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Chaturanga

~ statecraft, strategy, society, and Σοφíα

Chaturanga

Tag Archives: thorium

Raring for a Rare Earths Revolution

01 Thu Sep 2016

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in India, Opinion and Response, South Asia

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

AMCR, Apple, Atomic Minerals Concession Rules, beach sand mining, cerium, China, DAE, Department of Atomic Energy, dysprosium, europium, India, LED, Make in India, Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, MMDR, monazite, neodymium, nuclear energy, rare earths, Skill Development, smartphone, Tesla, thorium

Since the birth of the nuclear age, the beach sands of peninsular India have attracted much attention. Every day, the sea washes up on the beaches of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Orissa valuable deposits of minerals that had been carried to the sea from the Ghats by natural erosion through sun, wind, and rain. Soon after independence, the new government brought the sands under national control due to their significance in nuclear technology. Some small exports were allowed but only to secure vital technology or cooperation in the nuclear arena.

In 1998, private companies were invited to enter the beach sand mining sector and six of the seven minerals – garnet, ilmenite, leucoxene, rutile, sillimanite, and zircon – were deregulated. Only monazite remained under the purview of the Department of Atomic Energy due to its uranium and thorium content. Since then, production has increased 80 percent and the export value of beach sand minerals has skyrocketed from Rs 35 crores in 1998 to Rs 4,500 crores in 2015. Yet despite having some 35 percent of the global deposits, India still lags significantly behind other global players such as Australia in production. One benchmark the industry uses is the ratio of extracted ore to proven deposits, known as the production reserve ratio – in India, that number is 0.0018 percent while Australia is substantially ahead at 0.01 percent.

The potential for capacity expansion and value addition in the six deregulated minerals notwithstanding, the miracle story lies in the seventh and as yet controlled atomic mineral, monazite. Although famous for its thorium content, monazite has actually only eight percent of the fissile element; the rest is composed of 0.3 percent uranium, 65 percent rare earth elements, and phosphates. After bastnäsite, the mainstay of Chinese rare earth mines, monazite is the richest source of rare earth elements and the rare earth ore most common in India.

The rare earth elements are 17 in number and as their collective name suggests, found only in very small quantities in the earth’s crust. These elements have magnetic, thermal, and electrical properties that find useful applications in several vital industries such as communications, electronics, transportation, energy, aerospace, and armaments. Some of the applications represent cutting edge technologies that could determine the material evolution of society. For example, more efficient LEDs that have already been designed are yet to leave research laboratories for want of europium and terbium in commercial quantities. Similarly, the non-availability of neodymium and dysprosium have delayed the replacement of gearbox-driven wind turbines by more efficient direct-drive units. The widespread embrace of these technologies would go a long way in meeting not just India’s stated climate change goals but also its infrastructural development goals through efficient lighting. Other applications find place in industries projected to grow exponentially over the next few decades. For example, smartphones have proliferated like wildfire in the last few years and demand is only expected to increase in the coming years; these ubiquitous gadgets, however, rely on neodymium, europium, and cerium for their speakers and screens.

Rare earth elements also find use in some of the technologies that can truly be said to be of the future. For example, Tesla has been experimenting with practical energy storage not only for its cars but also for renewable energy sources and electricity grids. Rare earths are key to some of the concepts and designs the company has developed. Easy access to rare earth may well entice Tesla to come and set up shop in India, bringing with it not just its technology and capital but also a demand for quality labour that dovetails well with the Make-in-India and Skill Development schemes that the Modi government has been trumpeting over the past couple of years.

Indeed, the ambitious may well look beyond the arrival of hi-tech multinationals like Apple and Tesla to Indian shores to the time when India will be able to produce its own Apples and Teslas for the global market. With the world’s attention turning to the environmental costs of 20th century growth, demand for commodities like rechargeable batteries, catalytic converters, fluid-cracking catalysts, hybrid vehicles, and stronger magnets are only expected to grow in the coming years. India can well emerge as a vital hub in the network of futuristic industries and technologies.

There is reason for optimism in the development of India’s rare earths industry: the world market is dominated by China, responsible for almost 98 percent of international exports and Beijing’s restrictive policies have raised concern in Tokyo, Washington, and the capitals of other major industrial powers. Wit everyone looking for other sources of these strategic elements, an Indian foray into the market would not just be welcomed but possibly nurtured by other industrial countries. Given the importance of the elements, India may even be able to import the latest technology for the safe and efficient extraction of rare earths to develop its own industry.

