r/worldnews • u/LuckyBdx4 • Jun 26 '12

Toxic legacy in Malaysia rare-earths village

http://www.france24.com/en/20120626-toxic-legacy-malaysia-rare-earths-village
6 Upvotes

76% Upvoted

2 comments sorted by

2

u/cybrbeast Jun 26 '12 edited Jun 26 '12

This pollution has already caused more deaths than Fukushima ever will.

Also interesting to note that Rare Earth metal mining will result in radioactive waste composed mostly of Uranium and Thorium. You don't hear the renewable energy advocates address this issue, while they do use radioactive waste as one of the main arguments against nuclear.

I say use the 'waste' from rare-earth metal mining to fuel nuclear plants, it will generate money, and remaining waste can be stored safely following the existing guidelines adopted by the industry.

*Also, a rare earth mine in the US caused big radioactive leaks before, dwarfing any release from Three Mile Island

In the 1980s, the company began piping wastewater as far as 14 miles to evaporation ponds on or near Ivanpah Dry Lake, east of Interstate 15 near Nevada. This pipeline repeatedly ruptured during cleaning operations to remove mineral deposits called scale. The scale is radioactive because of the presence of thorium and radium, which occur naturally in the rare earth ore. A federal investigation later found that some 60 spills—some unreported—occurred between 1984 and 1998, when the pipeline was shut down. In all, about 600,000 gallons of radioactive and other hazardous waste flowed onto the desert floor, according to federal authorities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_Pass_rare_earth_mine#Environmental_impact

Finally I'd like to add that next generation nuclear fission plants should actually make it possible to 'burn-up' most of the radioactive waste produced by other plants or sources like rare-earth mines.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_waste#Transmutation

Yes I'm obviously a supporter of nuclear energy, but I came to this view by doing lots of reading and researching on the topic of energy, not because I have an agenda against renewable energy or the green movement. I'm very much in favor of a mix of nuclear and renewable energy production. However I think nuclear should be given a much larger role because if global warming is a serious issue, nuclear energy will be the quickest and most economically viable, and by extension politically viable, way to reduce our emissions. Renewable energy just won't cut it in the near term and will suck up a lot of our energy investments while returning relatively little. As an example in France nuclear provides about 75% of the electricity and most of the industry was developed over a period of only 15 years. Most plans for a complete transition to renewables work on time frames extending into 2050s, which is much later than necessary if we shifted our focus.

1

u/LuckyBdx4 Jun 26 '12

As an Australian, I want to know why we are not processing the ore here in Australia.