Rare Earth - Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (Part 3)

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Boonlee Ooi: I have few questions, hope you dont mind to explain.
1) Since you are rare earth expert and work with many companies around the world. Can you share how many rare earth plants in the world which is operating now. Or where can I find the source?


Nick Tsurikov: I think I did put a small note on currently operating and (closed by now) plants. There are some in China (obvioulsy), in India, and Central Asia. At least three that I know of are in an 'advanced state of development', in South Africa, USA and Australia and I am also aware of about a dozen of projects that are in the stage of "resource definition drilling". That's more or less answers no.1.

Boonlee Ooi: Thanks for information. If there is some source which shows list of rare earth plant around the world will be better.


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Boonlee Ooi: 2) I heard that rare earth plant was built away from population. Is there any rare earth plant build at high population town? Where is it?


Kiyo Howell:
2) China's Baotou Rare Earth refineries are in close proximity to over 2million residents.
considering at the moment China accounts for more than 95% of world production, I find it hard to believe any plants would be significantly remote.
(Kiyo Howell, his expertise is "dangerous goods" transportation. Dangerous Goods include ratioactive goods - usually consigments of radiation therapy material, and spent X-ray tubes. He often handle soil and water samples classified as radioactive)


Nick Tsurikov: With No.2 - as I am yet to update my 'radiation monitor' photo with the pic I took at Mount Weld (my apologies, just too many things to do...), I'll do some 'wandering around' the google earth and image editing as well. In the evening, have work to do...
I have seen somewhere (don't remember, honestly, where) some google earth thingy with an arrow between the LAMP site and Kuantan showing 20 kms or so... There are plenty of plants in Australia where one of the rare earth minerals is mined and processed, together with others (the stuff called monazite that was apparenty processed at Bukit Merah). I'll make up some maps with the locations of the plants and nearest population indications as well. My guess that this would be a fair comparison - as (a) one of the materials is, actually, rare earth mineral, (b) the overall 'radioactivity concentration' of minerals processed varies (similar to amang) from about 1-2 to about 90 Bq/g - about 15 times more than Lynas concentrate or residue, and (c) there are several places in Australia and you will clearly see how far and/or how close these plants are to the people.

Boonlee Ooi: 2) Kiyo Howell has given example China's Baotou rare earth plant which built in high population area. This is not a good example plant. It is many issues of radioactive from Baotou rare earth plant. Actually, I would like to know any “healthy” example plant which operates safely and it is located in high population area?


Nick Tsurikov: I think I've answered (1) and (2) as best as I could.



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Boonlee Ooi: 3) Do you think our country suitable to build the plant? Here is high rain country. Kuantan is one of often get flood area. You can google “Kuantan flood”, it will shows you many incidents. Lynas is claimed here has good facilities, like power supply, water supply and near to port. Cant whole Australia find a location with these facilities? We don’t have a good draining system. Plus heavy rain frequently and monsoon area, Kuantan was get flood many times. Then do you think a rare earth plant suit to build at a place easy to get flood?

Nick Tsurikov: With No.3, there is no point in going into 'Australia or Malaysia discussion', this has nothing to do with me and I would not know for sure anyway. However, to answer the question - yes, there should not be big deal of a problem in tropical climate. If you'll look at uranium mining sites - all the serious mistakes that may have been made were fixed by the end of 1970's - mid 1980's. And uranium mines/plants - where the tailings dams are tens of times larger than anything can ever be at Lynas, and where the radionuclides is tailings may be quite soluble (=environmentally mobile), and where there is a 'radon issue' that will be absent at Kuantan... They do operate (and dipose the waste) quite successfully in both tropical climate, temperate climate or in places where it can be minus 50 in winter. I did 'look into' all varieties - and the only possibly serious issue is where those tailings dams are in the mountains in the 'sesmically active' areas. No problem of dealing with much more radioactive and much more mobile uranium tailings in tropical climates, with about 3 meters of rain per year - so there should not be any issue in Kuantan. Plus, I, honestly, don't know why people keep bringing this up - didn't Lynas say that there will be no waste permanently disposed at or near Kuantan...? Or am I missing something...?

Boonlee Ooi: 3. I have to split this question into two parts:

a) Regarding the flood, may be LAMP has designed for 100 year rain (quote from Kiyo Howell’s). but the outside of LYNAS plant, the public draining system, our govt is not design it properly, so that Kuantan will easily flooded. Many cases of flood are happened in kuantan. Other places may be they can handle the rain properly and they are not flooded, but not in Kuantan. I would like to know, what if flood happen, what are the procedures LYNAS will take? Just worst case.
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b) Lynas always told people reason of selected in Kuantan because water supply, power supply, skilled worker, and near to port. I just want to know can’t Australia find a place equipped with these facilities, Yes or No?


