Pollution
Malaysia Weighs Costs and Benefits of Rare Earth Metals Refinery
The Epoch Times
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia—A Malaysian politician has warned that the construction of the world’s largest rare earth metals refinery plant on the east coast of Malaysia poses health and environment risks to the area’s local inhabitants.
Speaking at a forum, Fuziah Salleh a member of parliament from Kuantan, warned her fellow Malaysians about the possible consequences of following in China’s footsteps in refining rare earth metals.
Rare earths, also known as strategic metals are key raw materials to production of high-tech products such as computer products, mobile phones, automotive, renewable energy equipment, and military weapons. It consists of a group of 17 metal elements at the bottom of the periodic table.
Exposure to such materials remains a hazard due to their carcinogenic nature. China is currently the only country that refines rare earth metals, giving it a monopoly in the industry.
Ms. Fuziah said China produces 30 percent of rare earths, but controls 95 percent of the global supply. The reason for this control she said was because no other country is willing to refine the ore. “Most countries shipped them to China for refining processes,” she said.
At the heart of the rare earth controversy in Malaysia is Lynas, an Australian mining giant. Lynas was awarded the license in 2008 to construct the RM700 million (US$232 million) rare earth metals refinery plant at the Gebeng Industrial Park, Pahang. It is the first rare earth ore processing plant to be built outside China in nearly three decades.
China’s existing standard of handling radioactive waste is different what is implemented in Australia under the 1992 Safe Code of Practice.
“Why are we so concerned about this?” asked Ms. Fuziah. “It is because there is not a single rare earth refinery outside of China. In the petrochemical industry, there are standards and guidelines established for their waste management,” she said.
“However, there is not one being established for rare earth metals. We know that there are many academic journals being published that describe how rare earth refinery plants in China had damaged the environment, how it had lead to cancer, and so on. We certainly do not want to use this as a benchmark,” said Ms. Fuziah.
“China is facing severe environmental damages. Even they are shutting down some of their refineries. So, why should Malaysia build one?” she continued.
The plant is located in the northeast and 25 km (15.5 miles) away from Kuantan, the capital of the Malaysian state of Pahang. It is currently 70 percent complete, and is scheduled to be operational by September. It is also expected to create 350 job opportunities.
When fully operated, this will be the world’s largest rare earth refinery plant with an estimated annual production of 22,000 tons of rare earth metals, valued at RM800 million (Malaysian riggit) ($265.3 million)—equivalent to 30 percent of the global market.
The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) announced that the independent international panel of experts responsible for reviewing the safety of the Lynas plant will organize public consultation sessions. A report would then be submitted to the government and public.
MITI emphasized that the panel is comprised of foreigners who are independent and professional members relevant to the industry. There are no Malaysians, Australians, or Chinese to avoid any possible conflicts of interest.
Malaysian Trade Minister Mustapa Mohamed says the refinery will not receive government approval to being operational until the panel completes its assessment. “We will never compromise the public interest in the handling of the Lynas issue, and the health and safety of our people and the environment will continue to receive the highest priority,” Mohamed told a press conference on April 26.
Speaking at the same forum, the vice chairman of the ‘Save Malaysia, Stop Lynas’ committee, Tan Bun Tee, said, “We realized that if constructed in Australia, a plant of such scale must be at least 30 km [18.6 miles] away from residential area. In other words, it needs a 30-km of buffer zone.”
“However, the Lynas plant in Gebeng Industrial Park is about 2 km [1.2 miles] away from a high-density household area. This means that we have about 700,000 people living within 30 km radius of this plant,” he said.
According to Mr. Tan, previous communications with government officials ended up in frustrations and without concrete answers. The committee’s foremost action is to submit a memorandum to the Australian High Commission and will continue to organize a series of activities until the end of June.
“We hope that people outside of Kuantan can help us. Our ultimate goal is to stop the operation of Lynas refinery plant.”
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Malaysian ire over rare-earth refinery threat to economic plan
Bloomberg
Bloomberg
Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak. Photo: Bloomberg.
On a sweltering Sunday in April, more than 300 people packed in to a room above GC Curry House, a popular eatery in Kuantan on Malaysia’s east coast. They discussed the potential hazards of a rare-earth refinery that Sydney-based Lynas is building about 25km away that will process radioactive ore into the exotic metals that go into tech gadgets, hybrid cars and weapon systems.
