1. The Earth
and Its Mineral
Resources
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2. Introduction
• When the Earth first form
scientists believe it was a
mass of rock and ice
• Over time, solar radiation and
other sources of heat caused
the earth to melt
• Gradually, the surface cooled
and formed a thick, rocky
crust rich in minerals
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3. Introduction
• Gradually, the surface of
the Earth cooled and
formed a thick, rocky crust
rich in minerals
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4. This chapter examines:
• Minerals extracted from the Earth’s
crust
• Impacts of this activity
• Ways to meet demand for minerals
more sustainably
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5. The Earth’s Mineral Riches
Metal-
yielding
Nonfuel
Industrial
Minerals
Construction
Fuel
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6. The Earth’s Mineral Riches
• Metal-yielding minerals (aluminum and copper
ore) must be processed
• Industrial (lime) and construction (gravel, send)
are used directly
• Minerals typically occur in rocks, solid
aggregates that usually contain two or more
different types of mineral
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7. 1. The Earth’s Mineral Riches
• Geologists divide rocks into three major classes
Igneous •Formed when molten minerals cool
rocks (basalt and granite)
Sedimentary • Formed from particles eroded from other
types of rock
rocks • ( shale and sandstone)
Metamorphic • Formed when igneous or sedimentary rocks
are transformed by heat and pressure
rocks • (schist)
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8. The Earth’s Mineral Riches
• Most metal-yield minerals come from igneous
rocks
• A concentrated deposit of minerals that can be
mined and refined economically is called an ore.
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9. Mineral Resources and Society
• Minerals are extremely
important to our lives
• Scholars delineate the ages
of human history by the chief
minerals in use at the time:
• Stone
• Bronze
• Iron
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10. Mineral Resources and Society
• Minerals are vital to
national economies
• More than a hundred
nonfuel minerals are
traded in the world
market These materials
worth a billions of dollars
to the world economy
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11. Who Consumes the Worlds Minerals?
• The more developed countries are the major
consumers of the minerals
• 20% of the world population consume about
75% of its mineral resources
• Mineral consumption by the industrial nations
has leveled off
• World’s mineral consumption of less developed
countries is on the rise
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13. Import Reliance
• World mineral production is widely
dispersed
• Some minerals are found in commercially
valuable quantities only in specific
countries
• Most nations are highly depended on the
supplies of others
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14. Will There Be Enough?
• 75% of the economically vital minerals are
abundant enough
• Approximately 18 economically essential
minerals will fall in to short supply – some within
a decade or two
• Gold, silver, mercury, lead, sulfur, tin, tungsten,
zinc are among them
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15. 2. Environmental Impacts of Mineral Exploitation
• Minerals are part of a production-consumption
system:
•
Exploration Mining Processing
Transportation End use
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16. Environmental Impacts of Mineral Exploitation
• Each stage in this system produces
major environmental impacts , even in
the best regulated countries
• Mining and smelting have created
enormous amount of environmental
damage
• Rock wastes burying vegetated areas,
erode into lakes and streams
• Toxic metals can contaminate nearby
reservoirs, killing aquatic life
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17. Environmental Impacts of Mineral Exploitation
• Sulfur present in tailings may combine
with water to form sulfuric acid, creating
acid mine drainage
• Globally, copper and other nonferrous
smelters produce about 8% of the world’s
sulfur dioxide emissions
• Toxic metals and acids from smelters are
responsible for huge dead zones –
places where all vegetation has perished
• Mineral exploitation is responsible for
deforestation, soil erosion, water and air
pollution
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18. Environmental Impacts of Mineral Exploitation
• Around the Sudbury smelter in Canada, 10 400 hectares have been
turned into a barren moonscape
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19. 3. Creating a Sustainable System of Mineral
Production
• Putting into practice the operating principles of
sustainability , especially :
Conservation Recycling Restoration
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20. Creating a Sustainable System of Mineral
Production
• Recycling is a process in which valuable products such
as metals are collected and returned to factories, where
they are melted down and used to manufacture new
products
• Recycling :
- Increases the time a metal remains in use
- Helps to stretch limited mineral supplies
- Reduces energy demand and water use
- Slashes pollution
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21. Creating a Sustainable System of Mineral
Production
• The SEI Group collects used electric wires/cables, optical fiber cables and
carbide chips for cutting tools and their plastic cases for recycling as
materials for new products.
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22. Creating a Sustainable System of Mineral
Production
• Conservation – decreasing product size, increasing
product durability
• Conservation – using only what we need and using
it efficiently
• Cheapest, easiest, and quickest means of
stretching mineral resources:
• - making smaller automobiles
• - finding ways to design products using less
material
•
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23. Creating a Sustainable System of Mineral
Production
• Conservation and recycling
measures combined:
• - will slow down depletion, giving
us more time to develop new
mining technologies and fined
substitutes
• - minimize our impact on
environment
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24. Creating a Sustainable System of Mineral
Production
• Restoration and Environmental Protection
• New laws and tighter enforcement of existing
laws could improve mining practices and reduce
pollution from smelters
• Requirement to prepare an EIA
• Cooperation in cleaning up abandoned mines
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25. Expanding Reserves
• Future demand cannot all be satisfied by conservation efforts.
