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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: Andhra Pradesh

Treasure in the Sand

08 Fri Jul 2016

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, South Asia

≈ Comments Off on Treasure in the Sand

Tags

Andhra Pradesh, beach sand mining, garnet, ilmenite, India, Kerala, leucoxene, monazite, niobium, Orissa, rutile, sillimanite, Tamil Nadu, tantalum, thorium, titanium, zircon

Beach sand mining has received much negative publicity in India in recent years. This has primarily been due to irresponsible allegations of illegal extraction of monazite from the beach sands of Tamil Nadu, a mineral that yields thorium upon processing. Thorium is a fissile material that is tightly regulated by the government and is hoped to power Indian nuclear reactors one day. Another reason for the negative impression of beach sand mining has been the shrill, ill-informed cry of sections of the environmental community that claim a detrimental impact on fishing, ground water, vegetation, and health. In addition, the image of mining in the public mind involves massive trucks carrying off earth and large depressions in the ground caused by excavations. Beach sand mining is quite different in many respects, and it is an important industry whose development is vital not just for India’s economic health but also strategic interests.

Beach sand depositsOne of the misconceptions about beach sand mining is the assumption that it involves quarrying. This is patently false: companies that operate in this field in southern Tamil Nadu, for instance, dredge only the top inch of the beach sand. Any deeper, and they would be mining for silica, which is neither a rare earth mineral nor of any use to the industry. The skimming is done every morning, usually between 04 00 and 12 00; each day, the sea deposits fresh layers of rare earth minerals on the beaches and by evening, much of it is washed away if not harvested. The source of these minerals, however, are the Ghats – these minerals are found in the rocks in quantities too small to extract profitably, but natural weathering erodes the deposits which make their way into streams and rivers and to the ocean. The breaking wave deposits the heavier minerals further up the beach but the back wave carries the lighter minerals ashore and deposits them closer to the water. This partial sorting of minerals based on their weight explains the striations of colour that can be seen on the beach.

Of the superficial inch, somewhere between 70 and 80 percent of the sand collected is returned to the beach after a primary filtration process. Rare earths, as their name suggests, exist in very small quantities in the sand and most of the day’s collection is gangue material. This filtration is usually done very close to the mining area so that the volume of material transported to the factories is less. The collection is sifted through a trommel screen and then put through a concentrator unit that uses the principle of gravity to separate the heavy minerals from the sand.

Although there are several minerals that yield rare earth elements, the beaches of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala are more abundant in seven – garnet, ilmenite, leucoxene, monazite, rutile, sillimanite, and zircon. These ores, when processed, yield niobium, tantalum, titanium, thorium, and other elements important for a wide variety of industries such as electronics, energy, plastics, paints, construction, shipping, paper, and nuclear. China dominates the rare earths market with 97 percent of the exports but even at a meagre two percent, India is the second largest exporter of rare earths. With Beijing’s recent restrictions on rare earths exports, prices have increased and several countries such as Japan, France, and the United States are interested in the development of Indian rare earth deposits.

Beach sand mining processAt the factory, the rare earth minerals are extracted using various techniques based on their physical properties. The raw material is sorted using only magnetism, conductivity, and gravity to separate the six or seven minerals. High tension and magnetic separators extract ilmenite, monazite, rutile, and garnet while zircon and sillimanite are separated by their specific gravity in spiral concentrators and wet tables. At no point are any chemicals used in the separation of these minerals though other ores occurring elsewhere may require it, such as separating sillimanite from quartz. The extracted minerals may be further processed based on quality; for example, electrostatic plate separators, air tables, cross-belt magnetic separators, very high intensity magnetic separators, and rare earth drum separators can refine the minerals using the same principles that were used to extract them.