Member of Parliament Fuziah Salleh told residents that the Australian company got a 12-year tax break from Malaysia even as other countries would shun the plant – set to be the world’s largest rare-earth refinery – because of the health risks it posed. That information drew boos from the crowd.
An audience member, Chow Kok Chew, said he used to live near a rare-earth plant in western Malaysia run by a joint venture that included Japan’s Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings, and shut down in 1992. Carelessness by plant operators led to the radiation poisoning of local people’s livestock, he said.
Protesters have called on Prime Minister Najib Razak to block the refinery’s opening, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports.
In response, the government on April 22 announced an independent panel of experts would conduct a one-month safety review and hold up the plant’s pre-operating licence until it was complete. Still, Lynas said it expected to begin producing rare earths at the site on schedule in the third quarter.
The protests threaten to interfere with Najib’s efforts to show he is committed to an economic plan that seeks $444 billion (nearly R3 trillion) in private investment over nine years. He has to avoid angering voters who have environmental concerns. During the period when the plant got approvals for planning and construction, Najib was either deputy prime minister or, starting in April 2009, Malaysia’s premier.
And yet he must attract companies and industries that can help him meet his target for the next five years of 6 percent annual growth in gross domestic product (GDP).
Najib has promised voters he will more than double per-capita income to $15 000 in 2020 from $6 700 in 2009. The next elections must be called by early 2013.
In a March 29 interview, Najib said he would make sure the refinery was run safely. He also said Malaysia wanted to attract foreign firms to boost growth.
The refinery would create 350 highly skilled jobs and at least $1.7bn in annual exports, Lynas said. That is equivalent to about 1 percent of Malaysia’s GDP.
Malaysia certainly needed increased private investment, said Manu Bhaskaran, the Singapore-based head of economic research at Centennial, a consulting firm. Excessive government interference in the economy in the immediate aftermath of the Asian financial crisis drove businesses away, and while things were beginning to improve, there was ground to make up, he said.
The World Bank said in an April report the number of skilled Malaysians living abroad had tripled in two decades, with more than half of them living in Singapore.
Growth fell to an average of 4.6 percent a year in the decade that ended in 2010, down from a 7.2 percent annual average in the 1990s. While a rebound from the global recession helped the economy expand a healthy 7.2 percent last year, neighbouring Singapore grew twice as fast.
Before the financial turmoil in Asia in 1997 and 1998, economists dubbed Malaysia one of the next East Asian tigers, along with Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.
The country attracted manufacturers such as Intel and Seagate Technology. The capital boomed and could boast the tallest buildings in the world when the twin, 88-storey Petronas Towers opened in 1999.
In the early 1990s, the country garnered more than 11 percent of the foreign direct investment that was flowing to East Asia, according to UN data. That put it ahead of Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea – nations now beating Malaysia in luring foreign capital.
The East Asian tiger title originally referred to the economies of Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan, which experienced decades of high growth that allowed them to join the ranks of high-income nations. Now, Malaysia trails the other so-called tiger cubs that hoped to follow the same path.
Last year, foreign investment in Malaysia rebounded to $7bn from a dismal $1.4bn in 2009, when it was hurt by the credit crunch and economic slowdown.
Companies with government ties had crowded out private investors in Malaysia’s economy, said Scott Lim, who manages the equivalent of $470m of assets as chief executive of Kuala Lumpur-based MIDF Amanah Asset Management. With little foreign capital, the country had fallen behind in the years since the Asian financial crisis, Lim said.
The government has tried to protect Malaysians from inflation with subsidies for petrol, sugar, rice, flour and other staples, said Gerald Ambrose, the managing director at Aberdeen Asset Management in Kuala Lumpur. It had also interfered in the labour market and favoured government-connected businesses.
Najib is trying to change that. He announced his economic strategy in September. As of April he had identified 72 large infrastructure projects in a dozen key industries such as petroleum, transportation and palm oil. These would generate 106bn ringgit (R236.5bn) of investment and almost 300 000 jobs, the government said.
“Under the economic transformation plan, 92 percent of investment will come from the private sector.”
