December summary: Month of discontent

Welcome to 2023 and wherever you are we hope that it all goes well with you. We leave 2022 behind with my final monthly summary, of December:

My favourite stretch of the north Cornwall coast is near Land's End, the area which includes Cornwall's three submarine mines, and I always enjoy taking visitors there if they are interested in Cornwall's rich mining history. So I was pleased when Mike Hallewell, a respected metallurgical consultant, involved with the regeneration of the South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall and the Hemerdon tungsten-tin mine just across the border in Devon, asked me to show a couple of his Canadian VIP guests around the area (see also LinkedIn) in the beginning of the month. Mike is consulting for Eloro Resources Ltd, an exploration and mine development company focused on developing its potential world-class Iska Iska silver-tin polymetallic property in the Potosí Department of southern Bolivia.

It was good to meet Elora's Chris Holden and Bill Pearson. Chris is Vice-President of Corporate Development and Bill is a noted leader in geosciences, having played integral roles in the successful acquisitions of Desert Sun Mining Corp by Yamana Gold in 2006 and Central Sun Mining by B2 Gold in 2009. He was the creator and founder of the Association of Professional Geoscientists from Ontario.

Levant mine

Botallack's Crowns Engine Houses

Botallack's tin dressing floor and arsenic labyrinths

Lunch at the King's Arms, St Just with Chris, Mike and Bill

We were fortunate to be able to travel from Falmouth to Camborne by train for the CSM Association's Christmas lunch, at Tyacks Hotel, the original CSM local pub, as there were a number of rail strikes in December, not to mention strikes by nurses, teachers, post office workers, ambulance drivers.... truly a month of discontent. It was great to see a good turnout at Tyacks, mainly from alumni from the 60s, 70s and 80s and a number of past and present CSM staff.

And thanks to a day without rail strikes we were back at Tyacks five days later, for the Christmas Cornish Mining Sundowner, always a well attended event. The sundowner highlighted again what a wonderful profession is the minerals industry. Cornwall is the hub of the UK minerals industry and has an eclectic mix of academics from CSM, service providers, mining and mineral processing engineers, geologists, consultants etc etc. Each month this disparate group of people come together for the Cornish Mining Sundowner and we all work and socialise together throughout the year. I wonder how many other professional groups do likewise?

The Christmas Cornish Mining Sundowner

Energy still dominates the prevailing gloom, the supply of gas from Russia being severely restricted due to Putin's continuing aggression in Ukraine. But there was some light at the end of a very long tunnel, with the news in the middle of the month that researchers at the US National Ignition Facility in California reported that fusion experiments had released more energy than was pumped in by the lab’s enormous, high-powered lasers, a landmark achievement known as ignition or energy gain. 

Nuclear fusion releases enormous amounts of energy, but until this breakthrough the huge amount of energy needed to initiate the fusion of hydrogen isotopes to helium has always been greater than the energy produced in the fusion reaction. The USA achievement is an important step but we are still a long way off fusion supplying limitless power to the grid using an inexhaustible fuel source and producing carbon free energy with very little radioactive waste (see also Visions of the Future). 

And so ended a month of much industrial unrest, and the end of a year dominated by online and hybrid events. For the first time our family Christmas celebrations were hybrid, with Barbara and I spending Christmas day with Amanda's family in nearby Mabe, and catching up online with Jon and family for their first Christmas in Luxembourg.

Christmas in Mabe.....

.....and in Luxembourg

On behalf of us all we wish you a happy 2023.

@barrywills