In this new year, many people from around the world is worried about some ancient Mayan calendar that supposedly predicts the end of the world to be coming in 2012.
Here in Malaysia however, we have more pressing issues. One of is about when the ruling government is calling for a general elections. The second is about the controversy involving the Lynas rare earth processing plant in Kuantan, Pahang.
In this post I am going to write about Lynas and rare earth refining. As a Malaysian I feel that I should do something about this issue. I feel uncomfortable that Lynas wants to build the plant here but fails to address most of the pressing concern - what do they plan to do with the highly toxic and radioactive waste that the plant will produce?
Let's get some facts about rare earth and rare earth processing:
1. What is rare earth?
Rare earth metals/elements are a set of 17 chemical elements in the periodic table. They occur naturally in the form of mineral that is made up of a combination of oxides. Rare earth metals are usually found together. In order to extract the elements from the mineral in which they are found, rare earth need to undergo a refinery process. Rare earth minerals are mostly mildly radioactive.
2. What are the uses of rare earth metals?
Rare earth metals are used in many electronic devices such as computer memory as well as used to make rechargeable batteries and high power magnets.
3. What kind of waste do rare earth refining plants produce?
Every ton of rare earth produced generates approximately 8.5kg of fluorine and 13 kg of dust… Using concentrated sulfuric acid high-temperature calcination to produce approximately one ton of rare earth element generates 9 600 to 12 000 cubic meters of waste gas – containing dust concentrate, hydrofluoric acid, sulfur dioxide and sulfuric acid; approximately 75 cubic meters of acidic wastewater, and about one ton of radioactive waste residue.
4. How dangerous are radioactive materials?
If radioactive materials go into the ground, it contaminates the ground. If it goes into the water, it contaminates the water and if contaminated water is consumed, it will cause cancer in the humans/animals that consumes the water. These animals are also contaminated and if these animals are in turn consumed, they will contaminate the humans that consume them. It's a deadly chain effect.
Thorium has a half-life of 14 billion years! That means you need to wait 14 billion years for the radioactivity to cease. If a site is contaminated, one would need to wait 14 billion years for the site to clear or one needs to get every little bit of the contaminant away from the site to clear it. Anyone up for the job?
If you need a reminder, take a look at Chernobyl. That site is still unsafe over the incident that happened over 20 years ago.
Also radiation contamination is cumulative. Ever heard of the old Malay saying of 'Sikit-sikit, lama-lama jadi bukit'? This is one 'bukit' that we do not need nor want!
Fact:
China is currently the largest producer of rare earth metals. China has rare earth mines and refineries in Batou in inner Mongolia. These plants produce a vast trailing lake of toxic waste that poisons the area around it. Vast areas of farmland has been rendered useless. Crops do not grow. Livestock dies and the residents in villages around the area suffer for various kinds of serious skin and respiratory diseases as well as cancer.
China has realised that devastating effects to the environment cause by these plants and are taking stringent measures to try to clean them up.
Questions:
Do we really want such a plant here in Malaysia?
The Lynas plant is located at the edge of Kuantan town. If the area gets contaminated with toxic pollution, 700,000 people will be affected. Toxic pollution also means other industry such as tourism will be destroyed. Who wants to visit a polluted area? Kuantan's tourism income makes up a large portion of the total income for the town.
Do you know that the government is giving Lynas a 12-year tax break?
Apart from the mind boggling decision to allow Lynas to build this plant that produces highly toxic and radiaoactive waste in a highly populated town, Lynas also gets a 12 year tax break. What do Malaysian stand to gain in this deal? The factory only employs a few hundred workers. It produces toxic and radioactive wastes with a high chance of polluting the environment and we get no tax for 12 years? Seems like the short end of the stick to me.
Lynas keeps saying that the plant is safe and says that it is beneficial for us. If it is so good then why don't they build the plant in Australia where the rare earth mineral is mined? Why build it here in Malaysia?
When we see what this kind of plant does to the environment in China, we start to know why. There have been reports that Lynas could not get approval from the Australian government to build a plant there. It then plans to build a plant in China but China's increasing control over this industry hinders Lynas' efforts. That's why they choose Malaysia.
One of the reason's they want to build the plant outside Australia is because Australia do not want the toxic wastes to be left in Australia. So Lynas is trying to dump the waste in any country that they build the plant in. Why should we want to handle another country's highly toxic and radioactive waste? The minerals are not mined in Malaysia. They are mined in Australia. Why cart it thousands of kilometers to another site for it to be processed? And why should we put up with the waste produced? Why not cart the waste back to Australia and deal with it there?
Here is another fact:
Because of their similar chemical properties, the rare earths tend to clump together in rocks, often along with radioactive thorium or uranium. That makes extracting, separating and refining them difficult. A lot of water, acid and electricity has to be used in the ion-exchange, fractional crystallisation and liquid-liquid extraction processes used to manufacture them.
Handling the radioactive and chemical waste produced in the process adds significantly to the cost. Lax environmental standards, along with low wages, has allowed Chinese producers to undercut competitors abroad and corner the market.
The above extract was taken from an article in The Economist website (http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/09/rare-earth_metals).
From all the information here this is my hypothesis on why Lynas is so eager to build its plant here in Malaysia:
1. Rare Earth processing plants produces highly toxic and radioactive wastes. No matter how low the radioactivity it is still radioactive.
2. China's low prices for rare metals undercut competitors. It's a fact that low prices of rare earth metals from China has been the cause for the closing down of rare earth plants in the USA and Japan.
3. It's a fact that to properly handle the highly toxic and radioactive wastes, high costs are involved.
Thus for Lynas, they need to keep costs down to compete with China. We have already seen how low cost handling of the wastes has brought about environmental disasters where these rare earth plants are. If one isn't prepared to spend the money to properly handle the waste, there's no way for it to be compliant to strict environmental standards. Thus Lynas cannot get their substandard waste management plan to be approved in Australia.
Malaysia became a prime target for Lynas because some parties either do not know or do not want to know about the dangers the plant presents. Malaysia do not have strict environmental laws and restrictions and Malaysia's enforcement in this area is lax compared to Australia. That is why Lynas is interested in Malaysia. Their only aim is to keep costs down and disregard the dangers the wastes presents.
Malaysia have a poor track record when it comes to maintenance. I'm not proud to say this but it is a fact that a newly built stadium can have its roof collapsing. We have also seen highways pylons suffering from cracks that endagers the road users. And who can forget the newly renovated parliament building leaking when it rains? Do you think with such a lackadaisical maintenance mindset, we can properly handle highly toxic and radioactive wastes?
So all this can only end up in one scenario : pollution from the highly toxic and radioactive wastes produced by the plant which will become Malaysia's problem and Lynas can just dust their hands off the issue and laugh all the way to the bank.
Do we really want such a plant here in Malaysia?
Do your part, protest against the plant. It's our country after all. Go to Facebook and like their page. Spread the information and educate the people around you. Every little bit helps.
Additional reading:
How Britain is concerned about its Green energy movement that has ties to rare earth plants in China
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