TMI: China begins new crackdown on rare earth sector -- Reuters

China begins new crackdown on rare earth sector

August 08, 2011

A labourer works at the site of a rare earth metals mine at Nancheng county, Jiangxi province, China in this file photo of October 29, 2010. China says it will punish rare earth producers that fail to stick to a nationwide production quota after launching an inspection of the sector at the beginning of August, 2011. – Reuters pic

BEIJING, Aug 8 – China will punish rare earth producers that fail to stick to a nationwide production quota after launching an inspection of the sector at the beginning of August, the country’s industry ministry said today.

In a notice posted on its website (www.miit.gov.cn), the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said enterprises that exceed quotas or continue to employ environmentally destructive production techniques could have their quotas and licences cancelled.

The ministry will also punish rare earth processors caught buying ore from mines that violate industry guidelines. Mines will also be forbidden from selling ore unless they have permission to produce.

The announcement follows a proposal made by the state-owned Minmetals Corp last week, urging all companies in the sector to suspend production in order to comply with government guidelines.

China imposed a production cap of 93,800 tonnes for 2011, and many processing plants have now been forced to close down because all quotas have already been used up, according to local media reports.

A spokesman for the industry ministry refused to confirm whether the output cap had already been reached when contacted today.

The new campaign, which will last until the end of the year, will aim to crack down on illegal production, which accounted for more than 40,000 tonnes last year, according to figures from the China Rare Earth Society.

China produces about 97 per cent of global rare earth metals, which are used in a range of strategic industries such as new energy, hybrid cars and defence, and its efforts to clean up the sector have caused alarm in foreign markets.

Chinese officials have said the high production levels are environmentally unsustainable, but the country also seeks to increase its pricing power on the global market by eliminating small producers and building strategic stockpiles. – Reuters

malaysiakini: Lynas cloaked in secrecy and lacks transparency.... by Lim Chee Wee

Lynas cloaked in secrecy and lacks transparency

Lim Chee Wee
Jul 16, 2011
6:37pm

The Malaysian Bar continues to view with grave concern the developments with respect to the controversial construction of the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP) at Gebeng Industrial Estate, Kuantan, Pahang. 


We note that the project is still very much shrouded in secrecy and characterised by a serious lack of transparency. This is outrageous, given that the plant's by-product of radioactive wastes would have a major adverse impact, directly or indirectly, on human health and the environment.


The level of engagement and consultation with people who will be most affected by the project has been extremely limited and woefully inadequate.

It is highly arrogant and irresponsible that neither Nick Curtis, chairman of Lynas Corporation, nor any senior representative of the company, has been on the ground and continuously engaging with the community. 


A series of 10 discussion sessions had been planned, but Lynas Corporation never directly attended the consultations, which were cancelled after only two sessions. 


We are informed that the International Atomic Energy Agency (“IAEA”) report had a very narrow scope. It did not make any assessment of LAMP's impact, particularly on the environment, the employees and the community.


The report is thus of extremely limited utility, does not address the concerns of the community and offers no assurance to the community on critical issues implicating the safety of the project.


At about the same time that the IAEA report was published, it was reported in the New York Times on June 29 that there are serious construction and engineering flaws in the storage facilities for the radioactive waste products resulting from the processing of the rare earth at LAMP. 


According to the report, the engineers “felt a professional duty to voice their safety concerns... the problems they detail include structural cracks, air pockets and leaks in many of the concrete shells for 70 containment tanks, some of which are larger than double-decker buses”. 


Futhermore, “these issues have the potential to cause the plant's critical failure in operation . . . more critically the toxic, corrosive and radioactive nature of the materials being leached in these tanks, should they leak, will most definitely create a contamination issue”. These shortcomings constitute a recipe for disaster. 


There has also been no transparency or disclosure as to the plan for management and disposal of thorium, the radioactive waste generated by the production of rare earth. 


The radioactive waste management plan must be made public and subject to public scrutiny and consultation. Lynas Corporation must ultimately provide for the removal and transportation of all the radioactive products back to Australia. 


Moreover, thorium has an inconceivably long half-life of over 14 billion years, ie half the atoms in any sample of thorium will decay in that amount of time. 


Will Lynas Corporation be in existence for as long, to be responsible for the impact of thorium? In this regard, Lynas Corporation, at the very minimum, should provide an environmental bond and obtain insurance coverage for the protection of the community. 


Save for the creation of merely 300 high-risk jobs, the setting up of LAMP ostensibly generates no visible or tangible benefits to the community or the country. Yet, the company has reportedly been granted 12 years of tax exemption for its operations.


