Journal Comment
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
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Created: Friday, 01 December 2006 02:00
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Written by R.P.H. Willis
In this issue there is a selection from the presentations at the conference on the Mining Achievements, Records and Milestones. There is a diversity of topics ranging from hydro transport of materials, standards for railway tracks, high speed conveyers that go around corners, economic optimization for strategic planning and the risk factors in mining investments. They are all competent presentations and there is, in general, a theme of improvement in efficiency, safety and economics. They all represent steps forward in mining technology and are important. I was hoping, perhaps unreasonably, to see something in the nature of a breakthrough in the search for the Holy Grail of gold mining in South Africa—the ability to mine at ultra deep levels (>4000 m) safely and economically.
It is perhaps appropriate that this selection appears in the last issue of this calendar year, since they provide a retrospective look at the achievements of previous years. Interestingly, one paper on coal strata control goes back some 50 years to the Coalbrook disaster, which caused major rumbles in the shallow depth coal mining in South Africa, where similar problems still exist today. In the New Year, we should look at a forecast of what lies in the future for the mining research and development contributions that are likely to appear in our Journal. It is not my intention to comment in detail on these topics, least of all in this December holiday issue. However, they do provoke the realization that the once mighty Chamber of Mines Research Organization has declined to a subdivision of the CSIR, and the money available for forefront research in hard rock deep-level mining technology is becoming more and more limited.
This was an area of technology where this country was at the forefront and there is a great deal of unfinished business in rock mechanics, rock bursts, rock breaking and mine ventilation. There is, of course, the vision of successfully mining the largest known gold resource in the world at the deeper levels of several of existing mines. It will be very interesting to see what a dwindling band of researchers is able to contribute in the future years. Maybe, if we consider the potential benefits in coal, gold and platinum there is a crusade to be waged to resuscitate the era where papers on fundamentals were regular features and eagerly looked for in the Journal. R.E. Robinson December 2006
President’s message for the holiday season… As we once again reach the end of a successful year for the SAIMM, it gives me great pleasure to take this opportunity to wish all who make up the family of the Institute a wonderfully relaxing and peaceful holiday season. For those who are travelling, take it slow, steady and safely, enjoy the journey as much as the destination. To those working, even in the demands of your everyday life, I wish you little moments of joy and peace and to all who are lucky enough to spend time with family, may the year end in joy and fellowship. Celebrate, relax and recharge to start afresh for a new and challenging 2007. R.P.H. Willis President
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Created: Friday, 01 December 2006 02:00
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Written by R.E. Robinson
‘Nothing is there to come, and nothing is past, but an eternal NOW, will always last’ Abraham Cowlie
‘Sustainability’ is a word used frequently in the Mining Charter, the ‘Magna Carta’ negotiated between the mining industry and the newly elected government after the modern ‘reformation’ in the third millennium of South Africa’s history. There is a reasonably close parallel between the rights granted by King John to the Barons, the clergy and freemen of England and the privileges and responsibilities negotiated with the mighty mining industry. Although not of the same status as the Bible or the Constitution, the Mining Charter is an important document which must be respected by all involved in mineral exploitation in this country. Regular Report Cards are obligatory.
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Created: Sunday, 01 October 2006 02:00
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Written by R.E. Robinson
‘The way to do research is to attack the facts at the point of greatest astonishment’ Celia Green 1915
In this issue is a review of the methods used in the mining and metallurgical industry to manage the research portfolios of a crosssection of SA companies. It makes interesting reading, but I must admit that I battled to comprehend the significance of some of the typical business school diagrammatic representations of risk in portfolios... There are many ways of killing a cat and of course the companies must elect according to their own culture what methodology they establish for their R&D expenditure. If we take out the ‘D’ from R&D (which relates predominantly to adaptation of existing technology to production and marketing improvements), and focus on the real innovative Research, then some comments on a strategic national portfolio of research might be appropriate.
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Created: Tuesday, 01 August 2006 02:00
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Written by R.E. Robinson
‘ I am proud of the part played by the mining industry in this remarkable co-operative achievement and of what was accomplished through the readiness with which the industry pooled its resources and experience to make uranium production in South Africa a reality’ C.B. Anderson, President of the Chamber of Mines 1956/57
It is the convention that in the issue in which the Presidential address is published there should be no Journal Comment. The topic for the presidential address is ‘The uranium story: an update’. I cannot resist the temptation to contribute to the early events that led to the successful establishment of the first uranium plants in South Africa, if only to reinforce some lessons to be learned from what many consider to be the finest collaborative project in the history of the mining and metallurgical industry. I would not dream of breaking tradition, so I am taking the liberty of using this August issue to reminisce on the exciting times starting in 1946.