The entire process can be made to have a low impact on the environment. For example, VV Mineral, a Thoothukudi based firm, uses the natural Tamil Nadu sun to dry the minerals rather than use large, diesel-powered kilns. Furthermore, the water used in the separation process is treated and recycled. What few tailings are generated are dumped into a small pond of recycled water where the sand bed will act as a natural filter. VV Mineral, India’s largest garnet and ilmenite exporter, has also won several awards and certifications for its environmentally friendly mining processes. Furthermore, its corporate social responsibility involves employment of local youth, health coverage, education, and several other services to the area.

Admittedly, processing rare earths to obtain their elements is a chemical process. However, this is different from beach sand mining and only few of the firms, usually public sector undertakings, involved in one engage with the other. There have also been some spurious allegations of the illegal sale of monazite. These are baseless: the monazite separated from the sand, when it reaches a certain volume, is contained in a cement bunker and sealed. Although technically still the property of the company that extracted it, the monazite is handed over to the Department of Atomic Energy for safekeeping. The only entity licensed to process monazite is the state-owned Indian Rare Earths Limited.

The government is now considering opening up the mining of atomic minerals to the private sector. This is to reduce dependence on foreign imports necessitated by the abysmal failure of PSUs to develop domestic and expand uranium mines, monazite processing plants, and nuclear waste reprocessing facilities. The expansion of private sector presence from lighter rare earths to heavier rare earths is one of the several critical steps India must take towards achieving nuclear independence. With good geological data, existing firms may wish to expand their portfolios or new players may be interested in entering the market. A market-oriented policy would have a strategic international impact in that purchasers will have an alternative vendor to China. Given the importance of some of these materials to sensitive fields, India’s value as a partner will increase and allow the Delhi to leverage its ores for important technology and other benefits. Rather than cast accusing glances at the beach sand mining industry, it must be incorporated into the Make-in-India national strategy for self reliance.


This post appeared on FirstPost on July 14, 2016.

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From Russia, With Love

26 Sat Dec 2015

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, Nuclear, South Asia

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Andhra Pradesh, Areva, climate change, GE, General Electric, India, Kovvada, Kudankulam, Larsen & Toubro, Narendra Modi, nuclear, nuclear energy, Rosatom, Russia, Vodo-Vodyanoi Energetichesky Reaktor, VVER, Westinghouse

Narendra Modi’s visit to Russia yielded 16 agreements ranging from defence, energy, space cooperation, manufacturing, and education. Of particular interest to some has been the announcement regarding the purchase of Russian nuclear reactors for Kudankulam as well as a yet-to-be-decided site. Modi swept into office promising electrification and ample energy for all; his visit to the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in July 2014, just two months after taking office, his party’s manifesto promise of aggressively pursuing thorium reactor technology and deployment, and his discussions with US president Barack Obama in January 2015 that led to a convoluted arrangement that partially resolved apprehensions about India’s nuclear nuclear liability law all indicated that the prime minister would actually deliver on his promises.

However, little moved on the nuclear front over the past 18 months; in fact, it would not be amiss to say that things actually slid back a little with the chief executive officer of General Electric, Jeffrey Immelt, announcing that he would not risk exposing his company to India’s nuclear liability law and that GE would not be in the Indian nuclear business. Even the much hyped nuclear understanding with Japan has not yet turned out to mean much, and the prime minister made no mention of nuclear power at the international climate change conference in Paris a couple of weeks ago. Nuclear developments from the Russia trip, then, were a much welcome bit of news. As is typical of the Indian government, the announcement was just a stub, even in the official press releases, and not much has been spelled out about India’s new Russian purchase.

