In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

dwh · May 2011

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html#ixzz1Lmhs4e8X

"Vast fortunes are being amassed here in Inner Mongolia; the region has more than 90 per cent of the world’s legal reserves of rare earth metals, and specifically neodymium, the element needed to make the magnets in the most striking of green energy producers, wind turbines."

"Hidden out of sight behind smoke-shrouded factory complexes in the city of Baotou, and patrolled by platoons of security guards, lies a five-mile wide ‘tailing’ lake. It has killed farmland for miles around, made thousands of people ill and put one of China’s key waterways in jeopardy.

This vast, hissing cauldron of chemicals is the dumping ground for seven million tons a year of mined rare earth after it has been doused in acid and chemicals and processed through red-hot furnaces to extract its components."

russ · May 2011

Re: In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

I don't understand their point. Do they expect it to be different?

Has anyone seen this or is it just green whining?

I expect you could find this in thousands of locations in China, Russia, India and most other third world countries and in some developed countries as well.

'Legal' reserves? Funny term.

Russ

solar_dave · May 2011

Re: In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

Does anyone remember love canal, the Chicago river? Even today the US has huge slag dams at lots of coal fired power plants. As in all developing unregulated operations the greed of the operator will win out. Eventually they will see the errors of there ways and clean it up.

SolarT · May 2011

Re: In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

Coal, uranium, iron, copper, gold and other large scale mineral mining all produce large dams of tailing. My buddy works for the Ministry of the Environment up in Northern Ontario and that is his main job visit all the mine tailing. When the dams fail the tailing usually pH 1.0 dumps into the nearest depression or waterway. It takes months to years to inspect them all. I think he replaces his work boot once a week.

Mine tailing lakes and dams are the norm in North America. I think there was a large coal dam tailing failure a few years back that wiped out a small town and killed the river somewhere Eastern US.

Googled it: It was Massey mines in 2000. 250 Million gallons of mine tailing in the river in Kentucky. About 75 miles (120 km) of rivers and streams turned an irridescent black, causing a fish kill along the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River and some of its tributaries. Towns along the Tug were forced to turn off their drinking water intakes.

BB. · May 2011

Re: In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

I had a friend that worked on those tailing dams too sometimes... Burrowing animals was a huge problem with those "abandon" dams. Nasty stuff in them ponds.

-Bill

SolarT · May 2011

Re: In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

We studied in earth sciences and environmental cleanup back in the late eighties when mining wasn't hot. Freeze thaw cycle is the main culprit up North causes earth dam to leak. Most of them are lined earth dams. Tailing contents are usually arsenic, mercury, sulfur and multi compound mix. Plus water from rain and snow. Makes a highly concentrated soup of nasties.

westbranch · May 2011

Re: In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

dont forget the recent mini disaster in Hngary wheree an aluminum smelters tailing pond dam broke and the slurry headed for the Danube river.

googled 'Hungary tailings pond'

http://www.politicalworld.org/showthread.php?t=4732

also:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010...hungary-danube

Terrible industrial accident in Hungary - with a massive spill of contaminated sludge from an aluminum plant tailings pond.

There are a number of tailings ponds in Ireland, including one at the Galmoy mines, close to the River Nore in North Kilkenny. Can we hope that they are properly inspected and maintained, particularly after the mines have closed?

Boy that one disappeared from the news in a hurry... don't want to impact the tourism industry.

Eric

Cariboocoot · May 2011

Re: In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

It's everywhere. Between Ashcroft and Merritt, BC there is a tailings pond from the big copper mine. It's a pretty shimmering metallic green, and is even considered to be a tourist attraction by some.

Can't have power without pollution. It's just a matter of which kind, how much, and where. Most people don't care about the first two so long as the last one is "not in my back yard". :roll:

Slappy · May 2011

Re: In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

"Can't have power without pollution."

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2008/2008-12-23-091.html

even coal fired plants! fly ash contains toxins - mercury, arsenic, and lead among others.

SolarT · May 2011

Re: In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

God forbid if tailing dam gets a decent size earthquake. Even the best design earth dam and retaining wall for tailing do not take certain size earthquake in to account. I believe a 6.0.

