to a kilo, then 1,000 kg to a tonne) and I´m getting around 20,000 tonnes of silver a year.

Do people actually get paid to make these sorts of mistakes? The sorts of mistake that would be immediately spotted by anyone with even a passing knowledge of the industry?

Now does anyone really believe that the store of gold in vaults is worth over 2% of all tangible assets everywhere?  Seriously? 

More:

I know the gold bugs will hate this idea – because it harks back to the argument against gold – which is that it has no intrinsic value.

Kill the heretic, kill the heretic!

Me? I\’m in the mining business (ish….very much ish, ish). He\’s right.

A jeweller has been ordered by his local council to hand over gold dust swept up from his workshop floor so that it can be taken to a tip.

John Doble, 50, who runs businesses in Torquay and Brixham, collects tiny gold particles from the floor and benches of his workshop and sells them to a specialist dealer for about £2,000 a year.

Torbay Council has ruled that the gold dust is commercial waste and has asked him to prove that he disposes of it properly. Mr Doble says that the authority refuses to believe that he is not putting it into his dustbin.

The metals business, and the precious metals business in particular, recycles more of its production than any other industry on earth.

Tehre are markets (gallium for example, rhenium, plus those precious metals) where recycled material forms the majority by far of the annual marketplace, hugely greater than the virgin material newly extracted.

That we\’ve got some ignorant jobsworth questioning the practices of this, the most efficient (in this sense of preserving virgin resources) industry doesn\’t surprise me but it does amuse me.

Looks like as rouble devaluation might be coming.

Russia\’s central bank has raised interest rates a full percentage point to 12pc to prevent a collapse of the rouble following a day of mayhem on the Moscow markets, prompting concerns that the financial crisis may be spiralling out of control.

When the rouble was soaring as a petro-currency my suppliers insisted that this meant I had to pay a higher price in $ to help cover their costs. Fair enough actually. It\’s just that if there is a devaluation, I don\’t see them offering to lower their prices.

Funny that, ain\’t it?

This is one of the bugbears, the banes of the scrap metal industry.

The French nuclear safety agency said the buttons contained traces of radioactive Cobalt 60. Four Indian firms produced the components, an Indian official said, but it was still unclear where the contaminated scrap originated – although metal had been traced to a foundry in the western state of Maharashtra.

Malafec brought the button from two Indian companies. They in turn purchased the raw materials from another company SKM Steels – which obtained it from a foundry near Khopoli on the way to Pune from Mumbai called Vipras. Vipras is believed to melted the scrap to get steel.

"We are tracking back the whole chain," Satya Pal Agarwal, head of the radiological safety division of India\’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, told AFP.
Indian foundries are not required to install radiation detectors to check scrap, but the government has a programme to put radiation monitors at ports to check cargo.

Because the metals industry recycles more than any other industry does, there\’s always a fear that something nasty will get into the process. If it does, then it spreads throughout the whole system, as here. Every scrap furnace in the western countries does indeed check incoming material for radiation.

For example, it\’s not just those lift buttons that are now radioactive. So is the entire furnace that was used to smelt the steel. That has now all become radioactive waste that must be safely disposed of. A nightmare for the firm that did it and the reason that all the smelters have those geiger counters (although obviously, not in India).

One point to note though. This is nothing to do with nuclear power. Co-60 is used in both the irradiation of food and in certain cancer treatments. You don\’t extract it from power reactors, you deliberately make it in isotope reactors.

And it\’s also very powerful stuff: I feel very sorry for the poor sod that put it into the furnace, he won\’t be feeling very well at all.

Points for the first spotting of some greenie getting this wrong.

Depends what you call it really.

Research by the British charity CAFOD claims that some community leaders in Macambol, on the southern island of Mindanao, were bribed up to £12,000 – thirty-two times a typical annual salary – to approve the scheme.

Reads differently if you call it compensation funnelled through the community leaders, doesn\’t it?

Still, the bit that interested me was this:

The mine will use a new method of extracting the nickel using hot sulphuric acid.

Called, I think, heat leaching. Been tried out in Australia a few times. Depends upon what exactly the ore is but when the process has been used in Oz a possible byproduct has been….scandium!

Hurrah!

Rio Tinto sent a shock wave through the mining sector and triggered wider concerns about a global recession yesterday by warning of a major slowdown in China.

The company said it was revising its capital spending plans and would miss its end-of-year target of making $10bn (£5.65bn) worth of disposals.

Shares in Rio Tinto fell more than 16% and other mining stocks lost as much as 26% after the company said it was cutting production at some of its aluminium smelters. The move came as the Aluminium Corporation of China (Chalco) decided to reduce its Chinese output in response to a 40% slide in local prices over the past couple of months.