Geoffrey Ng, the chief executive of HLG Asset Management in Kuala Lumpur, said Najib was moving in the right direction.
Ambrose said Najib’s decision to put Idris Jala, an experienced businessman with no political affiliations, in charge of the economic plan had boosted confidence.
To foster development of private industry, Najib, who is also finance minister, pledged to sell shares in state-owned companies to help double the size of the country’s capital markets by the end of the decade. Malaysia can already claim success in having made Kuala Lumpur a centre of Islamic finance.
Lynas was founded by Nicholas Curtis, a former executive director at Macquarie, Australia’s largest investment bank. The company said it had approvals to build its refinery in Australia and rejected that option because it couldn’t find a site that met its requirements.
China was also in the running to host the plant until the Chinese government decided to impose import and export duties on rare earths processed there. China today has a chokehold on production of rare earths, controlling more than 95 percent of the market.
Chief executive Curtis said his plant fit into Najib’s economic strategy. The government had shown its support by giving his project “pioneer” status, which includes a 12-year tax exemption. By making Malaysia the most important source of rare-earth materials outside China, the country could attract green industries such as wind turbines and hybrid cars, he said.
Curtis said he had met with Najib and discussed the plant, in particular when Lynas settled on the site near Kuantan, the capital of Pahang, the state the premier hails from. “I think he understands the opportunities and possibilities the project might bring.” – Bloomberg
Lynas under the spotlight
ALONG THE WATCHTOWER By M.VEERA PANDIYAN
veera@thestar.com.my
They looked at ore transportation, radiation protection for workers, safety and waste management as well as people living in the area and the environment.
The project is on hold and the Government has said it would not issue a pre-operating licence to Lynas or allow imports of ore to be processed pending the panel’s review.
But many would have preferred that a study be done before the decision was made to approve the RM700mil Lynas Advanced Materials Plant and give the Australian mining firm a 12-year tax holiday.
Strong public pressure to scrap the plant is the only reason that the experts are here.
As Consumers Association of Penang and Sahabat Alam Malaysia president S.M. Mohamed Idris noted: “Swift approval for such a complex project would raise serious questions.”
There is a good deal of allegation that Gebeng would end up as a dumping ground for radioactive by-products.
The Gebeng plant, aimed at supplying a third of the world’s demand for rare earths, was originally scheduled to be in operation by September with ore shipped from the Mount Weld mine in Western Australia.
China now produces 97% of the world’s supply of rare earth elements, essential raw materials for the fabrication of high-performance magnets and parts in hybrid and electric cars, wind-turbines and sophisticated electronic equipment.
While the project has its supporters — some of whom made their rowdy presence felt on Tuesday during public submissions to the panel — opposition to it has been intense with public forums, marches and protests.
To its credit, the panel did its best to keep politics out of its technical mission throughout the three-day study.
It rejected a petition of 52,000 signatures from a PKR MP and also declined to accept a memorandum submitted by the MCA.
Based on Lynas’ estimates, 106 tonnes of thorium waste could be generated each year, as well as residue to be some 1,655 parts per million from the total of 64,000 tonnes of water leached purification process.
But apparently, thorium is not all bad news.
An increasing number of nuclear scientists, engineers, chemists, physicists and even environmentalists are looking at thorium as an asset, not a liability, if used in the right form — as nuclear fuel.
South Africa’s North West University School of Nuclear Science and Engineering Prof Eben Mulder says thorium has the potential to trigger a “nuclear renaissance”.
It is supposedly safer and produces much less waste. Better still, it actually feeds on radio- active plutonium waste, one of the most awful substances on earth, as part of its power-generating process.
There are currently no thorium reactors in operation but they have worked in the past, in both the US and the former Soviet Union.
China, India and Russia are now in the process of developing them.
Its proponents say that liquid fluoride thorium reactors can help reduce the tendency to manufacture nuclear weapons.
The technology is 50 years old at least. The original 8-megawatt LFTR (then called molten sat reactor or MSR) was created by the US Ato-mic Energy Commission at Sandia’s Los Alamos and Oak Ridge Laboratories.
> Associate Editor M. Veera Pandiyan likes this quote by Albert Einstein: The discovery of nuclear reactions need not bring about the destruction of mankind any more than the discovery of matches.