Nick Tsurikov: 

In regards to (a) - I haven't got a slightest clue "what procedures will Lynas take" in case of the flood. I could possibly speculate on what procedures I would take - but this most likely be stupid as I have only a vague information of the 'set-up' of the land, river flows and potential flooding... You do need to ask them... 
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In regards to (b) - well...
Issue 1 - skilled workers.
OK... say we can (a) find any - there is a huge labour shortage in mining and mineral processing and then (b) relocate the skilled workers to any place, no matter where - which will be very expensive. But, say, we did that and build a whole new town with cinemas, airport etc... stupid, but OK, let's assume we are silly enough to do this...
Issue 2 - chemicals
Obviously will be much more expensive than in Malaysia, mostly due to the transport costs, but say we have huge amounts of money and will do this too..
Then we get to issue 3 - port.
Needs to be not too far in Western Australia (it would be quite stupid to track the material all across the whole country - might as well send it to Malaysia). We have Perth, Geradton and Esperance, fine... But only Perth can handle containers...
No.4 - power...
Well, how often do you sit without power in KL or Kuantan per year? Our place in Perth on average has 10-12 days per year when we sit around the fire or burn candles. The image of 'Australia has lots of everything' is not exactly true - sure there are some places where the power is almost always on, but on hot days the TV and radio keep reminding us to save energy and not to switch air-conditioning on, unless absolutely necessary. Price of electricity has also doubled here in the last couple of years...
Now we get to No.5 - water...
I think I wrote somewhere here that we already have a desalination plant in Perth and the second one is nearly built. I can only water my garden for several hours a couple of days per week - so had to get rid of some 'water-demanding' plants, as they simply die without daily watering. We do not have enough fresh water in Western Australia, the price of it this year is about 160% of the price the year before and about 250% of the 2009 price - so you can well imagine what would happen if a company like Lynas comes in and says - we're going to take about 10% of Perth water supply to run the plant.
I guess this explains everything, more or less.
Sure, Australia is huge - but it is the 'driest continent'. Place where I live (Eneabba on the google earth map above) has only about 250 mm of rain per year, Laverton near which Lynas mine site is barely gets 200 mm per year...
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So, effectively:
1. Skilled workers could be found at great expense and relocated to the area at even greater expense;
2. Chemicals can be brought in, at a great expense as well;
3. Not too many ports, and in fact only one (Perth-Fremantle) would handle containers;
4. Obtaining electricity supply and maintaining it would be extremely hard and, probably, the only way will be to construct a specifically designated medium size power plant (most likely coal-fired, and there isn't much enthusiasm for more coal burning... diesel-powered one will be so expensive to run that it's not funny);
5. Lastly, the required water supply will be impossible to obtain, in my personal opinion...
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Not talking about Malaysia - you will know much better than me, but I reckon that in general terms all five factors above are much more 'favourable' in Malaysia in comparison with Australia.

Boonlee Ooi: I asked my few friends live in Parth for more than 4 years. They did not have experience power blackout 10-12 days a year.






------------>To be continue

Rare Earth - Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (Part 2)

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Boonlee Ooi: Dear Nick Tsurikov, i believe you on the way to re-measure the lynas rare earth radiation. hope you on the safe way.
1) your photos are show comparison radiation measure in gamma. I guess the rare earth will release alpha, beta radiation as well. Can it be measured?

Nick Tsurikov :
1. Alpha-beta-gamma thing?
Alpha and beta cannot be measured “directly”. The only way is to measure what is in the air and water (in Becquerels per cubic meter of litre), then estimate how much air person breathes per year and how much water person drinks per year. Then there are internationally-accepted coefficients on how to convert “radiation intake” in Becquerels to the actual radiation dose in milliSieverts.

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2) Does alpha, beta radiation harmful to health? alpha, beta, gamma; which is more dangerous to health?
3) There is external and internal human body exposures of radiation from decay activity. I guess internal exposure is more dangerous. am I right?

2 & 3. How harmful all these are?
Effectively, there are different ways how different types of radiation can affect your body; gamma is just a wave, beta is a free electron and alpha – is a particle consisting of two protons and two neutrons that is about 50,000 times heavier than the beta one. Naturally, and quite obviously – a small rock weighting 1 gram will hitting you will have a different effect if this rock weights 50 kilograms…
There are internationally-accepted “radiation weighting factors” and whilst for gamma and beta these are “1”, for alpha it is “20”. So, of course, it is more dangerous, twenty times more dangerous.
The issue, however, is how one gets an “alpha exposure”. The alpha particles are relatively huge and cannot possibly penetrate even a piece of paper or human skin – so the only possible exposure is if one breathes it “in” or drinks it. I did illustrate in my assessment of LAMP, with the help of the main author of the report by the European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR - Dr Busby) that the only really dangerous dust particles that can actually go “all the way into the lungs” are less than 1 micrometer in size. The dust of this type is never present in mining and mineral processing, the lowest would be about 5 micrometers, which means that even if there is any dust around – it cannot get into the lungs much. Just ask any occupational hygienist or a doctor. I am not sure, but I would be surprised if some ‘dust particle size characterisation’ measurements will not be undertaken at LAMP, I think they would be…
Water is a different story of course, but if even some stuff will get into solution – no one is going to drink water from some processing pipe inside the plant and, in my recollection, the limits that are put on the discharge water are about the same as the limits recommended by the World Health Organisation for the drinking(!) water.
So – whilst of course monitoring needs to be done and theoretical assumptions need to be confirmed – I do not see any problem with “internal exposures” associated with LAMP…


