AN AUSTRALIAN mining company said yesterday it plans to finish building a huge rare earths processing plant in Malaysia late this year, in a possible challenge to China's stranglehold on the metals.
The Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) in Kuantan is scheduled to begin producing rare earths, which are indispensable in making many high-tech products, in the third quarter of 2011, a Lynas spokeswoman in Sydney told AFP.
"The Lynas Advanced Materials Plant is scheduled to come online in the third quarter of 2011," she said.
The facility which will refine raw material from Mount Weld in Western Australia is described by the giant firm as "the largest of its kind" and set to provide the first new source of supply of rare earths outside China.
The firm was two to four years ahead of any other producers outside China because rare earths projects take several years to develop, Matthew James, vice president of corporate and business development at Lynas, told AFP in October. He said the project, which had been eight years in the making, had about 1.4 million tonnes of the elements at Mount Weld. The company plans to double output from the Malaysian plant to 22,000 tonnes a year by the end of 2012.
Rare earths such as super-magnet dysprosium and red-glowing europium are vital components in hard-drives and computer screens, while the metals are also pivotal in making laser missile systems, wind turbines and solar panels.
The project has however drawn criticism from Malaysian environmental groups, which said they were "appalled" the government had approved it, after a similar plant in another Malaysian state was forced to halt in 1992 due to protests.
"We do not want a repeat of what happened in Bukit Merah where the impacts are still felt until today," S M Mohamed Idris, president of Friends of the Earth Malaysia said in a statement.
The Bukit Merah rare earths plant, which was opened in the 1980s, ceased operations in 1992 after an uproar from local residents who blamed it for a number of birth defects. Mohamed Idris warned that the new refinery will produce huge quantities of radioactive waste, and urged the government to engage with environmental groups before going ahead with the project.
Raja Abdul Aziz Raja Adnan, the head of Malaysia's Atomic Energy Licensing Board, said Malaysia has only approved the construction of the Kuantan plant and has not yet given the green light for it to begin operations. He said the board, one of the government agencies tasked with looking into the safety aspects of the project, will need to be satisfied that it will not lead to a major impact on the public and environment.
World attention has shifted to Australia's nascent rare earths industry after China, which dominates global production, began restricting exports, sending shudders through major consumers Japan, Europe and the United States.
Even though the Malaysia Atomic Energy Licencing Board ( AELB ) already promised that the Bukit Merah incident in 1992 won't repeat again, I am very doubtful about it. First, from article above it is very clear that the dangerous of this material is not the product, but it waste that make us worry. This waste contains radioactive elements like thorium. The question here, what will happens to the waste? Is it ship back to Aussie (unlikely) or any other country ( will increase the production cost ) or will remains in this country (very likely will happens). Second, why Gebeng? The location itself near to Sungai Kuantan which already polluted by waste from Gebeng Industrial Park. How about the risk of pollution to the underground water? As I read the article below, AELB do not say clearly how the waste will be treat (Quote from the Star, March 12 2011).
Lynas must meet M’sian AELB standards
PETALING JAYA: Australia's Lynas Corp has to meet strict standards set by the Malaysian Atomic Energy Licencing Board (AELB) to secure a licence to operate its rare earth ore processing plant that is under construction in Gebeng in Kuantan.
To get the licence, Lynas has submitted an application for pre-operations.
“It is still incomplete but they are beginning to provide documents,'' said AELB director general Raja Datuk Abdul Aziz Raja Adnan.
The licence will only be issued after and “inter-agency assessment is done.''
But before it begins operations, a pre-operating licence will be issued for Lynas to show proof of its claims that its raw materials are “safe, non-toxic and are non-hazardous.''
“The board will have to verify and decide but of utmost (concern) to us is the safety and security of the workers, the community and the environment.
“If they (Lynas) do not meet the conditions set by the government, then there is little we can do to help,'' Raja Aziz told StarBizWeek yesterday.
The Gebeng plant was thrust into the limelight after a New York Timesreport said the “long term storage of thorium waste was still unresolved. The ore to be imported for processing in Malaysia will have 3% to 5% of the thorium per tonne found in the tin mine tailings that Mitsubishi had processed.''
This raised alarm bells and the critics are unconvinced - to them, the risks of radioactive pollution is very real because refining rare earth minerals usually leaves thousands of tonnes of low level radioactive waste behind.
The stringent rules and layers of monitoring imposed by Malaysia is vital as it cannot afford a second tragedy after the contamination caused by the Mitsubishi Chemicals plant near Ipoh.
