It's getting warm

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ukcanuck
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Re: It's getting warm

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Argue with this ...
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Re: It's getting warm

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There has been a huge boom in lithium exploration over the past several years and Musk has been a major investor in that. He's tied up a big chunk of prospective ground in the western US with known showings. Folks I know who have historical knowledge of the are say "moose pasture".
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Re: It's getting warm

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Topper wrote:There has been a huge boom in lithium exploration over the past several years and Musk has been a major investor in that. He's tied up a big chunk of prospective ground in the western US with known showings. Folks I know who have historical knowledge of the are say "moose pasture".
If demand goes through the roof you can bet there will be massive mining operations run by global conglomerates who skirt the environmental impact issues just like big oil.
I will always maintain the problem is 7+ billion humans multiplying like bacteria as the real issue
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Re: It's getting warm

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Uncle dans leg wrote:
Topper wrote:There has been a huge boom in lithium exploration over the past several years and Musk has been a major investor in that. He's tied up a big chunk of prospective ground in the western US with known showings. Folks I know who have historical knowledge of the are say "moose pasture".
If demand goes through the roof you can bet there will be massive mining operations run by global conglomerates who skirt the environmental impact issues just like big oil.
I will always maintain the problem is 7+ billion humans multiplying like bacteria as the real issue
Major mining companies are renowned for following and exceeding environmental regulations.
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Re: It's getting warm

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Topper wrote:
Uncle dans leg wrote:
Topper wrote:There has been a huge boom in lithium exploration over the past several years and Musk has been a major investor in that. He's tied up a big chunk of prospective ground in the western US with known showings. Folks I know who have historical knowledge of the are say "moose pasture".
If demand goes through the roof you can bet there will be massive mining operations run by global conglomerates who skirt the environmental impact issues just like big oil.
I will always maintain the problem is 7+ billion humans multiplying like bacteria as the real issue
Major mining companies are renowned for following and exceeding environmental regulations.
Mt Polly and Faro are 2 examples that come to mind of bending the rules and massive disasters ensuing. I'm sure you must be very familiar with both sites and can probably tell me details on how it all went to shit...
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Re: It's getting warm

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Uncle dans leg wrote:
Topper wrote:
Uncle dans leg wrote:
Topper wrote:There has been a huge boom in lithium exploration over the past several years and Musk has been a major investor in that. He's tied up a big chunk of prospective ground in the western US with known showings. Folks I know who have historical knowledge of the are say "moose pasture".
If demand goes through the roof you can bet there will be massive mining operations run by global conglomerates who skirt the environmental impact issues just like big oil.
I will always maintain the problem is 7+ billion humans multiplying like bacteria as the real issue
Major mining companies are renowned for following and exceeding environmental regulations.
Mt Polly and Faro are 2 examples that come to mind of bending the rules and massive disasters ensuing. I'm sure you must be very familiar with both sites and can probably tell me details on how it all went to shit...
Neither involve major mining companies, but lets start with Mt Polley.

First thing to understand is that it is not an environmental disaster. The tailings from the mine are benign. The Quesnel River salmon have seen far worse and servived. Polley Lake is a man made lake that was built as a water supply to placer operations.

Why did the tailings dam fail? Two major contributors were water balance and the glacial lake bed sediments the tailings dam was built upon.

1) water balance - Mt Polley operated under a zero discharge permit meaning they had to collect all water on site and were not allowed to release water. After rains, vacuum trucks would suck up the water from pothole and all water was diverted to the tailings containment. This water would be used in the mill and recycled. The climate there meant that the mine site was a net accumulator of water. Evaporation rates could never balance with rain and melt water accumulations. Imperial Metals and the BC Government were well aware of the issue and the company had applied for a water discharge permit to release treated water down Hazeltine Creek. That application had been sitting in government offices for over a year and I had attended public hearings when I worked in the area. Quite literally the tailings containment was being flooded and Imperial Metals was often raising the level of the berms to accommodate the water.

2) The tailings dams at Mt Polley are built on glacial lake bed sediments made up of a variety of silt and clay layers. I worked on a nearby site and we'd drill over 100 metres of glacial lake sediments before hitting bedrock. A engineering firm was hired to design the tailings facility and drilled a series of core holes in order to map out the thickness and extent of the various sedimentary horizons and test their strength properties.

After the dam failure, a second engineering firm conducted the same exercise. Unfortunately a particular layer that the first firm identified as increasing strength under load, the second firm identified as sheering and failing under load. Compounding this was that the culpable horizon thickened dramatically between the original bore holes.

The tailings facility was designed by one of the leading engineering firms of the day. The government investigation notes the water accumulation but downplays its role in not allowing discharge.

Faro is an environmental mess and is one of many around the world that come about because of a government's economic reliance on a mine. Rules were continuously loosened to keep Fara running as it was such a massive chunk of the Yukon Territorial employment and revenue. I know of similar mines in the world where a company wants to shut the mine down but is forced to keep it open. This is most often the case where governments take an economic stake in the mine.
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Re: It's getting warm

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Interesting how that tailings pond went down. So errors in the engineering, government bureaucracy and a fuck load of excess water...i guess in hindsight rubber stamping the purge would've saved it. I worked on the that site way back when on a shutdown. Is there anything still gojng on there?