Moral of the story is "don't live downstream" of the mine tailing dam.

niel · May 2011

Re: In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

funny as how slag dumps were brought up in this thread. the coal slag is also a byproduct of making steel and in the city of pittsburgh there was a huge slag dump that existed for longer than i was alive. not that i'm dead mind you as i was meaning it existed before i was born. in past years they had been dumping soil over top of it and in recent years they put several roads in with high priced homes on it. would i ever buy into it? no way, and i suspect that many of the buyers don't realize what they are living on top of. it is not all that stable even though it was allowed to settle for many years.

to those that are familiar with pittsburgh, the area i'm referring to is located just off of the parkway east (rt 376) and if heading inbound (west) it was on your left just before you entered the squirrel hill tunnels. try not to confuse these tunnels with several others that exist in the area.

btw, the one most people would probably know of is the fort pitt tunnels on the parkway west heading inbound (east) that just as you exit the tunnels you see a spectacular view of the point and the downtown area along with a portion of the north shore. it is quite something to see at night, especially to someone seeing it for the first time. hmmm, i'm starting to talk like a tourist info guide.:roll::p for the record, tourist guides don't exist here.

jagec · May 2011

Re: In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

SolarT wrote: »

Coal, uranium, iron, copper, gold and other large scale mineral mining all produce large dams of tailing. My buddy works for the Ministry of the Environment up in Northern Ontario and that is his main job visit all the mine tailing. When the dams fail the tailing usually pH 1.0 dumps into the nearest depression or waterway. It takes months to years to inspect them all. I think he replaces his work boot once a week.

Mine tailing lakes and dams are the norm in North America. I think there was a large coal dam tailing failure a few years back that wiped out a small town and killed the river somewhere Eastern US.

Googled it: It was Massey mines in 2000. 250 Million gallons of mine tailing in the river in Kentucky. About 75 miles (120 km) of rivers and streams turned an irridescent black, causing a fish kill along the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River and some of its tributaries. Towns along the Tug were forced to turn off their drinking water intakes.

Good old Massey...a dirty company, even by coal-mining standards.

And yet "regulation" is considered by many to be a naughty word!

OK, off my soapbox now.

SolarT · May 2011

Re: In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

If industrial first world country like us is having mine tailing 'regulation' problem, China and other up coming countries do not stand a chance.

3rd world countries - dig them while they last and dump them anywhere. See National Geographic series on Brazil, pock mark gold mining individuals in shorts with shovels. Bare hand mixing the gold ore with mercury and some arsenic before smelting. Nice recipe.

I believe Massey Energy is the the same corp that had 29 of their miners killed in an underground explosion last year. A bunch of not properly venting methane violations prior to the explosion.

About the only thing that produces huge amount of energy that don't pollute as much would be hydrodams. Wind, geothermal and solar needs help to get there - we are doing our part. Hydrodam changes the environment - difficult to calc the pollution impact but easy to see the environmental impact. Tough to balance Energy and pollution unless there is a $$ attached to the environment calculation. We need a new way to account for energy production that includes environmental impact in $$. Otherwise, energy would look real cheap relatively speaking.

When energy is not as cheap, we usually conserve and look for alternatives. In parts of the world where the price for electricity is high, they conserve and tamper with meter.

Uranium and coal mining produces mine tailings. After their energy is used up (post burn) they produce spent fuel rods and fly coal ash. Coal produces other pollutant that requires scrubbers during the burn. Or if they don't use good scrubbers built a taller chimney/stack so that wind can spread them out further.

Photowhit · May 2011

Re: In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

I hope everyone sees this as a political thread, Only government is likely to assess the true costs of a product, from beginning to end and impose correct clean up for the cycle.

The desire to have lower cost products, allows consumer based economies to see only the base costs and not the costs to environment and end product disposal. hence in the US where we regulate the pollution and hold companies somewhat responsible it's easier to import, than to responsibly take the resources from our land. Hence we import nuclear energy for our fuel rods though we have reserves here, oil shale was reported to be cost effective at $2 a gallon, though I haven't seen anyone setting up here...

I'm sorry they are coming to take away my soap box, and someone has a straight jacket... So long cruel world...

bmet · May 2011

Re: In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

Once again I repeat a couple of comments made by BP to their petroleum geologists, just about a year ago.

1. Gas prices predicted to be at $5/gal before next Presidential election
2. Considering shale oil AGAIN
3. Considering recycling shingles. The average 3 tab shingle contains 40% oil, and 20% aggregate. While there's no policy in place currently, we used to throw away restaurant grease too.

In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment

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