The technological manna, the economic bonanza, and the contribution to labour markets and skill development that would result from private sector participation in monazite processing is undeniable. Yet with uranium and thorium as by-products, there is, however, an unfounded fear of private players handling nuclear materials. First, private firms play an important role globally in the mining and processing of nuclear materials; corporations are even allowed to own and operate nuclear power plants and their record has so far been exemplary. Second, it would be easy for the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board to regularly audit or supervise the processing of monazite until the uranium and thorium are separated. The government can then buy the fissile material from the private sector to fuel its nuclear reactors. With plans to boost nuclear energy to 63 GW by 2030, this would offset the demand for imported uranium.

India stands on the cusp of another mini-revolution – what information technology was to the 1990s, rare earths promise to be for the 2020s. Development of this sector can drastically alter the global market as well as domestic conditions in strategic, economic, as well as social terms. As a major exporter of such an important resource, India stands to gain some political leverage – as China does today – in its dealings with other powers. All that remains is for Delhi to get over its irrational fear – protectionism? – of the private sector in handling radioactive materials.

But not so fast – the greatest obstacle to India’s development is India itself. Any potential for the processing of monazite in India appears to be a stillborn dream, for the government has recently moved to re-nationalise the rare earths industry. The historical record of the industry is pretty clear that government control over rare earths production will stifle growth, curtail exports, and effectively terminate any prospects of industrial, economic, or social development.

The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act of 1957 had categorised all beach sand minerals as atomic minerals. This made them prescribed substances under the Atomic Energy Act and off limits to the private sector. In 1998, the government invited the private sector to participate in beach sand mining in an effort to give a fillip to the industry and the industry grew over a hundred-fold in 15 years; in 2007, six of the seven beach sand minerals were removed from the list of prescribed substances in the Atomic Energy Act.

However, the Atomic Minerals Concession Rules of 2016 has moved to put all the minerals back onto the prescribed substances list, thereby effectively removing them from the private sector domain. Furthermore, the AMCR proposes to reserve all beach sand mineral deposits containing over 0.75 percent monazite for public sector companies; any already operating private mine that is found to contain above this concentration of monazite will have its lease terminated. Needless to say, these retrograde and draconian measures will severely damage the private sector role in beach sand mining.

If, on the other hand, the government were to allow the private sector to mine process not just the six non-radioactive minerals but also monazite, and implement policies that would encourage the production to reserve ratio to climb to 0.01 percent, industry estimates forecast almost a million jobs in direct and indirect employment, capital investments of over Rs 54,000 crores, and Rs 7,100 crores as revenue to the government. Against an annual global demand of 125,000 tonnes, India produced just 300 tonnes of rare earth elements between 2009 and 2014. A recent study done by the Council on Energy, Environment, and Water in conjunction with the Department of Science and Technology has also stated that the production of rare earth elements would significantly contribute to the growth of the manufacturing sector. In fact, the rationale for privatisation in 1998 as expressed in a Department of Atomic Energy report was that the growing demand for rare earths in the domestic and international market made the augmentation of rare earth extraction capability of interest to the country. “However,” the report stated, “this is highly capital intensive and it may not be possible for only the PSUs (both Central and State-owned) operating in this field to set up the new plants on their own. It is therefore necessary to allow the private sector to set up such plants within the framework of some broad guidelines.”

Yet time is running out. Given the geopolitical turmoil caused by Chinese assertion of hard power in recent years, major consumers of rare earth elements such as the United States and Japan are looking furiously for other alternatives. These could be either sources or materials. If they succeed, the demand for Indian rare earths would diminish and an economic as well as strategic windfall would have been missed.

China’s restrictive export policies and substantially higher prices for the export market than for domestic consumption work in India’s favour in that the global community would be eager to see it develop as an alternative source of rare earths to China. Presently, India represents barely two percent of international rare earths trade; there is confidence in the private sector that with appropriate policies, this could easily be raised to 25 percent in a decade. Besides employment and the development of the Indian hi-tech industry, a private-sector-led growth of the rare earths industry promises a healthier foreign exchange balance, and less reliance on imported resources.

The oft-heard argument that atomic resources are a security risk in private hands needs to be once and for all debunked: plenty of private firms are engaged world wide in nuclear activities from mining and processing to operating reactors. Furthermore, security has been a convenient blanket for the government under which to hide incompetence – one look at the defence sector or the nuclear energy industry should be enough. Finally, private companies would most likely be willing to bear the paranoia of the bureaucrats and agree to supervision of their monazite processing facilities by the Department of Atomic Energy. There is no reason to curtail private sector involvement in this lucrative field of the future.