In his statement, the prime minister announced that India was keen to acquire twelve Russian reactors for two sites. The first of these sites is Kudankulam, where one Russian 1,000 MW VVER is already operating (though on suspiciously long maintenance downtime) and another is about to achieve criticality in a few weeks. This site was originally finalised in 1989 for two reactors with the option of expanding to eight units. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union, an Indian economic downturn, and anti-nuclear protests delayed work and the first reactor went online only last year in 2014. Confirming six reactors at Kudankulam does not utilise the 1989 understanding to its maximum but it is nonetheless a significant departure for Indian nuclear policy, and one for the better: for reasons unknown to outsiders, it has been the practice of the Department of Atomic Energy to sanction two reactors at a time. Reactors in India have always been built in pairs at each site – Narora, Kaiga, Kakrapar, Tarapur, Madras, and Rawatbhata. This may seem like an insignificant deviation but as the United Arab Emirates’ recent experience has shown, building more reactors of the same type simultaneously improves the efficiency of construction. This is further supported by industry analyses of why the construction of the EPR at Olkiluoto went completely off the rail.

The second site for six more of Russia’s reactors, it is being reported, is in Andhra Pradesh though the exact spot is yet to be determined. These are thought to be the slightly larger VVERs, rated at 1,200 MW. Interestingly, Andhra is already in line to receive six of GE’s 1,520 MW Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor (ESBWR) reactors at Kovvada. Does the prime minister’s announcement mean that Kovvada has now been handed over to the Russians, especially in light of Immelt’s outburst in September 2015? If this is not the case, Andhra Pradesh will be home to twelve reactors. Hyderabad’s interest in procuring Russian reactors is no secret. Earlier this year, in June, when West Bengal balked at having two Russian VVERs at Haripur, chief minister Chandrababu Naidu offered his state as a potential home for the displaced reactor plans. This marks a sharp departure from the state’s earlier decision to rely on oil & gas to meet its energy needs.

Modi’s Russian nuclear package also comes with a ‘Make in India’ bonus: Rosatom, the Russian nuclear reactor manufacturer, will be sourcing more components from Indian vendors. The joint statement read, “India and Russia will expand their cooperation in science and technology, industry, localization of equipment and spares, uranium mining, fabrication and supply of nuclear fuel, management of spent fuel and in other aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle.” It is not clear if this entails technology transfers as the deal with Areva at Jaitapur has meant for Larsen & Toubro: the French concern has agreed to help L&T upgrade its forging capacity to produce components suitable for the EPR. Rosatom may well ask Indian companies to assemble knocked-down kits as Russian defence contractors have done in the past with Indian industry.

From a governmental perspective, the most positive aspect of this deal is that it will go through. India’s nuclear liability law, enacted in 2010, delayed or scuttled many other promising ventures such as the ones at Mithi Virdhi and Kovvada; Jaitapur has also had its share of delays to the extent that its environmental clearance license expired last month. Rosatom has been the only international vendor that has stuck with India, though it has worked in a substantial hike in the price of its reactors in a renegotiated contract: while Kudankulam I and II cost the Indian taxpayer approximately Rs. 17,300 crores, Kudankulam III and IV will cost them in the vicinity of Rs. 39,500 crores. Not all of that 130 per cent hike can be explained away by inflation and exchange rate fluctuations. Moreover, there are doubts whether Rosatom will actually pay damages in the extremely unlikely event of a nuclear accident at Kudankulam: although the operator is committed to a no-fault liability, supplier liability can easily get bogged down for decades in courts under a mountain of technical data and legal manoeuvres.

Overall, however, the deal is good for India. Russia’s VVER reactors are among the more advanced Gen III+ designs and will provide clean, cheap, and reliable energy. The real drawback of the outcome in Moscow is that India’s joint vision with Russia on nuclear energy cooperation envisages only 12 reactors over the next 20 years. With the construction of high speed rail networks planned in India, a growing economy, and increasingly affluent citizens, these reactors will be a mere drop in the bucket. As the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, and France in the 1980s and 1990s, demonstrated, achieving a safe construction pace of three to five reactors per year is very much within the realm of possibility. India’s nuclear ambitions ought to mirror China’s building spree and 12 reactors ought to be ready by 2020 at the latest. The real question is, what do we do after that, Mr. Modi?


This post appeared on FirstPost on December 27, 2015.

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