Some want it, some don’t
The Star
THERE is an international environmental law called the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and their Disposal.
Yes, I know, the title alone is enough to put anyone to sleep.
I have had generations of students do just that. Anyway, please bear with me.
This international law, which Malaysia is party to, basically forbids the illegal export of hazardous waste to countries that do not want them or do not have the ability to dispose of them safely.
It came about because it is actually cheaper for companies to ship hazardous waste to some Third World country half way across the planet.
A nasty practice that got pretty out of hand in the 80s, particularly in African countries.
So, why should we take other people’s dangerous waste products?
It is a bit odd, therefore, that this Lynas rare earth plant was even considered in the first place.
It happened before in Perak. The Asian Rare Earth (ARE) company in Bukit Merah was Japanese, the Lynas plant in Gebeng, near Kuantan, is Australian.
I wonder why Lynas didn’t just have the plant in the wide open spaces of Australia.
Is it because it is cheaper to have it here, or perhaps because the Aussies have more stringent laws with regard to radioactive wastes?
Therefore, it makes more sense to come to a country where such laws do not reach such high standards.
Instead of creating the waste in their own home country and then dumping it here, they just build the plant right here along with the waste products.
I do not blame the people of Gebeng for being very concerned because this involves their health and the future of their children. Their opposition to the plant is understandable.
Naturally, the Government and the proponents of the plant will say that it is all fine and dandy.
Speaking of the proponents of this plant, a bunch of them disrupted a peaceful protest against the plant recently in Kuantan.
They didn’t like the anti-plant people because it seems that they were scaring away tourists.
Isn’t it nice to have such tourism-minded people in Kuantan?
Furthermore, one of them was reported to have said that “this is Malay land”.
This got me confused, is it all right to have Malay land irradiated? Very odd indeed.
A review expert panel was set up and they have been meeting various concerned groups. They seem to be saying that the plant is safe.
However, opponents of the plant say that the data obtained in coming to this conclusion came from the plant proponents themselves and is therefore unreliable.
An independent third party should be called in to make the necessary investigations and data gathering.
This is a reasonable request, and one which actually mirrors the decision of the High Court in the ARE case in Perak.
The judge in that case held that analysis of the data coming from the ARE plant sources could be questioned as the neutrality of the data would doubtlessly be, well, questionable.
I am certain that those who are opposed to this plant will continue in their struggle and I hope that there will be a full and open disclosure of all the facts so that an informed decision will be made.
> Dr Azmi Sharom is a law teacher. The views expressed here are entirely his own.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Panel: Waste won’t be 100% radiation-free
Malaysiakini.com-
The international expert panel reviewing the controversial Lynas rare earth plant has conceded that the waste produced from the plant cannot be 100 percent radiation-free.
Based on Malaysian Medical Association’s (MMA) notes made at a panel hearing yesterday, a panelist said the plant is “very unlikely” to achieve zero thorium or uranium – both radioactive elements – in the waste produced.
This was in response to the MMA delegation’s question on the veracity of Lynas’ claims that the neutralised underflow residue (magnesium rich gypsum) and fuel gas desulphurisation residue (synthetic gypsum) have zero thorium or uranium.
To another question posed by MMA, a panelist replied that it is impossible to ensure that the radioactive content of the two elements would be 100 percent neutralised.
“There are processes to reduce the radioactive content – we hope for 99 percent efficiency but it will never be 100 percent,” said the panelist, according to the MMA report.
During the closed-door hearing, the MMA delegation also pointed out that numerous studies have shown that rare earth refineries in China, the US and Malaysia have had a negative impact on the environment.
Asked if the panel could furnish any evidence of a ‘safe’ rare earth refinery, the reply was that no such data was available.
“It is not easy to do a study on the impact of health from a rare earth plant as it requires a large number of samples and a long duration of study to demonstrate statistically significant results,” a panelist said.
“So, those available results online need to be interpreted with caution as they may be biased. We have examples of safe uranium plants, (we) will email (it) to Pahang MMA later.”
The MMA report does not specify the individuals behind the question and replies, but says that its delegation comprised Pahang chapter chairperson Dr Ailin Razali, secretary Dr Chong Jen Lim and member Dr Carmen Chew.
