Metals From Waste, Lessons From the Past to Shape the Future
April 23, 2010
This is a repost of a piece that I wrote for MetalMiner.
Until the 1900s it wasn’t uncommon to see women working in the tin and copper mines of Cornwall. These Bal Maidens all but ran the above ground operations taking the ore from the kibbles (ore buckets) and running it through hand sorting and processing, right up to the point of smelting. A combination of legislation, geology, automation and metals prices eventually smothered the Cornish mines, but we should remember that only 100 years ago virtually all hard-rock ores were hand processed everywhere in the world.
I was amazed by the resigned comments of US recyclers that it was simply uneconomic to recycle e-waste in the US and decided to take a look at the state of the art, because as the Bal Maidens demonstrate, time and technology do move on. It turns out that China is publishing scientific paper after scientific paper on industrial scale e-waste reprocessing. Some of the techniques, such as the dissassembly of printed circuit boards using ultrasound, are already operating at industrial scale. Others, like the use of super-critical methanol or water to boil the components off circuit boards, are still in R&D. But there is a definite and conscious technological effort going on to recover as much of the metal from e-waste as economically possible. Judging by the science the Chinese are having a great time mining these new deposits and are looking forward to the forecast increase in trade.
And it is potentially a very substantial trade. The figures quoted in the NYT do not do it justice. Using some of the more conservative grades reported in peer-reviewed journals, every year 50 million tonnes of e-waste could produce as much copper as 19 Bingham Canyons (4.7 Million tonnes) and as much gold as four AngloGold Ashantis (8 Million ounces). That’s around $50bn worth of refined metal, just in copper and gold. That is not to mention the millions of ounces of silver, thousands of tonnes of aluminium, steel, tin, nickel and lead and the possible extraction of some of the more specialist metals like gallium and cobalt. A back of the envelope calculation shows that if you had all the e-waste in one spot and efficient technology to exploit it you could build a company comparable in size to Rio Tinto or BHPBilliton.
When we hear about e-waste it is usually in terms of pollution due to mercury, lead and cadmium that is vented into the environment from small artisinal workshops. What we should also remember is that it is currently economic to have an estimated 700,000 Chinese employed in informal e-waste recycling. Right now there are around 7,000 people employed in the whole recycling sector in the US, similar to the number of Bal Maidens employed in the Cornish mines in the 1850s, and they are (were) all using similar manual techniques. China has started automating e-waste recycling and cleaning up the process as it does so. What is stopping the rest of us ?
Maybe we are waiting until we have to start mining our landfills. Its not as far fetched as it sounds. London hosted the first ever landfill mining conference in 2008. Any concentration of metals should attract attention as prices rise and landfill was no exception pre-crash. With advances in bacterial leaching, as well as an existing and substantial knowledge-base in both acid and alkali hydrometallurgy the only real technical issue holding back in-situ landfill mining is the grade, which in comparison to e-waste is low.
Which provokes the final question; why would you dilute high-grade e-waste with municipal solid waste and make metals recovery more difficult and less profitable in the future ? It seems to me that by exporting the raw material we have the e-waste business upside-down and it is waiting for the same kind of revolution that the mini-mills brought for steel.
Ending with a fizzle ?
December 18, 2009
Well, that was disappointing to say the least. Obama the damp squib.
Obama and Jintao are digging in, effectively setting the stage for a trans-Pacific economic war. Nothing new from the States, very little from China. In fact the only statesman coming out of this looking at all good right now is Lula who as good as said ‘Sod the lot of you. We’ll do it on our own’ by committing himself and his country unilaterally to cut emissions and increase energy efficiency.
There was an strange counterpoint in the webcasts earlier with the delegation of Republican senators holding a press conference at the same time as Bolivia & Venezeula. Opposite ends of the spectrum in so many way, but speaking in rooms next to each other.
The Republicans said bluntly ‘We don’t believe the science’. The South American compadres said bluntly ‘We don’t believe the Americans’. The problem is that the Republicans will prevent the US taking any concrete action that doesn’t materially benefit the US economy. All of the US delegation’s rhetoric so far has been 100% focussed on addressing the USA, its population and current economic problems. Nothing of substance has been put on the table to address anyone else’s concerns, and no signals to indicate that possibility either.
One of the scariest things was one of the Republican senators saying that they would agree to nothing remotely like a deal on emissions without a comprehensive agreement on Intellectual Property (IP) involved with technology transfer. That’s not something that is going to happen overnight. Or even in a year. That’s a 5-year kind of a job and the sort of thing that the WTO does, not the UN.