Boonlee Ooi 1,2,3) Thanks for giving explantion of dangerous level of alpha, beta and gamma. All three radiation are harm to health. alpha will 20 times more dangerous than beta and gamma, but it only travel short distance.

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4) The Thorium is not only radioactive decay, it will decay into Pb, Lead, heavy metal which is proven harm to human brain system. It is also bio-accumulate. May I know does lynas rare earth contents Pb? what is Pb concentration?


Nick Tsurikov :

4. You are absolutely correct – the ‘end product’ of all decays (both thorium and uranium) is lead. And, in my personal opinion, that what may have caused elevated levels of this stuff in blood of children as measured by Dr Jayabalan at Bukit Merah. Please keep in mind though that there the initial concentrations of thorium/uranium/radium (that all decay into lead) were over a hundred times more than they could possibly be at Lynas. Like… For example, some ceramic tiles – which are in many homes and kitchens – may contain (in the glaze) as much thorium as Lynas concentrate and much more uranium, we do not worry much about getting lead from there, are we…?
In addition we do know that thorium decays very slowly – therefore, the “rate of lead generation” will be as slow as the rate of thorium decay; basically something that you need several life-spans just to do a first approximation by measuring anything…
As to what actually is in the Lynas concentrate – I am not sure but I think the ‘Material Safety Data Sheet’ (MSDS) for it should be somewhere in the “public domain”. I think I’ve got it somewhere here, but honestly, do not have the time to look for it in my archives. What I remember is that the ‘heavy metals’ as a group (lead, mercury, cadmium, whatever…) either were measured to be “below detection limits” or somewhere around some tens of ‘parts per million’. You would have to either trawl through Lynas docs or ask them for it – I am not a specialist in lead, its toxicity etc; all I can do is to roughly stimate the rate of its generation…
Boonlee Ooi 4) You also think that lead level in chidren blood was caused from thorium decay.

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5) the media said smoke a pack of cigarette (but it did not said number of stick), cause radiation of 150 milliSv/year. It is CONFUSING to public people. I guess cigarette is thermal radiation, rare earth is alpha, beta, gamma radiation, I dont think cigarette will release gamma, both radiation should be different. can you clarify?

Nick Tsurikov :