The panelists comprising experts from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are Tero Varjoranta, Horst Monken Fernandes, Jan van der Steen, Hanna Kajander and Leo M Lowe.
They are part of a nine-member team, here on a five-day fact-finding mission on the government’s invitation following public concern over the project.
After meeting stakeholders and concluding its investigations , the panel will submit its recommendations to the federal government.
Panel mum on waste management
Malaysiakini obtained a copy of the MMA report, signed by Chong. Some questions from MMA and replies from the panel follow. These have been edited for clarity.
Question: To ensure safety of this plant, the regular monitoring and enforcement of law and regulations are crucial, however, in developing countries, all these might be not as good as developed countries.
Answer: We agree with that. The regulatory board plays a very important role in terms of monitoring the safety of the plant. If needed, overseas experts should be sought to monitor the safety of the plant. Ultimately, Lynas is responsible for the total safety of the plant, its workers and the affected public.
Do you think the Environmental Impact (EIA), Risk Assessment Report (QAR), Radiological Impact Report (RIA) were all preliminary?
Yes. Detailed reports are required as per international standard.
In those reports (EIA, QAR and RIA), the internal radiation was not dealt with.
Detailed reports (are) needed, we will address the issue in the review. Actually there are formulas to calculate the internal radiation based on the exposure pathway analysis.
As per the RIA report and Lynas, there is no definite plan on the management of radioactive waste. RIA only did the assessment up to 10 years. Lynas is only doing R&D (research and development) on the recycling of the radioactive waste, which means (there is) no solution at this moment of time.
Currently, the radioactive waste is going to stored at the Residue Storage Facility (RSF) (and if it is) full, (another decision would be made) later. What is the definite plan for management of these radioactive wastes?
(We) will answer that in detail in the final report.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Pro-Lynas group bullies protestors as IAEA panel meets
-The Malaysian Insider-
KUANTAN, May 31 — For the second day in a row, demonstrators supporting the controversial rare earth plant forced anti-Lynas protestors to leave the Hyatt Regency here.
The group of about 100 men confronted a group of residents from Beserah, where the plant is located, just as they finished their meeting with the International Atomic Energy Agency-led (IAEA) team that is here to meet local stakeholders.
After a scuffle, the Beserah group led by their assemblyman Syed Mohammad Lonnik and community leader Andansura Rabu had to be escorted by police light strike force officers to their car.
Earlier in the morning, protestors wearing “Save Malaysia, Stop Lynas” T-shirts were also chased away from the beach in front of the hotel by the pro-Lynas group.
Many of the pro-Lynas group were those here yesterday holding up banners supporting the IAEA and also Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Adnan Yaakob.
Two reporters from Chinese daily Nanyang Siang Pau were also confronted by men who demanded they stop taking pictures.
One of the reporters said a man threatened to punch her if she did not stop.
“You want to report good or bad, think properly first. The government has already brought in a panel of experts.
“I am from Balok. We are more concerned than these people who come from Ipoh, Seremban and KL. Why do we want to chase away investors?” said members of the group to reporters later.
The nine-man review panel is here on a four-day visit to hear concerns from local residents and lobby groups before compiling a report by the end of June.
The government had bowed to public pressure last month and put the project by Australian miner Lynas Corp on ice pending the review by the team of international experts.
Despite the government review, Lynas expects no delay to its plans to begin operations in September as it maintains the plant is safe.
It is anticipating a windfall of RM8 billion a year from 2013 onwards from the rare earth metals that are crucial to the manufacture of high-technology products such as smartphones, hybrid cars and bombs.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 1 so far )Malaysia rare earths plant provokes radiation fears
The China Post
KUALA LUMPUR–In the quiet town of Gebeng in Malaysia’s central state of Pahang, a new rare earths plant has evoked fears of radiation contamination as residents desperately seek to stop the construction of the world’s largest such refinery.
The plant is expected to meet up to 30 percent of the world’s demand for rare earths outside China.
Rare earth elements, a group of 15 metals, are used in electronic devices for the defense, alternative energy and communications industries.
The 700-million-ringgit (US$233 million) refinery is being constructed by Australia’s Lynas Corp., which plans to ship rare earth ore mined from Western Australia’s Mount Weld to the Gebeng plant by September.
