The SAIMM is a professional institute with local and international links aimed at assisting members source information about technological developments in the mining, metallurgical and related sectors.
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A monthly publication devoted to scientific transactions and specialist technical topics is unlikely to be on the priority reading list of the majority of the mining and metallurgical community. But it is the ambition of the Publication's Committee to make the Journal of much wider interest to our general membership from technician trainees to mine managers to CEO's of our constituent companies. It is to entice general readership that some 1200 words of valuable space are devoted to the Journal Comment each month. This is intended to highlight some of the features and impact of the papers to excite and activate attention.

To entice this preliminary glance before confining the publication to the book shelf or even the wpb, the author has to call on a large measure of journalistic licence in style, titles and quotations. It is essential to be spicy, controversial and even provocative to separate it from the abbreviated authoritative but necessary scientific style of the bulk of the contents.
The Journal Comment aims to be an enticement to dig into some important feature of the papers in the issue. For this reason it has been decided to include it as a separate item on the Institutes Web Site. This might provoke those who enjoy twittering, blogging and googling to submit comment and criticism, all of which will be welcomed and responded to. At least it is proof that somebody has read it.
R.E. Robinson

President’s message for the new year…

The end of 2007 marks the close of one of the most exciting years in the history of the Southern African mining industry. I have been involved with the industry only since 1969. The nearest I have been to the rocketing growth that is currently being experienced was when the United States dropped the gold standard, and in a few years the price of gold escalated from $32 per ounce to nearly $850 per ounce. We experienced a massive growth in gold mining. In the current high demand for commodities we have seen prices of nearly all the minerals mined in Southern Africa reach new highs, with a corresponding increase in capital investment and major brownfield and greenfield expansion.

This, in turn, has resulted in many job opportunities in mining and a realization that the lean years have left us with a substantial skills shortage, plus an age gap where we have a few grey heads and many youngsters, but are short of the in-betweens. The SAIMM now has established, or is in the process of consolidating, new branches in Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe where, with the help of our members, we plan to carry out the key objectives of our Institute. These can be summarized as: to disseminate scientific and technological knowledge and to identify, represent and promote the interests and needs of our members and other professionals in the mining and metallurgical industries. I am sure 2008 is going to be just as hectic as 2007 has been. So please take this opportunity at the year end to relax and recharge your batteries. Follow the mining emphasis on safety, and take care while travelling. Have a blessed Christmas and a joyful New Year. R.G.B. Pickering President December 2007

‘Christmas is coming, the goose is really fat.

Please put some lolly in the poor families’ hat’ Parody on a Christmas chant This is the appropriate time to express the hope that all readers have a joyous festive season and to convey my best wishes for the forthcoming year. But it is also the time to pick out some items that relate to features of the industry in 2007. Very pleasingly, there have been a lot of papers on the mining aspect, many of which relate to mine planning, decision making and the selection of mining methods. It is fitting that in this end-of-year issue there are several papers on this topic including the application of ‘fuzzy logic’ to assist in decision making.

A revival in training and education

‘Neem die goede uit die verlede en bou die toekoms daarop’ Paul Kruger

The topics of the papers in this issue all relate to the platinum group metals. The two mining papers and the Presidential Address (September Journal ), point very clearly to a change in the culture of narrow reef mining and particularly in mining the Merensky and the UG2 reefs of the Bushveld Igneous Complex (BIC). Something far more sophisticated is needed—low profile haulage vehicles, automated drilling by high-speed hydraulic powered drills, highpressure water jet cleaning, and indeed a combination of new technology, new systems, and new designs, which require advanced engineering, and materials science and sophisticated drilling rigs.

The clock is ticking

‘The clock is ticking and time is running out for us to avoid major climate change with its attendant real and serious threats to our economies and people’s livelihoods, health, food security, and damage to our ecosystems’ Marthinus van Schalkwyk, Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism

By coincidence the paper by Nyoka and Brent in this issue inspired me to write a sequel to my previous Comment on the Wonderful World of Minerals. The paper referred specifically to evaluating the environmental costs a metallurgical plant, and was well researched and topical. But the inspiration came from some of the definitions and terminology, which are obviously commonplace in impact assessment studies but not in my up-to-date dictionaries, so I was on a much-needed learning curve. I quote from the paper two of the many definitions that intrigued me: ‘The environmental sustainability dimension concerns an organization’s impacts on the environment due to an introduced technology.