The Modi government has been hailed for bringing in economic reforms, though admittedly in a trickle rather than a flood. Its beach sand mining policy, however, stands in stark contrast to the laurels it has won from economic commentators and harkens back to the days of Jawaharlal Nehru, big, bureaucratic, and opaque public sector units, and a socialistic frame of mind. If this government is serious about its Make-in-India programme, its Skill Development scheme, and its overall development agenda, it cannot afford to throttle an up and coming industry that will be the lifeblood of dozens of technological advancements of the coming decades.


A version of this post appeared on The News Minute on September 17, 2016.

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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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A 50 Quadrillion Dollar Discovery

01 Wed Jun 2016

Posted by Jaideep A. Prabhu in Nuclear

≈ Comments Off on A 50 Quadrillion Dollar Discovery

Tags

Advanced Heavy Water Reactor, AEET, AHWR, Alvin Weinberg, Arbeitsgemeinschaft Versuchsreaktor, Atomic Energy Establishment Trombay, Britain, CHTR, CIRUS, Compact High Temperature Reactor, Dragon reactor, Flibe Energy, Glenn Seaborg, Homi Bhabha, IHTR, IMSBR, India, Indian Molten Salt Breeder Reactor, Innovative High Temperature Reactor, LFTR, Lingen, Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, Molten Salt Reactor Experiment, MOX fuel, MSRE, Netherlands, nuclear, Purnima II, reprocessing, SUSPOP/KSTR, thorium, Transatomic Power, United States, uranium, WAMSR, Waste Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor

Sometimes, it is not easy to assess the importance of a discovery: JJ Thompson, the discoverer of the electron, is said to have once called his sub-atomic particle a most useless thing. Today, that same useless electron has gone on to drastically transform the world. Thorium shares an almost similar tale. Discovered in 1829 by Swedish chemist JJ Berzelius from samples of earth sent him by mineralogist Jens Esmark, the new element named after the Norse god of thunder, Thor, held only academic interest for the next half century.

In 1884, Auer von Welsbach invented the incandescent gas light mantle which used thorium oxide. However, when electricity replaced gas for lighting by the mid 1920s, thorium was again nearly forgotten. What saved the element was World War II and the quest for the atomic bomb.

It was the golden age of atomic science: in 1895, German physicist William Röntgen discovered x-rays, though their mechanism eluded him then. The following year, French physicist Henri Becquerel observed that uranium salts emitted rays similar to x-rays in their penetrating power but differing in that they seemed to arise internally in the uranium than be caused by any external excitation. Although credit for the 1898 discovery of radioactivity in thorium goes to the German chemist Gerhard Carl Schmidt, he believed that “thorium rays” were similar to “Röntgen rays”; an accurate understanding of the phenomenon had to await the work of Marie Curie and Ernest Rutherford.

Rutherford’s further experiments revealed basic atomic structure as well as a better understanding of radioactivity. Frederick Soddy, Rutherford’s colleague, saw the enormous potential of their discovery and wrote that here was a virtually inexhaustible source of energy that could, properly applied, “transform a desert continent, thaw the frozen poles, and make the whole earth one smiling Garden of Eden.”

The beginning of World War II put nuclear physics front and centre of the Allies’ agenda. Afraid that Germany might beat them to a horrendous new type of weapon – the German chemists, Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassmann, together with Austrian physicist Lise Meitner, had successfully created a small fission chain reaction in 1938, after all – the United States commenced the Manhattan Project, one of the most secretive, international, well-funded, and undemocratic technological initiative to date.

In this project, Glen Seaborg was tasked with assessing which would be the most suitable element to make a nuclear device. Due to wartime exigencies, no efforts were spared in rushing to an atomic bomb. Seaborg was allowed to experiment simultaneously on all tracks he thought worthy of yielding a working weapon – a very expensive proposition. As a result, research was conducted on uranium, plutonium, and thorium paths towards weaponisation. Thorium was found to be unsuitable for weaponisation and, again, the war came first: Seaborg spent most of the war years working with plutonium.

Seaborg’s work, however, had pointed to thorium’s eminent suitability as a fuel for peaceful purposes. Along with his research assistant John Gofman, Seaborg bombarded the thorium atom with neutrons from a cyclotron. They observed that thorium-232 transmuted to thorium-233 and then to protactinium-233. This was carefully extracted from the sample to avoid further transmutation to protactinium-234; after waiting for a couple of months, Gofman observed that the protactinium-233 had transmuted further, into uranium-233 as was later discovered. With the help of fellow researcher Raymond Stoughton, Gofman separated enough of the uranium-233 to test it for fissionability. As per his meticulous notes, it was on February 02, 1942, at 9:44 PM, that the uranium-233 first underwent fission via slow neutron absorption.