News of negotiations between the Malaysian government and Lynas began surfacing in 2008, but it was only earlier this year that public outcry peaked after it was discovered that construction had already begun on the 20-hectare plant.
The main concern is the possibility of contamination from low-level radioactive waste from the rare earth refining process.
Gebeng is an industrial town of 10,000 people located 265 kilometers from Pahang’s capital of Kuantan.
While the Malaysian government and Lynas have stressed that the facility will have state-of-the-art technology for contamination control, opponents claim crucial questions remain unanswered especially regarding the safe disposal of radioactive waste.
“We have read the facts, we know about the risks, and we have simply decided that this is not what the people of Pahang want in our backyards,” said Jonathan Wong, the spokesman for the Stop Lynas citizen’s movement.
“Lynas itself has not seen the people, they have not even come up with a solid plan to manage the waste, and they expect us to just accept that they know best,” Wong told the German Press Agency dpa.
Those opposing the Gebeng plant have pointed to the Asian Rare Earth plant built in the northern state of Perak in the 1980s by Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp as an example of the refinery being a “disaster in the making.”
That facility was blamed for the unusually high number of birth defects and leukemia cases among the 11,000-strong population living nearby. It ceased operation in 1992 after protests from locals and environmentalists.
The owners were never sued and no compensation has been paid to the plant’s alleged victims.
Almost a decade later, Mitsubishi is still cleaning up the radioactive waste from the area in a project estimated to cost at least 300 million ringgit.
Lynas has been quick to distance itself from that disaster by stating that different ores of lower radioactivity would be used in Gebeng, but critics complained of the apparent lack of transparency in the mining company’s dealings with Malaysian authorities.
“There has been no full public disclosure of this proposed project,” said SM Mohamed Idris, president of the Friends of Nature environmental group.
“A detailed environmental impact assessment was not required due to a loophole in our law,” he said.
The government is keen to continue with the Lynas project as the refinery is expected to generate up to 5 billion ringgit (US$1.67 billion) a year in exports as well as hundreds of jobs.
Protesters insist that radiation contamination is too high a price to pay for any economic gain.
“If the government failed to regulate the Asian Rare Earth plant, what makes us believe it will be different now?” said Wong.
“They are asking us to take a gamble with our lives and those of our children.”
Authorities eager to allay public fears said last month that the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was assessing the threat of contamination from the planned plant.
The government assured the public it would only approve the operation based on the findings of the agency’s nine-member panel scheduled to visit the proposed site on Sunday for six days.
But the move has failed to win over the critics, who claim that officials from the nuclear watchdog would be pro-nuclear and therefore fail to produce a fair assessment of the Lynas plant.
Calls for local and environmental groups to be represented in the monitoring team have also gone unheeded, critics said.
“While it is agreed that IAEA scientists are experts in many fields, we believe their findings will be a biased report and on that ground, we reject it,” Wong said.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )UN investigation into Malaysia rare-earth plant safety Rare earths being exported from China back in September China produces more than 90% of the world’s supply of rare-earth minerals
BBC News
UN nuclear energy experts are in Malaysia to investigate whether a planned rare-earth refinery may pose a risk of radioactive pollution.
Malaysia has put the project in eastern Pahang state on hold temporarily.
China produces more than 90% of the world’s rare earths supply; the plant, being built by Australian miner Lynas, could break China’s domination.
The metals are essential for making many hi-tech products and some are used by the US weapons industry.
The nine-member team, led by a senior official from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is expected to hold talks with government officials, local residents and activists, before inspecting the construction site near the town of Kuantan.
It follows public concern that radioactive waste produced by the plant would not be disposed of properly and could endanger local residents and the environment.
Lynas has said the plant will have state-of-the-art contamination controls.
The proposed plant was scheduled to begin processing rare earths in late 2011.
The Malaysian authorities are expected to decide whether to allow the plant to proceed with refining imports of raw materials from Australia after the panel submits its report at the end of June.
Rare earth metals are used in goods such as mobile phones, hybrid-car batteries, wind turbines and weapons guidance systems.
The Chinese government says it needs to limit rare-earth exports to protect the environment and Chinese industry, which is producing increasingly sophisticated products.