This leaves everyone in a very difficult situation. Europe has committed to substantial and binding changes to the energy system, but only makes up something like 25% of total emissions. China has energy efficiency as a core economic aim and has for several years (it is part of their 5-year plans), so no-one else wants to fund their growth because additionality (doing stuff over and above that already planned) is not guaranteed without transparency. SE Asia has to compete directly with China or be swamped by its growth. India wants (justifiably) to drag itself out of poverty. Everyone seems to have tied their own national hands right now.
The little guys (politically) are sitting on the side lines hanging their heads and searching their address books for friends and family who live on higher ground.
Its time for the US EPA to play the joker and do something drastic and politically rash, or for China to accept that it has dodgy accounting procedures and allow someone else to keep the books. Neither look likely.
The people with most at stake right now, apart from the small island states and LDCs who get screwed every which way, are the UN and EU. The UN’s credibility as a power-broker is taking a serious hit. The EU’s commitment to change and aim means it (we) take an economic hit, compared with the US, China, etc.
As I said at the beginning of the post, this is the recipe for the protectionism and economic separatism that I have previously warned against with respect to energy. The American delegations, whether it be the veterans groups or the official delegations, keep using the phrase ‘threat multiplier’ with respect to climate change. I agree, but the quickest route to that multiplication is trade war, a threat that only politicians are responsible for.
Update on the post press conference: The EU Commission Pres Barroso was fuming and pointed at ‘partner countries’ that consistently worked against ambitious emissions targets. It sounded like the 30% cut was put on the table and swept off by all other developed nations and major developing nations, but that interpretation should become clearer when tempers have cooled. The Australian PM Rudd appears to be reading a different text and be right up the US’s arse. The Ozzies won’t say what they will do until everyone else has deilvered.
I’m waiting to see if the thing gets thrown away by the Plenary.
Updated update; The COP is heavy going at 3am but the Central/S American compadres have just read something into the record and the tired looking Danish PM is taking advice on whether the chair can accept the statement. It sounded like it committed the COP to continuous siting until all issues were resolved in full session rather than informal sub-groups behind closed doors. Smart move if it can be done. It means the meeting cannot be closed and the ‘accord’ does not come into effect.
20 mins on and discussions on the high table continue. Have the Bolivarian brotherhood pulled a fast one ?
An hour or so later (04:05):
Yep. They’ve been to the lawyers and are trying to force the COP to suspend rather than close, so consigning the accord to be an appendix or misc doc.
Back into a huddle the top table goes after Nicaragua makes it clear that this is the groups aim.
Back under discussion and the Sudanese Ambassador has likened the document to the Holocaust. Not surprisingly this hasn’t gone down well and there are calls for the remark to be retracted. The Bolivarian brotherhood have blocked the document, but most others want it adopted as some mark of tangible progress. One delegation has suggested that they attach an opt out on the bottom of the doc instead of it being abandonded.
Nearly there. Delegates are asking the chair to rearrange flights for them.
And Venezuela brings it back to process.
The Solomons delegation walks as its now late for its flight.
Other delegates start to walk while V is still talking.
Sudan chips back in with waffle. They are just padding now.
That’s it ‘The Accord’ has been shot down unless Ed can do something in the next 5 mins
Apparently if the Accord is uptaken by the COP money can start to flow straight away. If it is relegated to a ‘misc’ document no money can or will flow
Ed’s last minute adjournment goes on. Almost an hour now. I can see a gathering near Nicaragua’s desk. But there’s no sound.
Whatever Ed’s said its got them talking. There are delegates on phones and some really earnest groups. There is also a little stage front flirting going on.
Looks like they’ve woken up Ban Ki Moon. He seems to be on the stage now.
Ed is striding back and forth between two delegations, both off camera, with a couple of PAs in tow. Earlier one of the Bolivarian brotherhood’s complaints was exclusion from the group of heads of state that drafted the accord. I wonder if Ed’s just democratised that process to include Venez, Boli, Cuba, Nicaragua & Sudan
Looks like things are drawing to a conclusion. Delegates are watching the stage expectantly.
Spoke too soon. The officials look like they have something to do. They are reading something.
Just seen Yvo de Boer
Looks like they are discussing procedure of how to swap to a new text ! Yes, thats what it looks like.
Yes. Ed got the accord through. The Maldives are extatic. Its still a weak piece of paper but at least the money can flow right now.
Spoke too soon. Sudan, Egypt and China have raised concerns and asked for clarifications, but they are discussing words not documents.
And so it goes on, and on and on. Enough already !
Rare media interest (except from The Guardian)
September 4, 2009
Rare Earth Elements. REEs. There I said it. Used the energy buzz words of last week (apart from ‘Giant’ and ‘Shell’).