The plant - Bukit Merah Asian Rare Earth - was shut down aftera protest in 1992 and now the cleanup is complete. Raja Aziz said the site had been handed over the local authorities.
Lynas promises that it will set a “precedent for leadership in environment performance.”
“We are dedicated to zero harm and care and well-being of our people and the communities in which we operate is at our core.
“We have agreed to place funds with the Malaysian government to ensure safe management of any remaining residue as required by the AELB,'' Lynas vice president of corporate and business development Dr Mattew James said in an email.
He added that the raw materials from Mount Weld has naturally low levels of thorium and according to Nuclear Malaysia, it is 50 times lower than the different raw materials used at Bukit Merah.
How dangerous is this waste?
“This is not radioactive waste. It is under the category of industrial waste which contains normal radio active elements and they are just the same as your granite walls in your house and the water in the ground. We are very careful as a precedent has been set in Perak,'' Raja said.
Lynas, based in Sydney, is investing US$230mil to build the world's biggest rare earth ore processing plant in Gebeng. This plant will provide materials critical for the manufacture of high tech goods. This is the first such facility to be built out of China for decades.
The aim of the plant is to reduce China's monopoly on the global supply of 17 rare earth metals essential for making products like flatscreen TVs, mobile phones, hybrid cars and even weaponry.
The raw material for processing will have to come from Western Australia.
Lynas got MIDA's approval to set up the plant here three years ago and it will enjoy a 12-year tax holiday.
The report said about 2,500 workers are rushing to complete the construction so that operations can begin this year.
Asked how Lynas will clean up the waste from the plant, Raja Aziz said: “We have been monitoring and taking environmental samples (from the onset).
“We will make sure there is subsequent monitoring of the operations if (their application) is approved as it must not have an impact on the environment. That is our guarantee.
“We are not promoters but concerned for the public. We monitor the situation all the time and its impact on the workers, the public and the environment.
“If there is an impact, we have provisions to suspend the licence (if it is approved),'' Raja said.
He said even before the construction began, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Radiological Impact Assessment reports had been undertaken.
“It is a performance-based EIA, not prescriptive. This means we, and some other government agencies, have to monitor and measure the levels of radioactivity (all the time).
“There were no concerns in the EIA as (Lynas) is convinced that the radioactive levels will be below the (permissible) levels, but we will have to check it for ourselves,'' Raja Aziz said.
According to The Malaysian Insider, Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh will lobbying PM Najib to make sure Lynas take back all the waste back to Australia. As I am wondering, during MIDA sign the deal with Lynas, did they discuss about the treatment for the waste. I'm worry this project will become as "dumpsite" for radioactive waste by foreign company. They make tons of profit, do not pay tax for 12 years and we Malaysians suffer chronic disease due to the waste and can't use the land due to the contamination as had happens before.
The facility will be the first rare earths refinery built outside China in nearly three decades. Rare earth metals, of which China has a 95 per cent control on global supply, are crucial to high technology products such as Apple's iPhone and Toyota's Prius hybrid car.
Kuantan MP Fuziah Salleh said on Wednesday that she is working together with her counterparts in Australia's Green Party to pressure their respective governments to look deeper into the environmental and health risks posed by the US$230 million (S$292 million) project and set up safeguards before Lynas starts operations at the Kuantan facility.
The opposition MP explained that she is lobbying the administration of Prime Minister Najib Razak to compel Lynas to take back its waste to Australia for disposal.
One of the biggest worries, she said, was Lynas' waste management plans.
"There have been no clear procedures how they are going to remove the radioactive by-products," Ms Fuziah said.
"No EIA either," she added, referring to the environmental impact assessment that is required by law before a project is approved by the authorities.
She also noted that Terengganu - which was Lynas' first choice - had rejected the Australian company's proposal in 2007, bowing to pressure from green groups which had the same concerns.
The refinery - which will produce metals with an estimated value exceeding RM5 billion (S$2.1 billion) a year - comes nearly two decades after protests forced Mitsubishi Chemicals to close down a rare earth plant near Ipoh in 1992 due to environmental damage that it is still trying to clean up today.
On positive side, this project can generate billions of income and it might attract FDI in high tech industry in Malaysia. However, we must realized we already had bad experience with this project in Perak before and yet we still doing it and do not have any details procedure regarding the waste from this project. "
So, as concerns citizen, I am waiting eagerly feedback from our present goverment about this issues. Means what you say, say what you means. "Rakyat didahulukan Pencapaian Diutamakan".
No comments:
Post a Comment