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Created: Sunday, 01 July 2007 02:00
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Written by R.E. Robinson
‘Government believes that science and technology is pivotal for the country to successfully assuage unemployment, poverty and underdevelopment’ Nanotechnology Report: DST
I spent a considerable amount of time reading the Nanotechnology Strategy Report and several other items such as the Deputy Minister’s address to Mintek and the Minister’s speech in Parliament on his budget debate. The Strategy is an important document, which was compiled by a team of researchers in the Department of Science and Technology and the Department of Environment with consultants from industry and universities. It was approved by the cabinet for an increased allocation of R450 million to launch the strategy over three years.
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Created: Thursday, 01 June 2006 02:00
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Written by R.E. Robinson
‘In practice a reformist party considers unshakable the foundations of that which it intends to reform’ Leon Trotsky (1874–1940)
It was with foreboding that I read a press article in the North Eastern Tribune written by the Independent Private Schools Association of South Africa, based on research by Dr Jane Hofmeyr, the executive director of IPSASA. Hofmeyr asserts that clear evidence has been produced by a 2005 Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) report, which shows that, with an average learner-teacher ratio of 35:1, South Africa will have a shortfall of 32 000 teachers by 2008.
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Created: Monday, 01 May 2006 02:00
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Written by R.E. Robinson
‘The biggest waste of water in the country by far You spend half a pint and flush two gallons’ Attr. Prince Philip—Duke of Edinburgh
I am writing this comment at the end of the World Water Week but it might appear only in a later issue appropriate to this topic. I had the privilege of attending the Mine Water Symposium arranged by the Geological Society of South Africa in mid-March. It was an excellent presentation dealing predominately with the underground water from the gold mines on the Witwatersrand and the coalmines around Witbank and Middelburg.
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Created: Saturday, 01 April 2006 02:00
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Written by R.E. Robinson
‘The biological (if not the aesthetic) value of remembering Is not that it allows one to reminisce about the past but that it permits one to calculate coldly about the unknown future’ Colin Blakemore
The Institute has always considered it well worthwhile to produce an issue devoted to student projects. These are a requirement in the final year and an important component of university training to expose the prospective graduates to research procedures. Inevitably they will be exposed to research in their careers as participants, sponsors or users. These projects have to be undertaken at the final year when examinations are looming, and time does not permit the same level of detail expected from a postgraduate researcher. The limited number that can be published is a selection from a large number with some attempt to cover the main university departments that contribute to mining and metallurgy. I started my perusal of the papers with that of Louise Bircumshaw et al., on the mathematical modelling of the biochemical leaching of refractory pyretic concentrates.
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Created: Wednesday, 01 March 2006 02:00
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Written by R.E. Robinson
‘Little Jack Horner, sat in a corner, eating his Christmas pie He put in his thumb, and pulled out a plum, and said what a good boy am I’ Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953)
Through the ages, mining has been the gambler’s happy hunting ground. More so in South Africa than in any other part of the world. One has only to recall the the discovery of diamonds, the Witwatersrand gold fields, Barney Barnato, Hans Merenski and the platinum riches of the Bushveld Igneous Complex and the Phalaborwa carbonitite to recognize that we have had more than our fair share of plums in the pudding and the magnate millionaires to pull them out. This gambling addiction continues.
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Created: Wednesday, 01 February 2006 02:00
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Written by R.E. Robinson
‘Lord Finchley tried to mend the electric light himself. It struck him dead. And serve him right! It is the business of the wealthy man to give employment to the artisan’ Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953)
In the last decade, government and public attention has been focused on universities and the upper levels of tertiary education and on promoting the culture of toplevel technical innovation and the need for scientists and engineers capable of high-level research. What seems to have been on the low burner is the ground floor of ‘tertiary’ education. I am referring to the army of artisans, the apprentices, the technicians and engineering technologists. Such trainees do not aspire to the same level of mathematics and theoretical science as traditional university graduates do. They are more suited to the practical skills. But what does not seem to be appreciated is that the number of this artisan and technician category should far exceed that of university graduates, probably by a factor of two or more, as is the case in most first world hi-tech countries.