I could turn this post into a list of all the media voices that have suddenly discovered that there is some stuff that China does that we can’t do at the moment and its a threat to the world because we can’t do it but China can. But that’s been done very effectively already with varying degrees of shrillness.
What was apparent from the coverage that I saw outside the specialist channels was the lack of appreciation that geology influences trade, economics and politics at a fundamental level. As a UK-ite and involved in the commodities sector, it appears impossible to me to separate the history of nation and then empire from that of energy availability, resource exploitation and commodities trade. They just run together in a continuum. But apart from the normal oil & gas stories, commodities mostly get overlooked and things like REEs might as well be fairy dust as far as mainstream media is concerned.
The rare earth story didn’t make it to the red tops, after all its not like China invaded Tokyo or some stick-thin media casualty just got slightly less stick-thin. But it made all of the other major UK newspapers, except The Guardian. The Guardian who started their 10:10 campaign to get my fellow UK-ites to reduce their carbon footprints by 10% by 2010. The Guardian who have one of the most vociferous environmental media campaigners around as a regular columnist in George Monbiot. I suppose there is a simplistic reason for that. Mining to provide material vital to almost all the significant new energy infrastructure does not fit the world view that mining is bad in each and every case. I hope that’s not the case this time. Most of their content is pretty intelligent and as a new media outlet they are well ahead of the curve. Not even a blip in the business section, nothing. The world’s proposed new low carbon energy system is facing an existential threat (as some would seem to have it) and it doesn’t apparently rate an inch or two, even in calm defense against hysterical hyperbolae. I’m not accusing The Guardian of being a bad news organisation, or of missing a story (I’m sure that they saw the same news wires as every one else), what I’m saying is that they are lacking nuance on this story in particular and that in not publishing their take on the story have made more of a comment than had they made comment.
The world is a complex and contradictory place and sometimes a story comes along that contradicts you and everything that you are saying. But that’s what journalism is for isn’t it ? Exposing the contradictions for what they are. Democratising information to allow proliferation of thought.
The uni-vocal will struggle to cope with that proliferation and loose credibility as a result. What the rare earth story demonstrates, to me at least, is that labelling an entire industry as bad, or dirty or unethical (or good, green and ethical) is as reductive as calling an animal evil. Now that’s the sort of story that the red tops can get their teeth into !
Trends or Noise ?
May 11, 2009
So what have we seen over the last couple of months that is significant ? In my opinion these are the big energy stories;
The Yucca Mountain waste depository was cancelled and the US made new moves towards getting START-III up and running before START-II runs out. For me this is a clear signal from the new US administration that any new nuclear will come with moves towards uranium self-sufficiency through reprocessing. The HEU from disarmament will plug some of the the gap in fuel supplies until the US has reprocessing up and running. The US has benefited the ‘peace dividend’ and appears to want that benefit to continue. Around 10% of nuclear electricity generated over the last 20 years in the USA has used recycled Russian warheads. I haven’t managed to find out the amount of fissile material from decommissioned American bombs used for power generation (yet). For any remaining doubters on US nuclear energy policy I’d just say this – you don’t hire a nuclear physicist to run your energy department and expect him to ditch his Nobel prize-winning subject. Check out his confirmation speach here
Miliband has been to China to report that the UK is ready and willing to do a deal on the latest in CCS tech. The UK government has committed to at least three CCS developments, probably four. In contrast to the half-arsed single site competition previously announced, this gives the opportunity to explore the different technologies in parallel. The money is significant and so was the trip straight to China to finalise a technology transfer deal that sees the UK and China both contribute equally to the organisation (£5m each to set up the organisation). Miliband then went on the Andrew Marr show to trumpet the developments and got mugged as the government rep over the expenses row, though apparently he himself is pretty clean. He was trying to say something about electric car tech and China, but didn’t manage to get it out. I expect the tech transfer back to the UK to include guaranteed supplies of rare earth magnets and rechargable batteries, but that’s conjecture at present. Lets not get too carried away with what will be coming back, it feels much more like a cash for ideas deal to me.
From other sources we are told that Chinese entrepreneurs are massing at Europe’s doors to invest inwards and are targeting the UK specifically. I’m constantly mystified by the global attention that we get. The Arabs, the Russians and now the Chinese. I need to speak to some people from overseas to clear this up.
Right now, to me, it looks like the movement to non-fuel energy sources (the new terminology starts here) will be demand driven over the next 50 years rather than government driven over the next 15. Or I may just be seeing things in the media static, who knows.
Update on the China deal – apparently it covers nuclear, wind, marine and ‘renewables’. The cities of Wuhan and Chonqing are to be the pilots for development of sustainable cities. To me the biggest deal though is that China is going to let UK companies list on its stock exchange thus opening direct access to Chinese investors.
