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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold and Silver Juniors, Mid-tiers and Producers -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: hank2010 who wrote (33723)	2/23/2007 2:16:37 PM
From: E. Charters	Respond to of 78419

The 98-99 percent figure I never heard quoted. I did read Inco literature that stated 90% quite proudly and it was not that long ago. How long ago were the 98% figures generated that you are referring to? I know they refused to pay a catalytic process that charged 1 dollar a SO2 tonne or 700 dollars per hour and spent 100 million developing their present system instead. I got that from the researcher who developed the system back in 1958 at U of T. If Inco had paid the system back in the 60's when it was offered to them they would have abated the emission of 312,772,000 tons of sulfur dioxide since then and gained a profit of 54 dollars per ton of sulfuric acid, minus shipping and other processing costs. (drop in smelter efficiency and capex of plant changes has to added here. The cost of the equipment is about 30 million dollars and the heat regenerator/tuyere redesign could run to 100 million, but possibly a lot less) The 54 dollars per ton is the cost of the H2S04 raw, minus the 1 dollar paid out for the SO2. H2S04 has a weight of 92 GAW, whereas SO2 is 48. So the weight of Sulfuric acid produced is 1.91 times the SO2 content of the smelter gas. That is 600,000,000 tons. @ 55 dollars US per ton, Inco would have recouped 44.95 billion dollars US in today's dollars by selling acid. The net present value of that approx over 51 years would have been 8 billion or more. I believe that would pay back the cost of the plant and operating costs rather handsomely. Inco's decision to not pay a royalty and develop their own system cost the tax payer 600,000,000 tons of SO2 pollution, contributed significantly and irreparably to tree and fish death in Northern America and Europe, not to mention the death of the ozone layer, and global warming. It also cost Inco the better part of 44 billion in lost revenue. Inco should have been forced to adopt the best available system. That they did not and said roundly to all and sundry that no better system was available, tells me that pay offs and lies, or stupid politicians.. operated to society's detriment yet again.. The public should not put up with it again. All such specious statements by companies about available technologies and costs should be disbelieved until independently proven. There are few reasearchers willing to go out on a limb to do this as it alienates the customer and cuts off research grants when powerful monied interests start throwing hush cash around. I remember this controversy well, having lived in the shadow of the big smelter for 50 years. we were told about the virtues of the large stack, spewing pollution all around the world, and were informed daily on the radio about the pollution index of the smelter. I informed Kerr Addision mines that they could hold onto their smelter license for S02 emission that the Feds were threatening to cancel over air quality issues back the in the 70's. I advised them that they could use this catalytic process, that I had first seen used in the lab at U of T back then. Ramsay's comment (the mill manager of Kerr Addison), was that "it did not work". I was incredulous. I had used it in lab, and run the figures on it. It very capably did achieve over 98% abatement. This is tragic. 15% of the profit of the Kerr came from the roasting of pyrite ore, and the recovery of the gold. When they lost their roasting license in the 1980's, despite the increase in prices of gold, it spelt their doom. The Mine closed and 13,000,000 ounces of Gold were never mined. People trying later on to mine the gold at a pitiful rate of 2000 tpd, (Golden Shield) tried to grind the gold out of the pyritic ore. They tried briefly to use the roaster but did not know how to keep it going! They had let Ramsay go. He was the only one who could make it work. The roasting license was only one more nail in the coffin. There were other issues with the Kerr. It was not just roasting. It was the 300 million necessary to re-engineer it to 20,000 tons per day and the WATER license to allow that level of pump out and effluent. (the mine needed a ferocious mining rate as the ore left was all in hanging wall talc.) The Kerr had one more intractable problem. Where to put that much water that had micro-slimes in it. The fed gov would not let them put it in Larder Lake. The micro slimes occlude light and make the fish turn white. That is not that bad, as it is not life threatening, but the Liberal cabinet of the day wanted a solution and Kerr Addison had none. If Conrad Black did not have his fingers in the pie and the mine had been in Quebec I believe they would have looked the other way. But it was John Bull money so they closed it down. The Kerr people told me it was all politics. On the other hand I knew how to abate the sulfur and clean the water. But I as short the 300 million to restart it. Just a tad. Like about 400 million short. EC<:-}