Seaborg had already noticed how abundant thorium was, far more than uranium, and when Gofman showed him the results of their labour, he is said to have exclaimed, “we have just made a $50,000,000,000,000,000 (fifty quadrillion) discovery!”

After the war, several of the scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project shifted their attention to peacetime applications of nuclear energy. Two of them, Alvin Weinberg and Forrest Murray, co-authored a paper on what would eventually evolve into the basic design for light water reactors. The authors were not remiss in noting the several drawbacks of their design, suggesting instead that a reactor operating on thorium would not face similar problems. In 1948, Weinberg became the director of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and he kept the research on thorium reactors going. The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment was an experimental reactor that operated at ORNL from 1965 to 1969 and proved the viability of molten salt reactors.

Despite its success, the MSR programme was mothballed. The United States continued to work on the 50 quadrillion dollar discovery sporadically – such as with the experimental thorium-uranium-233 core inserted into a conventional pressurised water reactor at Shippingport in 1977 – but the results were not built upon. The reason for this, according to some such as Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia, is that Washington was not interested in energy but in the production of plutonium to expand its nuclear arsenal and thorium reactors are particularly useless at supporting a nuclear weapons programme. It is only in the last decade that interest in thorium reactors in the United States has again risen but this time more among private entrepreneurs than the government.

Like the United States, most countries that were involved in thorium research gradually abandoned them. West Germany shut down the Lingen reactor in 1973, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Versuchsreaktor in 1988, and the Thorium High Temperature Reactor in 1989; Britain’s Dragon reactor was switched off in 1976, and the Netherlands pulled the plug on their SUSPOP/KSTR in 1977. India was one of the handful of exceptions that continued to try and tame thorium for energy purposes. Homi Bhabha, the father of the Indian nuclear programme, had theorised along the same lines as Weinberg by 1954 that given the abundance of thorium and the scarcity of uranium in his country, they would be better served by a fleet of thorium reactors rather than what was appearing to be the conventional choice of uranium fuelled reactors. Indian scientists were keen on collaborating with as many of the advanced Western countries as possible, from the United States to France, West Germany, Poland, Hungary, and others in basic nuclear science.

The Atomic Energy Establishment Trombay started working on producing thorium nitrates and oxides in 1955; Indian Rare Earths had been extracting thorium from the beaches of southern India already since 1950, primarily for export to the United States in exchange for help setting up the nuclear programme. By the mid-1960s, India had started irradiating thorium in the Canadian-supplied CIRUS reactor and in September 1970, uranium-233 was first recovered from the process. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, scientists at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre conducted experiments on the properties of thorium, uranium-233, mixed oxide fuels, reprocessing, fabrication, and other aspects of the thorium fuel cycle. Progress was slow for multiple reasons: the technical requirements of handling highly radioactive substances are stringent and remote manipulation in glove boxes was time-consuming and tedious; India’s nuclear tests in 1974 resulted in technological sanctions against the country which disrupted academic networks and supply chains; as a developing country, India could not afford the lavish sums thrown at nuclear programmes in the United States, France, and elsewhere; finally, a lack of political vision and bureaucratic politics stifled the pace of development.

Nonetheless, by 1984, India had built Purnima II, the first reactor in the world that handled uranium-233, part of the thorium fuel cycle. Experiments were also conducted using thorium-based mixed oxide fuel bundles in the regular fleet of heavy water reactors. In 1996, KAMINI went critical, the only presently operating uranium-233 fuelled reactor operating in the world. India has also been working on several thorium reactor designs, each at different stages of completion: the Compact High Temperature Reactor, the Innovative High Temperature Reactor, the Indian Molten Salt Breeder Reactor, and most famously, the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor. Construction on the AHWR is supposed to break ground this year but that is a tale that has been repeated for the past 12 years.

In recent years, several private companies have also started entering the thorium reactor business. Flibe Energy has been marketing the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, while two doctoral students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technolgy started Transatomic Power on the strength of their Waste Annihilating Molten Salt Reactor.

Despite much optimism and promise, the development of thorium energy has historically been hampered by politics, bureaucracy, and economics. For a species whose hallmarks are greed and violence, it is sometimes puzzling that a 50 quadrillion dollar discovery is lying around, waiting to be tapped even 70 years after the realisation of its terraforming potential.


This post appeared on FirstPost on June 04, 2016.

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