A ban on Indonesian metal ore exports and the weaker ringgit and expanded alumina refinery capacity in China has led to a surge in Malaysian bauxite exports.
The Indonesian ban was to encourage the construction of local smelters.
To make up for the global shortfall in supply, Malaysia’s shipments of bauxite to China have surged – with alarming results. It is a case of making hay while the sun shines (except I am not sure how brightly the sun is shining over those mines).
Check out the red spots in the map below:
I feel sorry for the residents of Kuantan and Pahang in general who have had to endure the environmental consequences of rare earth refining, gold mining and now the rust brown dust from bauxite mining.
Bauxite reportedly contains traces of arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, lead, manganese, mercury, nickel, thorium and uranium, the last two naturally occurring radioactive material.
Is this the price of ‘development’?
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Any link of the reported ‘Red Sea’ phenomenon to this bauxite mining?
Red Sea at Kuantan:
Things just keep going downhill these days…..
Mr Anil
Remember this movie (from the old days) about the greed of some people for “gold”?
I think before my time! But yes, greed is the source of the problem.
Anil & all readers, enjoy:
José Feliciano – Old Turkey Buzzard (Theme from Mackenna’s Gold) + Lyrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6TlYnRITxg
Bring back good oldie memories of playing this song on LP ((long play), or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record)
Btw, you need more than flip-flop laws to catch & barbecue that Old Turkey recipient of mother of all donations (not of Christmas)
Omar Sharif RIP in 2015.
Physics, if you like western movie, check up the new Tarantino’s ‘The Hateful Eight’:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=69UwVX6Riv8
The Hateful Eight is a 2015 American mystery Western film written, directed, and narrated by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and Bruce Dern as eight strangers who seek refuge from a blizzard in a stagecoach stopover in a mountain pass some time after the Civil War. The score was composed by Ennio Morricone, his first Western score in 40 years.
For off topic comments, please post under Readers’ Alerts.
Curiously enough, the vocal defenders of the Lynas project (slow poisoning of the people of Kuantan)
are very quiet about bauxite mining (fast poisoning of the people of Kuantan).
Not surprising. They are probably only concerned about Lynas and little else.