The historic Village of Rosa Montana would be destroyed by building the largest open cast gold mine in Europe. At full production the mine would dig 500,000 tons of rock per week, emit 134kg of cyanide into the air per day and use 13-15 million kg of cyanide per year for the 16 year mine life. Resistance to the project has since spread across Romania and Europe.
http://ien.ie/2011/proposed-changes-to-romania%E2%80%99s-mining-law-open-the-door-to-controversial-gold-mining-operations-at-rosia-montana/
With all the knowledge of mercury and cyanide poising and all the gold mining projects that are active and proposed all over the world and all the people who are protesting how could it be that NOT EVEN ONE company or country is interested in starting even ONE small scale completely environmentally safe and efficient and cost effective facility?
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ReplyDeletethis is part of a repost from Important Q&A
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It might seem logical to ask, so what's the problem?, ban it".
Well, there has always been Political agenda, chemical lobbies, special interests, people selling the mercury etc. to deal with but the problem is so widespread now and affecting so many people other than the miners themselves, that a perfect storm is brewing that the green community can gain power from and finally influence those in decision making positions.
Another facet of this that is little understood is the fact that millions of artisanal miners around the world depend on illegal mining with mercury as their sole source of income. Their governments understand this and they cannot outright ban mercury use without having a revolt on their hands. Alternatives must be slowly introduced so it's effects can be seen by all and the infrastructure needed can be built up. If financing can be had by either a government or through private means, this process will be speeded up accordingly. Regional plants would need to be in place before banning mercury in the area being serviced.
There are other processing techniques that do not require mercury(retorts, gravitation separation, etc.) but none of them come near to the efficiency of HGP because even if they concentrate more gold with gravitational means the micro fine gold, complex gold and gold coated with certain minerals is not absorbed by the mercury. HGP extracts all of the gold present in the concentrate.
As far as the Guyana trip, we had very positive feedback and samples were sent to us that did not have enough gold in them to warrant us treating them as a good example of what we are able to do. We want to demonstrate that we recovery gold as well as extract it and that requires some concentrates that are in the 2 oz/ton or more in order to see the gold drop out. Small scale miners need to see the actual gold produced to believe it works not just see an efficiency report.
August 1, 2011 9:34:00 PM EDT
The price of gold has been up for awhile. Profit driven plans for new mining endeavors are becoming a reality. It is really hard to get my head around Anonymous's statement "NOT EVEN ONE company or country is interested in starting even ONE small scale completely environmentally safe and efficient and cost effective facility". Where is Haber's niche in this globally expanding industry?
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