An Engineering Academy

‘Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts and eloquence, native to famous wits or hospitable, in her sweet recess, city or suburban, studious walks and shades; See there the olive grove of Academe, Plato’s retirement, where the Attic bird trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long’ John Milton Paradise Regained

The papers in this issue are unashamedly engineering in character. I found them of interest by virtue of a proposal some years back on the feasibility of using pipeline slurry reactors for conducting a variety of pressure leaching processes while transferring underground material from the depths of a mine to the surface. It is not impossible that it could be resuscitated should uranium extraction from the ultra deep levels of some of the West Rand mines becomes viable. I am fairly sure not too many of our readers will be delving into them in detail. Nevertheless they are important and represent examples of the slow steady advances that are typical of so many engineering developments. At any time, if properly done and recorded, may provide the vital data leading to new technology.

Empowerment and affirmative action perceptions and pragmatism

‘For Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’ Alexander Pope

It is perhaps madness to tackle a topic so pregnant with recriminations, emotion and politics. I do this because the papers in this issue emphasize, in technical terms, the hazards in mining and smelting, to workers, to the public and to the environment. Similar hazards are present in all major engineering endeavours: as in air travel, road transport, concrete structures and fire and explosions in chemical plants, to give but a few well known examples. There is a paramount need for stringent performance and discipline by employees in design, maintenance and operation. In the mining and metallurgical industry there is an additional significant dimension, the continued R&D priority to improve safety commensurate with increasing performance demands. Such disciplines have impacts on the professional institutes, far more than the business world. But the institutes, being predominantly scientific and technically orientated, tend to scoff at emotional issues, which often deny logical decision making and leave it to the politicians. But empowerment and affirmative action is a matter that cannot be ignored, least of all in the light of the latest legislation for continuing updating of skills for professional engineers and associated technicians and scientists. This responsibility to the public makes demands on many levels of management, even directorate.

Promoting the profession

‘The mountain hath laboured and brought forth a mouse

This issue is devoted to papers arising from students’ projects. Many times we have elaborated on why we devote valuable space, effort and money to do this. I am not going to repeat the motivation, but express the hope that you find something of interest in the contributions. The publications committee would like to offer a much bigger selection from many more topics to give the readers and particularly the members of the Institute a better perception of the status of teaching and learning at university, technikons, and even colleges and learnerships. But we are at the mercy of the degree of interaction between industry and these centres of tertiary training. This is after all, part of the foundation of a professional society.

Tera rays The last frontier

‘We stand today on the edge of a new frontier’ President John F. Kennedy

No, this Journal Comment is not about weapons of mass destruction. Nor is it an anglicized version of the names of folk heroes such as ‘Terreblanche’ and ‘de la Rey’ to bolster the latest pop tune to be sung at cricket matches. Rather, it relates to the analytical sciences and the physical methods of examination of materials. Analytical science was the subject of two papers in the last issue and a suite of papers on corrosion and physical metallurgy in this issue, which are particularly relevant to the Tera Ray topic. My first six months’ work in the mining and metallurgical industry as a chemical engineer was in an analytical section of the Government Metallurgical Laboratory.

Fair deal free marketing

Every reform was once a private opinion, And when it shall be a private opinion again It will solve the problem of the age’ Ralph Waldo Emersion (1803–1882)

In the previous issue I discussed the ‘casino culture’ of global capitalism and the tangled web of international free marketing... To unravel the economic aspects we need to define our priorities in national policies. From the President down to the lowliest opposition backbencher the clarion call is to combat poverty by the creation of jobs. The statistics are controversial and almost impossible to acquire, but in general terms it seems to be recognized that there are of the order of 10 million people unemployed, that of the four hundred thousand school leavers, only 10% can find jobs, and in the age group of 15 to 35, 70% are unemployed!

The Casino Culture

‘Oh what a tangled web we weave If ‘Global Marketing we believe’ Parody on quotation from Sir Walter Scott

The ‘casino culture’ is, by my definition, one in which a gullibility exists that allows a favoured few to get immensely rich at the expense of the masses. This culture extends within a nation and globally. The arguments promoting this culture are clever, complex and devious. They are typified by the promotion of casinos and lotteries where a population is led to believe that these are good for the nation, particularly the deserving charities (like the Blue Bulls Rugby Union!). This is as illogical as it is immoral. All the statistics show that, apart from an almost negligible number of ‘winners’, it is only the franchisors, the fat cat executives and shareholders of the privileged companies awarded a licence who will benefit.