In the Yukon I was seeing an environmental engineer who was tasked with facilitating the cleanup of that mine disaster. Apparently the bill was beyond a billion dollars to clean up the mess...there was some sort of heavy metal leeching through the ground close to the nearest river...the Ross maybe? I take it we will all be paying for that one for a while as the clean up was goung to take years and years.
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Re: It's getting warm

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Uncle dans leg wrote:Interesting how that tailings pond went down. So errors in the engineering, government bureaucracy and a fuck load of excess water...i guess in hindsight rubber stamping the purge would've saved it. I worked on the that site way back when on a shutdown. Is there anything still gojng on there?

In the Yukon I was seeing an environmental engineer who was tasked with facilitating the cleanup of that mine disaster. Apparently the bill was beyond a billion dollars to clean up the mess...there was some sort of heavy metal leeching through the ground close to the nearest river...the Ross maybe? I take it we will all be paying for that one for a while as the clean up was goung to take years and years.
Mt Polley is back in operation. I wouldn't say rubber stamping was necessary, the process and science were very clear. Public hearings done. Fairly strong local understanding of the issue and support. Not certain why it sat on someones desk for so long.

Did you visit the Bullion Pit when you were in the area? The whole area there was a massive clearcut to keep the pumps and heat the water for the monitors. For every one man working in the mine, ten were involved in harvesting wood.

Better still are the Phoenician mine workings in Cypress. They were smelting copper using fire and bellows. Wood was being imported to Cypress for the process. I have a chunk of slag from those operations.
Last edited by Topper on Fri Jul 14, 2017 1:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: It's getting warm

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No i didnt get out to the pits...we were in cogen upgrading control equipment if I remember right.

Thats funny about smelting with bellows :lol: didn't Cypress ever make it out of the bronze age?
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Re: It's getting warm

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Uncle dans leg wrote:
Topper wrote:There has been a huge boom in lithium exploration over the past several years and Musk has been a major investor in that. He's tied up a big chunk of prospective ground in the western US with known showings. Folks I know who have historical knowledge of the are say "moose pasture".
If demand goes through the roof you can bet there will be massive mining operations run by global conglomerates who skirt the environmental impact issues just like big oil.
I will always maintain the problem is 7+ billion humans multiplying like bacteria as the real issue
Or perhaps 7+ billion humans held hostage to an economic system that is based upon consumption and planned obsolescence aided and abetted by multinationals and the global elite?

clearly most people know something has to change but people like Daniel "topper" Plainview don't want change. their bread is buttered the way it is and they explain things to the lowest common denominator.

the paradigm is people are either fundamentally bad or fundamentally good... Plainview has no sympathy for people

Daniel Plainview: I have a competition in me... I want no one else to succeed.
Daniel Plainview: I hate most people...there are times when I look at people and I see nothing worth liking.




BTW in all this talk about electric car batteries where is the talk about how long a petrol engine will last before it requires constant parts replacement. how long alternators, fuel pumps, starter motors, and car batteries last and need replacing?
electric motors have far fewer moving parts so should last comparatively indefinitely with only brushes and batteries being the weak point.
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Re: It's getting warm

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Uncle dans leg wrote:No i didnt get out to the pits...we were in cogen upgrading control equipment if I remember right.

Thats funny about smelting with bellows :lol: didn't Cypress ever make it out of the bronze age?
My mistake, Phoenicians
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Re: It's getting warm

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ukcanuck wrote:



BTW in all this talk about electric car batteries where is the talk about how long a petrol engine will last before it requires constant parts replacement. how long alternators, fuel pumps, starter motors, and car batteries last and need replacing?
electric motors have far fewer moving parts so should last comparatively indefinitely with only brushes and batteries being the weak point.
Very good point. Personally I will most definitely buy electric but only when they advnce the technology enough to be functional for everything i use a vehicle for. Dynamic braking and momentum generation will advance to thr point eventually where you likely wont be tethered to a plug every 500 km. I can see them one day not requiring external power except in unusual circumstances...this unfortunately is at least 10 years away
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Re: It's getting warm

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Re: It's getting warm

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Uncle dans leg wrote:
ukcanuck wrote:



BTW in all this talk about electric car batteries where is the talk about how long a petrol engine will last before it requires constant parts replacement. how long alternators, fuel pumps, starter motors, and car batteries last and need replacing?
electric motors have far fewer moving parts so should last comparatively indefinitely with only brushes and batteries being the weak point.
Very good point. Personally I will most definitely buy electric but only when they advnce the technology enough to be functional for everything i use a vehicle for. Dynamic braking and momentum generation will advance to thr point eventually where you likely wont be tethered to a plug every 500 km. I can see them one day not requiring external power except in unusual circumstances...this unfortunately is at least 10 years away
I agree that electric vehicles are a long way off from practical in most of Canada. I'd hate to try the pine pass in a snow storm, or Regina to Winnipeg in January.
But I can see banning petrol cars in big inner cities. In fact I read somewhere in those places like Beijing, London new York, Mumbai etc, The idea would be to eliminate private ownership of vehicles altogether. Instead of a car payment you pay a monthly fee to be able to rock out of your flat to have a smart electric waiting by the curb. Punch your destination into google maps and sit back and argue on canuckscorner till you get where you arr going. When you get to your destination the car goes to the next nearest user waiting, yada yada ...

Total communist idea I know, but it gets a shit load of cars off the grid in major metropolitan areas. Obviously in places like Canada where folks get out of town on the weekends or are rural full time ( hello fort mac) private ownership is all that will work so this isn't a one size fits all solution.

But I doubt there is single billet solution to this problem
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Re: It's getting warm

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Site C
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