Falmouth's Chain Locker: the hub for mining meetings in the next few weeks

Last night's Cornish Mining Sundowner was the first of four gatherings of mining people over the next five weeks at Falmouth's Chain Locker pub. Always a popular venue, it attracted over 30 mining people, mainly sundowner regulars, but a few who just happened to be in Cornwall during their travels, including Mark (Jimmy) Jewel a 1970s CSM graduate who is now based in Australia.

Good to see Jimmy Jewel (4th right)

Cornwall is very much a hive of mining activity at the moment, with more money being spent in the hope of restarting mines than at any point in the last 40 years. The price of tin has increased by nearly 60% in the last three years, and it is now an important hi-tech metal, not just for solders, but alloyed with indium it is an important ingredient for touch-screens. So the future looks good for future tin mining at South Crofty and Redmoor, and for that other critical hi-tech metal, lithium, with geologists at Cornish Lithium still assessing the enormous potential of underground lithium brines (more on the posting of 22nd February).

Representatives from Cornish Lithium Ltd

And everything is going well for the prospect of mining for heat at United Downs Deep Geothermal Power Project (UDDGPP) (posting of November 1st 2018). Drilling of the 2nd well at UDDGPP began last Saturday and when finished will be the second deepest well in Cornwall at around 3000m.  The first borehole was completed late last month with a total measured depth of 5,275m, making it the deepest onshore well in Cornwall and the UK.  A few days later HRH Anne, The Princess Royal visited the site. In the picture below she is talking to Dr. Tony Batchelor of GeoScience Ltd, regarded as the 'father of Cornish Geothermal Energy'. It was good to see Tony and his wife Linda last night.

Tony Batchelor (right) at UDDGPP with HRH The Princess Royal

Tony Batchelor (right) with Sundowner regulars

And of course, there are two major mineral processing conferences taking place in Falmouth next month, and MEI will be at the Chain Locker again on June 11th and 13th, introducing delegates from Computational Modelling '19 and Physical Separation '19 to the delights of the local Cornish Ales. Just a week later, the Chain Locker will be the venue once again for the June sundowner.

Twitter @barrywills