We have already witnessed how radioactive wastes have adversely affected the community in and around Bukit Merah, Perak. We have now been left with one of Asia's largest radioactive clean-up sites there. It is plain that we do not want to experience the recurrence of such a tragedy in our nation ever again.


The Malaysian Bar strongly urges the government to take all necessary steps to halt LAMP, and to protect its people and environment. 




Lim Chee Wee is president of the Malaysian Bar.

Lynas Project: IAEA mission makes 11 recommendations

IAEA mission makes 11 recommendations

Jun 30, 2011 1:56pm

Summary of the findings and recommendations of International Review Mission on the Radiation Safety Aspects of a Proposed Rare Earths Processing Facility

Main findings

The review team provides the following independent expert opinion, recommendations and suggestions for good practice:

Compliance with international radiation standards

The review team was not able to identify any non-compliance with international radiation safety standards.

However, the review team identified 10 issues for which it considered that improvements were necessary before the next licensing phases of the Lynas project. Those recommendations are listed below and discussed in more detail in the report.

The review team also added an 11th recommendation dealing with the manner in which recommendations 1–10 should be acted upon.

Recommendations

Where the review team considered that improvements were necessary, it made recommendations. The report presents and discusses the situations and bases for each of those recommendations separately. The following 11 important recommendations are made:

Technical recommendations

1. The AELB should require Lynas to submit, before the start of operations, a plan setting out its intended approach to the long term waste management, in particular management of the water leach purification (WLP) solids after closure of the plant, together with a safety case in support of such a plan. The safety case should address issues such as:

(a) Future land use (determined in consultation with stakeholders);

(b) The dose criterion for protection of the public;

(c) The time frame for the assessment;

(d) Safety functions (e.g. containment, isolation, retardation);

(e) The methodology for identification and selection of scenarios – this must include the scenario in which the residue storage facility at the Lynas site becomes the disposal facility for the WLP solids;

(f) Any necessary measures for active and/or passive institutional control.

As the safety case is developed, the radiological impact assessment (RIA) for the facility as a whole should be updated accordingly.

2. The AELB should require Lynas to submit, before the start of operations, a plan for managing the waste from the decommissioning and dismantling of the plant at the end of its life. The RIA and decommissioning plan should be updated accordingly.

3. The AELB should require that the results of exposure monitoring and environmental monitoring once the plant is in operation be used to obtain more reliable assessments of doses to workers and members of the public, and the RIA updated accordingly. The AELB should also require that dose reduction measures be implemented where appropriate in accordance with the international principle of optimization of radiation protection.

4. The AELB should develop criteria that will allow the flue gas desulphurization (FGD) and neutralization underflow (NUF) residues to be declared non-radioactive for the purposes of regulation, so that they can be removed from the site and, if necessary in terms of environmental regulation, controlled as scheduled waste.

5. The AELB should implement a mechanism for establishing a fund for covering the cost of the long term management of waste including decommissioning and remediation. The AELB should require Lynas to make the necessary financial provision. The financial provision should be regularly monitored and managed in a transparent manner.

6. For regulating the Lynas project, the Malaysian Government should ensure that the AELB has sufficient human, financial and technical resources, competence and independence.

7. The AELB and the relevant Ministries should establish a programme for regularly and timely updating the Regulations in accordance with the most recent international standards. In particular, regulations pertinent to NORM activities relevant to the proposed rare earths processing facility should be considered to be updated.

Public communications recommendations

8. The AELB should enhance the understanding, transparency and visibility of its regulatory actions in the eyes of the public, particularly those actions related to inspection and enforcement of the proposed rare earths processing facility.

9. The AELB should intensify its activities regarding public information and public involvement. In particular, it should:

(a) Develop and make available easily understandable information on radiation safety and on the various steps in the licensing and decision making processes;

(b) Inform and involve interested and affected parties of the regulatory requirements for the proposed rare earths processing facility and the programme for review, inspection and enforcement;

(c) Make available, on a routine basis, all information related to the radiation safety of the proposed rare earths processing facility (except for security, safeguards and commercially sensitive information) and ensure that the public knows how to gain access to this information.

10. Lynas, as the party responsible for the safety of the proposed rare earths processing facility, should be urged to intensify its communication with interested and affected parties in order to demonstrate how it will ensure the radiological safety of the public and the environment.

Follow-up recommendation

11. Based on recommendations 1–10 above, the Government of Malaysia should prepare an action plan that:

(a) Indicates how the above-mentioned recommendations are to be addressed;

(b) Sets out the corresponding time schedule for the actions;

(c) Is geared to the possibility of an IAEA-organized follow-up mission, which will review the fulfilment of recommendations 1–10 above in, say, one to two years' time, in line with other IAEA review missions.