• New deposits need to be discovered and mined
• Reserves – deposits which is fairly certain exist and feasible to
mine at current prices
• Price is one of the most important factors determine the size of
mineral reserves
• Rising prices – economically feasible to search for and
produce more minerals – expend of mineral reserves
• But mineral resources are finite. Resources will simply run out
or become so costly to mine that they will be unaffordable
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26. Expanding Reserves
• Rising supplies • Reduce supplies
• Prices • High labor costs
• Technological • Interest rates
improvements • Energy costs
• Env. protection
costs
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27. Expanding Reserves
• Technological
improvements make it
feasible to mine less
concentrated ores,
which helps expend
reserves
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28. Minerals From The Sea
• The minerals deposits on land
are finite, they have been heavily
exploited
• Antarctica and the floor of the
world’s oceans are potential
sources for new minerals
• Superficially promising, these
options face serious economic,
environmental, and social
barriers
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29. Minerals From The Sea
• Pros • Cons
• Vast resource of • Many of resources are
minerals dissolved, generally in
• Important minerals on low concentration
the sea floor • Issue of ownership
• Mineral –rich nodules • Environmental impact
“manganese nodules”
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30. Minerals From The Sea
• Manganese
nodules contain:
• Several vital
minerals
• Manganese 24%
• Iron 14%
• Copper 1%
• Cobalt 0,25%
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31. Finding Substitutes
• Historically, the substitution of one resource for
another one that has been depleted has been a
useful strategy for industrialized nations
• Substitution could help find alternatives to some
minerals, replace environmentally damaging
materials
• Critics argue that it creates unreasonable faith
among the public
• Many substitutes have limits themselves
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32. Personal Actions
• Personal actions are
essential to building a
sustainable future
• Buying durable products,
recycling, and choosing
recycled materials are three
steps people can take
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33. Hazardous and Solid
Wastes : Sustainable
Solution
(chapter 23)
Prof. Sanga-Ngoie K.
Done by Bekenova G. (ID № 51211620)
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34. Introduction
• This chapter discusses solid and hazardous
wastes
• It shows how individuals, business and
governments have addressed the problem
• Chapter shows more sustainable approaches,
measures that make sense from social,
economic, and environmental perspectives
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35. 1. Hazardous wastes:
Coming to Terms with the Problem
• Hazardous wastes are waste
products of homes, factories,
businesses, military installations,
and other facilities that pose a
thread to people and the
environment
• Toxic, carcinogenic, or mutagenic
• The signs of unsustainable
practices
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36. The Dimensions of the Problem
• Each year countries worldwide produce millions
of tons of hazardous waste
• This waste ended up in abandoned warehouses;
in rivers, streams, and lakes; in fields and
forests, and along high ways
• No current estimates are available
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37. The Dimensions of the Problem
• Effects of improper waste disposal
Ground water Habitats Human
Well closures
contamination destruction disease
Sewage
Soil Livestock
Fish kills treatment
contamination disease
plant damage
Difficult or
Town closures impossible
cleanups
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38. Managing Hazardous Wastes
• Two problems:
• How to clean up existing wastes
sites?
Required immediate actions
• How to deal with enormous
amounts of hazardous waste
produced each year?