5. Radiation and smoking

I did write it somewhere, but cannot find it now…
Basically, what happens:
Tobacco plants (and leaves in particular) have “natural affinity” to polonium that exists naturally, who knows why. This comes from natural radon – like, it is known that in Malaysia on average natural radon concentration is 14 Bq/m3, meaning that 14 atoms of polonium-218 are generated in every cubic meter or air around you every second. Plus, there are two more poloniums in the decay chain of uranium – Po-214 and Po-210.
Naturally, the more of radon is around – the more of it will be absorbed by the leaves. And if a farmer decides to use some phosphate fertiliser to improve productivity – it may be naturally about 2 Bq/g (2000 Bq/kg) of uranium, that will eventually result in 2000 atoms of each (!) of three poloniums to be generated every second and be available for the plant to “uptake”.
Then what happens – we dry the leaves up, chop them and put them into cigarettes. So, when one smokes, polonium is just one of those 40-50 ‘toxic’ ingredients of the smoke.
Now – where it becomes dangerous and important is when we will ‘look into’ the particle size (as I’ve mentioned above). Of course, the particles of tobacco smoke are “sub-micron” in size and can get anywhere inside the lungs – thus if someone smokes: the more he/she smokes – the more he/she has radioactive polonium atoms irradiating the lungs from the inside. [Please do tell this to everyone who snokes - they may change their mind or least will start thinking of quitting...]
As in regards to the number: I, honestly, do not think that 150 mSv/year is entirely correct – I have seen the numbers from 10 mSv/year to 30 mSv/year (using different assumptions and different kinds of tobacco), so 150 looks to me a bit too high…
But I do know why the quoted number is so high - because it is said that this is the "dose to the lung"... Which, in all honestly, should not be compared with the 'overall bosy dose'...
Apologies for maybe getting too technical, but I hope that you and most people will get it…
You see, we are all exposed to three different types of radiation (alpha, beta and gamma). And, of course, different types of radiation affect different parts of the body differently.
Let’s see… For example, I walk on some radioactive material that emits mostly alpha radiation, has fallen over and have it now (a) between my shoelaces and inside the shoes, (b) inside shirt pockets and (c) on my hands. I would not even bother about the stuff inside the shoes (unless they became uncomfortable), in the shirt pockets – the same thing, who cares – it will not go through the shirt or my skin. I will, however, wash my hands thoroughly before eating or drinking – so I will not “ingest” anything.
Now let’s assume that the stuff emits mostly gamma – the situation would be a bit reversed, I will still not care much about the shoes (though will clean them before leaving the area), then I will firstly empty the pockets of the shirt, and only then will wash my hands – as my heart and lungs are, of course, more ‘sensitive’ to radiation than my hands…
I did mention the ‘radiation weighting factors’ above – for different types of radiation. But then there are also ‘tissue weighting factors’ – which are all a faction of “1” and can be from 0.01 for the skin to 0.20 for ‘gonads’.
Effectively what the 'dose in milliSeieverts' is - is a combination of different types of radiation affecting different body parts to a different degree; I would call it a "common denominator" or something... Basically, so we can sompare the dose of nuclear medicine physician (X-rays) to a dose of oil and gas worker doing borehole logging (beryllium/americium - to see what's under the ground), or a worker in mining and mineral processing (all the 'natural' sources of radiation). All measured in milliSieverts per year.
What I am trying to say – and why I wrote the explanation above – is that the quoted 150 mSv per year is the dose “to the lung”, not to the whole body. To get the actual ‘body dose’ (meaning that we can compare the value with the background, possible doses at Lynas or in any other place) one has to multiply the ‘dose to the lungs’ by the ‘tissue weighting factor for lungs’, which, if I remember it right, is 0.12. Therefore, the dose to a person (not lungs) is actually 18 mSv/year – this value actually makes more sense to me and it is within the range of values I've seen before...



Boonlee Ooi ‎@Nick Tsurikov
5) You also agreed the smoke will not give too high value of radiation. Our Govt without study then publish some wrong information to misleading public .

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Rare Earth - Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (Part 1)

Recently, rare earth is hot topic in my country Malaysia.  We are not concern about the technology application, or rare earth monopoly, or material price. What we concern is the harmful radiation from rare earth waste which dispose after extraction. In 2010, Australia base company, Lynas is building Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) in Gebeng, Malaysia. Now 95% completed.

Many questions from Malaysian citizen were post in LAMP facebook, they are not answer any. But some guy are helping Lynas to response the public question. Below is quoted from original fb's post (http://www.facebook.com/lynasmalaysia):

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Boonlee Ooi: ‎@Nick Tsurikov, are you employed by Lynas? I guess you are Lynas' officer. Are you representing Lynas to answer the questions 

Nick Tsurikov Dear Boonlee Ooi,
I am not employed by Lynas - I was their 'contract radiation safety officer' until about last October, but only for the Mount Weld site. Lynas is just one of about 20-25 different companies, governments, community organisations, etc I do 'consulting work' for - once in a while.
What I normally do is what IAEA team has done in Malaysia: come in, look at everything, take the documents home, analyse them and then produce the report - detailing what is good, what is not. This kind of thing... Doing quite a lot of this for the IAEA lately as well...
So, I most definitely do not represent Lynas in any way whatsoever - whatever I write is my personal opinions.
cheers, nick
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(source: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3389865183566&set=a.1151959317318.2023330.1177707225&type=3&theater)


Boonlee Ooi: ‎@Nick, the photo in ur radiation meter, 1st and 2nd shows you measure at site, 3rd photo (Lynas) measure near by the two bags. Would quantity bag of rare earth affect the accuracy meter? What is the packing material, does it block the radiation? why not you take the photo at same condition? for compare apple to apple


Nick Tsurikov: Dear Boonlee Ooi,
You wrote: "...the photo in ur radiation meter, 1st and 2nd shows you measure at site, 3rd photo (Lynas) measure near by the two bags."
Thank you VERY MUCH for pointing this out.
l will be around the area where the Lynas mine site is some time next week (that is if I'll make it tomorrow back to Nairobi in a two seater plane from the local Aero Club :-) In my understaning (not too sure though) the concentrate is being packed into the bags as it is being produced, but I do hope that I'll be able to take a photo of the material NOT packed into the bags and from a closer distance.
Then I'll update the photo on the right and re-upload it.
cheers, nick

>>>>>>Below is the photo replaced by Nick, he admitted the previous photo is wrong reading value where the material is covered and from some distance. The gamma radiation reading is increased.

source: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3520204641971&set=a.3432765296042.2156101.1177707225&type=3&theater

------------>To be continue in Part 2