Loading ...-
Xstrata: Recovery In Western Copper Demand Delayed To 2010
-
Anglo-Swiss miner Xstrata PLC (XTA.LN) Thursday said
demand for copper remains weak in Western nations and any material recovery
appears to have slipped to next year.
-
-
Xstrata: Custom Copper Smelting “Marginal” Amid Overcapacity
-
Anglo-Swiss miner Xstrata PLC (XTA.LN) said Thursday it
is reviewing its copper smelting operations as industry capacity outstrips
supplies of the copper concentrates that feed it.
-
-
Repairs knock Palabora copper output
-
Copper production at Palabora Mining would fall 15 percent between last month and this month due to repair works at one of its copper units, the firm said yesterday.
Cracks were discovered during inspection last week at one of its production winders, prompting the company to commence repair works, but the other winder was not affected and output continued normally at that facility, it added. - Reuters
-
-
Xstrata stresses internal growth targets
-
Xstrata, the multinational mining company, raised its project spending guidance for next year sharply, in a sign that it is emphasising internal and not acquisition-driven growth.
-
-
New US water heater efficiency standards not enough, says ACEEE
-
New energy efficiency standards for home water heaters being proposed by the US Administration do not go far enough, says the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).
The new standards will cover the nine million residential water heaters sold every year that account for an estimated 20% of a typical homes’ energy consumption. Savings on the order of 2.6 quads of energy over 30 years will result, says the Department of Energy (DOE), reducing customers bills by around $15.6 billion and emissions by 154 million metric tons.
-
-
Fuel Cell Technology Gaining Global Acceptance
-
Fuel cell technology has garnered great support and interest around the world in the past decade because of its large market potential, positive impact on air quality and radically different nature than currently available power sources. It also has the potential to strengthen national energy security by reducing dependence on imported petroleum. Moreover, government initiatives across the globe to popularize the usage of fuel cells are backed up by many social programs which help in mass propagation of the fuel cell technology.
-
-
Wind turbines have no meaningful impact on property values
-
Wind turbines have no meaningful impact on property values: DOE-funded study
-
-
High Temperature Superconducting Magnets Just Got 45% More Power
-
Engineers at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at the Florida State University are closer than ever to launching a new generation of high-field magnet, being 3,000 times stronger than an ordinary refrigerator magnet and will be able to generate a field about 45% more powerful than the strongest superconducting magnet currently available.
The new high tech magnet will be made of a high-temperature superconductor that is far less expensive to operate than its conventional counterparts and more energy efficient. According to the researchers, it could mark the beginning of a new generation of super powerful magnets that help lower both the carbon footprint and cost of scientific research.
-
-
Teck Says China Partner to Add Customers
-
Teck Resources Ltd., Canada’s largest
base-metals producer, said its partnership with China’s
sovereign wealth fund will win the company more coal, copper and
zinc sales and provide financing for future acquisitions.
-
-
Xstrata Approve Extension to Copper Mine in Queensland
-
The decision follows feasibility studies into the construction of a magnetite processing facility and the installation of full scale underground mining operations at EHM that have resulted in a revised Ore Reserve Estimate of 72 million tonnes at a grade of 1.0% copper, 0.5 grams per tonne gold and 22% magnetite. The total tonnage represents a 600% increase over previously published underground reserves. Ore will be mined principally from a major hoisting shaft to be sunk to a depth of 1,000 metres, producing 6 million tonnes per annum of ore at full capacity.
-
-
Household appliances not living up to efficiency standard, says research
-
-
Mr Sharrock says bonded internet connections are not yet available anywhere, but are “right on the edge” of becoming commercial.
Customers would need a special broadband modem, capable of splitting and integrating transmissions over two lines.
“The future is fibre,” he says, but techniques to squeeze more out of copper lines would help the quarter of households that won’t benefit from the Government’s $1.5 billion ultrafast broadband initiative.
-
-
Copper effective in keeping superbugs at bay
-
Said Tom Elliott, professor at the University Hospital Birmingham (UHB), the study leader: “The results of the first clinical trials in both Birmingham and South Africa suggest that the use of copper may assist in maintaining hospital surfaces free of bacteria and could augment cleaning programmes.
“The findings related to the use of a copper biocide adds further evidence to the potential of this metal for fighting infection,” he added.
-
-
Russia hosts international forum to address clean water availability
-
The program, which aimed to improve drinking water quality and water supply service, was expected to be initiated in 2010, and the government planned to invest 15 billion rubles (520 million U.S. dollars) annually, said Zhukov.
In addition, Russia planned to update its water infrastructure facilities, provide a better investment environment in the water resource sector and perfect environmental regulations.
-
-
EU starts screening raw materials ‘critical list’
-
- Import risk, where raw materials are imported from a politically instable region or from a country where the market economy does not work. “That is relatively easy to do as the World Bank has put together governance indexes which measure the political and economic stability index of countries,” the EU official explained.
- Production risk within the EU, with potential problems such as land access. “If we are in a country for example where the population density is very high, where urbanisation is very high, obviously access will be weak,” the EU official explained.
- Environmental risk, based on indicators such as air or soil pollution, where the impact of raw materials use is measured from an environmental point of view. “This is innovative compared to other studies,” the EU official said. “We have just launched a life-cycle analysis to determine what the environmental impact is for each raw material in terms of exploitation, use, treatment, recycling etc., for air or soil pollution as well as emissions of greenhouse gases.”
Three types of risk
The expert group put together by the Commission has already identified three types of risks:
-
-
New compact sensorless AC drive from Parker gives 12% energy savings
-
To date, permanent magnet motors have not been widely used in many industrial applications as they require additional speed or position sensing mechanisms and control by high end drive units, making them relatively costly and complicated to install. As a result, even though they are less efficient and considerably larger in size, induction motors have generally been the preferred choice for design and production engineers.
Now, however, by using innovative algorithm control based on motor voltage and current output, the new AC650S Drive enables standard permanent magnet motors to be used in closed loop applications, without the need for additional sensors. Engineers can therefore benefit from the energy savings that can be achieved from brushless motor such as Parker’s NX and ATEX EX Series, with savings of up to 12% for a 0.75kW system being possible; similarly, engineers have the opportunity to design more compact control systems, which can be as small as 25% the size of a conventional induction motor assembly.
-
-
-
His assessment will damp expectations that advanced “second generation” biofuels will soon be able to make a significant contribution to the world’s fuel supplies, even though they have received heavy research and development support from Shell and other companies, as well as from many governments.
-
-
Scottish Researchers Revolutionize Wind Turbine Engineering With Minor Tweak
-
The researchers there have developed a system that is simpler to assemble and manufacture, and laid out their suggestion in a paper (pdf) presented at the 2008 European Wind Energy Conference.
Till now; the blades of wind turbines have been connected to a generator via a gearbox. Their technology substituted a “C” shaped core generator (initially in a 20 kW prototype) to test to see if by changing the mechanical structure of the generator they could still maintain rigidity and structural integrity while cutting the weight by more than half.
The design is simply a novel arrangement of the electromagnetically active components: the magnets, steel and copper inside the generator and the copper coils.
-
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
