蟾蜍草对什么菌有作用:China to lose monopoly on rare earth minerals?

China to lose monopoly on rare earth minerals?

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China in Rare Earth Mining




A pattern of blast holes that will be filled with dynamite are drilled 40 feet into the top edge of Molycorp's Mountain Pass rare earth mine in California's Mojave Desert. The mine produces 3 percent of the world's rare earth elements. (Don Bartletti/Los Angeles Times/MCT)Photograph by: Don Bartletti, MCTChina's monopoly of the supply of strategic "rare earth" minerals will end when the Australian mining corporation Lynas brings a massive new refining plant in Malaysia into operation later this year.


The project, due to be up and running in September, will see the plant at Gebeng near Kuantan on peninsula Malaysia's east coast meet about a third of the global demand for rare earth metals within two years.


But the Lynas project has been and remains hugely controversial.


Critics and civil society organizations in Malaysia question why the company is shipping ores 4,000 kilometres from its Mount Weld mine in Western Australia, the world's largest known deposit of rare earth minerals, in order to process them.


The suspicion, resolutely denied by the company and the Malaysian authorities, is that Malaysia's environmental protection laws are not as rigorous as those in Australia. Although China's monopoly of the rare earth market has been well known for some years, sirens went off in September when Beijing started blocking export of metals such as yttrium, lanthanum, samarium and dysprosium, which are essential elements in everything from fibre optics to wind turbine magnets, mobile phones and missile guidance systems.

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Stopping the export of these 17 elements that are essential to so many Japanese products was an unsubtle demonstration of China's leverage.


At the same time supplies of the strategic metals were also cut to the United States and Europe, though this may have been a result of breaks in the supply chain in China rather than aggressive diplomacy.


What became evident in the post-mortem examination of these events was that the West has willingly ceded control of the rare earth mining and refining industry to China over the last 20 years.


This was in large part because of the environmental hazards of the industry, especially disposal of the radioactive residue of thorium.


China has a reputation for being a place where every dangerous and polluting industrial process can be pursued without fear of official censure, though this is often more because of the authorities' lack of capacity to enforce the rules rather than absence of concern for the massive degradation of the environment.


But in recent years the Chinese authorities have been trying to tighten up the regulation of the rare earth industry, closing down unlicensed cowboy operations and regulating mining quotas.


Inevitably these moves had more impact on foreign companies, which are obvious targets and more inclined to abide by the rules, than local operations, which are more skilled at navigating the loopholes in Chinese bureaucracy.

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One company that felt the chill was the Lynas Corp., which had a refining operation in China and was considering expanding it as it brought its Mount Weld operation into production, which is due to happen later this month.


But after assessing the situation Lynas decided to go elsewhere.


"Lynas was not willing to invest in China and then have to export final products controlled by the Chinese government," said a company statement at the time.


What has provoked controversy, however, is that Lynas chose to set up the processing plant about 4,000 kilometres away in Malaysia.


The company has invested about $230 million in a refinery covering about 20 hectares which in September is due to start processing about 11,000 tonnes of rare earth oxide a year.


Questions about the rationale of shipping concentrated ore 4,000 kilometres for refining have inevitably focused on the suspicion that Lynas is making Malaysia a dumping site for radioactive thorium waste.


This is not pure paranoia or the product of conspiracy theorists. In 1992 Mitsubishi Chemical closed down its rare earth refining plant in Malaysia after leukemia among local people was attributed to the plant.


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The Mitsubishi operation refined rare earth metals from the highly radioactive tailings of a tin mine and the company is now engaged in a $100-million cleanup of what became Asia's largest radioactive waste dump.


Lynas's director of corporate communications, Dr. Matthew James, has given a lengthy statement putting forward the company's position. This document has been copied and pasted on numerous blog sites with an interest in the issue.


James says the raw material from Mount Weld has thorium levels 50 times lower than the tin tailings used in the old Mitsubishi plant and the concentrate shipped to Malaysia will be "safe, non-toxic and non-hazardous."


The residue from the refining process will have minuscule levels of radioactivity and will be securely stored until they can be converted into safe products, such as concrete breakwaters.


The decision to build the refinery in Malaysia was partly economic -the company has been offered a 12-year tax holiday because the refinery could well be generating $1.7 billion in exports by the end of the year -and partly location.


James said Malaysia is a far better hub for distribution of the rare earth metals to Japan, Europe and the U.S. than western Australia.


And "Lynas could not find in Australia a location that has established industrial land, local production of required industrial chemicals, gas, electricity and a plentiful supply of water for the plant." (Vancouver Sun )"YOUR LOSS IS MY GAIN"

Some could get very filthy rich but they may have to swallow corrupted air, water, fruits and foodstuffs filled with poisonous pollutions and rare earth particles. Even those fabulous face-book of Malaysian durians, rambutans, mangosteens, banana, pineapples, etc … …. can be bygone flavours soon to be, habis-lah!

"Critics and civil society organizations in Malaysia question why the company is shipping ores 4,000 kilometres from its Mount Weld mine in Western Australia, the world's largest known deposit of rare earth minerals, in order to process them."


Agreed, “Australia has too vast a land almost equals to China but filled up only with about twice the population of Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore combined. Yes, why not in the desert of Australia or the south-west coast of Australia where it is virtually haunted?

Aussies had made it very clear to YOU Malaysians that Australia has a very environmentally strict and clean policy to safeguard against health threats of and revolts by its green residents as well as mining labour force.  "Malaysians still wear banyan leafs and banana underwears, lah, so that it is OK to use their lands and water to wash dirty linens for a price, men."

It is very fair that other nations dig up their own soils for these rare metals, now that China and Chinese have partially woke up to face a long term health and environmental dilemma.
China must NOT become a monopolistic supplier of rare earths; while others can cry foul as they wish. Just see and read an angel-sent message to humans through Japan of its environmental spoils post-quake nuke pollutions!

Get fast aussie bucks to die slowly and painfully?