Required long-term preventive
measures that eliminate the
production of wastes
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39. The Superfund Act: Cleaning Up Past Mistakes
• CERLA – Comprehensive Environmental
Response, Compensation and Liability Act
(Superfund)
• Established in 1980, $16.3 billion fund financed
by state and federal governments, and by taxes
on chemical and oil companies
• To clean up leaking underground storage tanks,
hazardous wastes dumps, landfills, contaminated
factories, mined and mils
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40. What to Do With Today’s Waste: Preventing Future
Problems
• The more sustainable approach involve steps that
reduce or eliminate hazardous waste output
YOU DON’T HAVE WASTE
IF YOU DON’T MAKE IT
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41. What to Do With Today’s Waste: Preventing Future
Problems
• In-plant options include:
• 1. Process manipulation – alterations in
manufacturing process to cut waste production
a) substitution - the use of nontoxic of less toxic
substitutes in manufacturing
b) monitoring of manufacturing processes to
locate and fix leaks
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42. What to Do With Today’s Waste: Preventing Future
Problems
• 2. Reuse and recycling strategies
• Companies can capture toxic waste
and, with little or no purification, reuse
them to manufacture other products or
sell them to other companies fore reuse
• Waste output can be dramatically
reduced
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43. What to Do With Today’s Waste: Preventing Future
Problems
• Conversation to Less Hazardous of
Nonhazardous Substances
• Not all waste can be eliminated, reused, and
recycled
• Remaining waste be destroyed or detoxified
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44. What to Do With Today’s Waste: Preventing Future
Problems
• Detoxification can be accomplished for certain
types of waste by land disposal, applying them to
land
• Land treatment is an expansive option, requiring
care to avoid polluting ecosystem, poisoning
cattle and other animals, and contaminating
groundwater
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45. What to Do With Today’s Waste: Preventing Future
Problems
• Another option available for organic
wastes is incineration
• High-temperature furnaces at stationary
wastes disposal site, on ships that burn
waste at sea, and on mobile incinerators
• Disadvantages: release of toxicants
during transport, possibility of long-term
exposure, producing carbon dioxide
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46. A conceptual diagram of the Incineration
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47. What to Do With Today’s Waste: Preventing Future
Problems
• Low-temperature decomposition
• Wastes are mix with air and maintained under
high pressure while being heated to 450 C to
600 C
• Organic compounds are broken into smaller,
biodegradable molecules
• Advantage – uses less energy
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48. What to Do With Today’s Waste: Preventing Future
Problems
• Perpetual storage
• 25 to 40% of the waste stream will remain even after a
best efforts
• Residual waste could be dumped in secured landfills,
excavated pits lined by impermeable synthetic liners
• To lower the risk of leakage, landfills should be placed in
arid regions
• One of the cheapest option
• Growing public opposition, problems for future generation
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49. Disposing of Radioactive Wastes
• High-level of radioactive wastes are the most
hazardous of all wastes
• Generated by nuclear power plants, weapon
production, research laboratories and
hospitals
• Deep underground disposal site
• Radioactive waste can be bombarded with
neutrons in special reactors to convert some
of it into less harmful substances
• Seabed disposal has been used, but now is
forbidden (effects are difficult to predict)
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50. Some Obstacles to Sustainable Hazardous-Waste
Management
• One of the main problems was that
much of it was highly diluted in water
released by industrial processes
• Removing the hazardous substance
from the water is extremely costly
• 11% of total release - underground
injection
• 60% - release occurs in the air
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51. Solid Wastes: Understanding the Problem
• Each year, human society produces mountains
of municipal solid wastes
• The problem are especially acute in the more
developed nations
• In 2003, Americans generated 212 million tons of
municipal solid waste
•
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52. Solid Wastes: Understanding the Problem
• Municipal solid waste is the product of many
interacting factors
Low product
Large population High consumption
durability
Heavy A lack of personal
dependence on Low reuse and and governmental
disposable recycling rates commitment to
products reduce waste
Relatively cheap
energy and
abundant land for
disposal
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53. Solving a Problem Sustainably
• Output approach - incinerating trash or dumping
it in landfills
• Input approach – reduce the amount of materials
entering the production-consumption cycles
• Throughput approach – direct materials back
into production-consumption cycle, creating
cyclic system
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54. The traditional strategy
• The output approach
• The most widely used
• Open dump has been replaced by sanitary landfill
• Landfill require land and grate deal of energy for
excavation , filling and hauling trash
• They can pollute ground water
• Low social acceptability
• Locating them away from ground water supplies,
collecting and treating toxic leachate, capturing methane
gas
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55. Sustainable Options
• The input approach
• Source reduction include:
• - increase product life span (high quality, more
durable goods)
• - reduce the amount of materials in goods and
packaging (make products smaller and compact)
• - reduce consumption (buy what you need)
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56. Sustainable Options
• The throughput approach: reuse, recycling,
composting
• Recycling refers to the return of materials to
manufacturers
• Recycling conserve recourses, reduce energy
demand, cuts pollution, saves water, decreases
solid waste disposal and incineration
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57. Sustainable Options
• Reuse is the return of operable and repairable goods
into the market system for someone to use
• Reuse :
• - reduces land area needed for solid waste disposal
• - provides job
• Provides inexpensive product for the poor
• Reduce litter
• Decreased the amount of consumed materials
• Help reduce pollution and environmental degradation
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58. Sustainable Options
• Composting - the process in which nutrients from
organic wastes return to the soil
• Form of nutrient recycling
• Organic matter is collected from various sources ,
stockpiled, mixed with some dirt , and then allowed to
decompose
• Compost - nutrient rich organic material that can be used
as fertilizer
• Reduce the need for landfilling, helps nourish soils,
creating cycle system
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59. The economic benefits
• Taking together, source reduction, reuse, and
recycling can not only cut waste but also foster
more flexible and self-reliant economies.
Decentralized collection and processing of
secondary materials can create new industries
and jobs
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