However the move has angered countries such as Japan which depend on the imports and have seen the cost of the goods they produce rise.
Mines in the US and Australia have been reopened in order to increase supply outside China. Canada and Brazil are also looking to increase their production.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Anwar: Review nuclear plans
-The Malaysian Insider-
PETALING JAYA, May 29 — Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim today reiterated the call of Pakatan Rakyat (PR) for the government to renew its nuclear plans, and said that exploring nuclear power should not be done at the risk of the safety of Malaysians.
He said this today in reference to Lynas Corp’s planned construction of a rare earth plant in Gebeng.
“No matter what the necessity, we cannot take the risk . . . look at what happened in Chernobyl, Japan,” Anwar told 200 young professionals during a dialogue here.
“At least review it before going ahead with it . . . they (the government) has to be careful, they cannot risk the safety of people.
“Don’t process if no proper study has been completed yet,” the PKR de facto leader said.
Pahang Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Adnan Yaakob said yesterday that concerns over Lynas Corp’s Gebeng refinery were exaggerated, saying the public had more to fear from cell phones than the rare earth to be processed there.
Green groups here and in Australia have lobbied their respective governments to scupper the project ahead of the September start date of Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP), citing the company’s opaque plans on waste storage and management of transport between the Mount Weld mine in Western Australia and the Gebeng refinery.
The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) has expressed “grave concern” that waste products could wreak harm on those living nearby.
The association, representing the country’s 13,000 doctors, said the possible health risks presented by radiation from “extremely toxic” thorium outweighed the economic benefits from the project.
Lynas is among the world’s biggest suppliers of rare earth metals, a group of minerals vital in the manufacture of high-technology goods that are ecologically friendly but create toxic by-products in the process.
The RM700 million LAMP is expected to be the world’s largest and most sophisticated on completion.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Developers shy away as Lynas plant looms
-The Malaysian Insider-
KUALA LUMPUR, May 30 — The controversial RM700 million rare earth plant in the Gebeng industrial zone is threatening to sink the local property market in Kuantan.
Developers are holding off on new projects, fearing a collapse in prices if Australian miner Lynas Corp is given the green light to begin operations in as little as three months.
The refinery has faced mounting opposition over the past few months due to fears of radiation pollution, giving pause to both developers and buyers.
“A few developers here are holding back from starting new projects. Some who have not committed too much money have totally backed out of their current developments,” said property valuer Liom Hong Sang.
Kuantan Chinese Chamber of Commerce chairman Pang Woon Ping said that some real estate companies had experienced a 50 per cent drop in sales since March.
Although developers have managed to hold out without slashing prices, Pang told The Malaysian Insider that “if the plant goes ahead, there will be a sure drop.”
Homes along the Kuantan-Gebeng stretch are currently priced about 20 per cent lower than in the city of Kuantan itself, with single-storey terrace units going for about RM100,000 to RM120,000.
The government was forced to put the refinery on ice last month pending a review by international experts that will be completed at the end of June.
Despite the review, Lynas expects no delay to its plans to begin operations in September as it maintains the plant is safe.
But until a decision is reached, the market is expected to move at snail’s pace.
“The average housing development here has 40 to 50 units, with sales of two or three a month. Over the past few months, some developers have made no sales at all,” Liom told The Malaysian Insider.
Pang, who is also managing director of property developer Perumahan Satelit Jaya, said some banks were now reluctant to offer loans, fearing negative equity should panic set in if the government approves the plant.
Environmentalists and local residents fear a repeat of the radiation pollution from a similar plant in Bukit Merah, Ipoh which has been linked to birth defects and at least eight cases of leukaemia in the past five years, seven of which were fatal.
Nearly two decades after it was shuttered, the plant is still the subject of a massive RM300 million cleanup exercise.
In recent weeks, green groups here and in Australia have been calling for the project to be nixed, citing Lynas’ opaque plans on waste storage and transport management across 3,000km from the Mount Weld mine in Western Australia to the refinery in the Gebeng industrial zone.
Lynas is anticipating a windfall of RM8 billion a year from 2013 onwards from the rare earth metals that are crucial to the manufacture of high-technology products such as smartphones, hybrid cars and bombs.
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Environmental Development in Malaysia 