No respite from the winter storms

It has been two solid months now. Two months of relentless pounding from a series of Atlantic storms, with only brief interludes of tranquillity,  which has left Cornwall and the rest of South-West England reeling.  

Although Cornwall has not suffered as badly as in the low lying county of Somerset, where there have been devastating floods, we have taken much of the brunt of the south-westerly gales and torrential rain. Last night's severe storm left a trail of destruction  across Cornwall as the county was battered by winds of more than 90mph. 

The peninsula today is almost an island, with many major roads closed due to flooding and fallen trees, and no trains coming into Cornwall due to substantial damage to the main railway line at Dawlish in south Devon, a spectacular part of Brunel's Victorian railway track, which will be very familiar to MEI Conference delegates who travel to Falmouth by train. 

The Great Western track, south Devon....

...and this morning (Twitter @Sarah_Ransome)

This morning I took a short walk down to Falmouth's Swanpool Beach, another area very familiar to conference delegates, being on the route of our annual coast path walks. The photos below show the mayhem caused by last night's storm, the scenes a far cry from the idyllic scene of only a few months ago.

 

The beach café at Swanpool



Swanpool Beach, summer of 2013

And ironically, my first posting on the blog was exactly 5 years ago today, showing Falmouth covered in a blanket of snow, also an extreme weather event in this unique area of England, warmed by the Gulf Stream.



Swanpool Beach, February 5th 2009

 

MEI Blog is 5 years old today

Until February 5th 2009 MEI had had little involvement with networking via social media, but, love it or loath it, it was obviously here to stay, so we decided to embrace it, first by starting up this blog, followed by LinkedIn (via our Minerals Engineers group which now has around 4700 members), then Twitter (@barrywills) and Amanda's excellent MEI Facebook site.

Photo assignment in 1969

But it is the blog which has given me most satisfaction. It has taken me back to my roots, as I started my career as a freelance photojournalist, undertaking, amongst many other things, assignments as a sports photographer for a group of newspapers in northern England. The parochial assignments that I had in those far off days are a far cry from my current travels around the world, reporting on news of events, people and innovations in the wonderful world of mineral processing.

It is particularly rewarding on my travels to meet so many people who follow the blog (which now has between 15,000 and 20,000 page views per month) and who take part in the discussions. Photographs are obviously of great interest, as many of them show people enjoying themselves, probably aided by the glasses of wine which appear in many of the photos!

On "assignment" at SME 2013 in Denver

My aim is to make the blog a record of the social and technological history of 21st Century mineral processing and its people, so please continue to update me on your news, and join in the discussions. My next "assignment" is the SME Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City in three weeks time. Look out for me there if you have any news to share- you may even get your photo on the blog!

 

JK Boost for Women in Mining

Diana Drinkwater (centre) visiting MEI in Falmouth last month

As reported in MEI Online,  one of the JKTech's valued team members, Diana Drinkwater, Metallurgical Training Manager, has recently been appointed as the first female Chair, Education Commission for the International Mineral Processing Council.  In her role with IMPC, Diana will lead a global review of mineral processing curricula around the world and an evaluation of how well it matches current industry needs.

In another demonstration of diversity in the mining industry, JKTech has also recently appointed its first female board member, Leeanne Bond, and also within the last year has appointed the first female to its executive management team with Julia Sloman joining as General Manager, Commercial.

JKTech’s commitment to supporting women in the industry has resulted in women currently representing approximately 40% of its workforce across technical, administration, support and management services.

Meanwhile, we send our best wishes to Prof. Dee Bradshaw, of the JKMRC, MEI consultant to Flotation '15, who this week starts a 6 month sabbatical as a Visiting Professor at Hacettepe University, Turkey.

Happy Days

People in the minerals industry tend to move around the world, and it is far too easy to lose touch, but one of the great values of social media is in finding long lost friends and colleagues from the distant past. I have caught up with quite a few people from my Zambia days via Facebook's excellent Chingola group.  

A recent welcome internet reunion has been with Val and Giles Day. Many mineral processors who worked at Nchanga in the 1970s will remember Giles, not only professionally, but as a well known Nchanga Rugby team member, a strong centre for the 1st XV (he was also a star of the Nchanga Metallurgists team which occasionally took to the field!).

Nchanga 1st team 1971, Giles is 3rd from the right on the back row

I worked on the Concentrator with Giles for a short time in 1970-71 and we both served in the Nchanga Fire Brigade. He left Zambia in 1977 when he was Assistant Superintendent of the Tailings Leach Plant (TLP) 2 and began work as a Process Consultant with Zambia Engineering Unit in Ashford, Kent, on the design of the new TLP 3, to reclaim the Chingola Tailings Dams.

With Giles in Arizona, 1988

From early ’79, he was with Unilever in Warrington,  promoting their new polyelectrolytes for mining and water treatment, then in 1980 he was invited back to Ashford to join the new Zambia Engineering Services, on permanent staff, and worked on the newly-revived TLP 3 project involving large belt filters replacing CCD thickeners for the washing function.  He spent a year back in Chingola on site from ’85 to ’86.  He also spent time in Pasadena (Parsons) and Chile (Codelco) working on hydromet proposals, and it was in Arizona where I last saw him, when we visited the Magma Copper Mine in San Manuel, a field trip after the SME Annual Meeting in Phoenix in 1988.

We lost touch after that, as at the end of  ’89 he decided to make a clean break,  and bought a franchise, selling and managing office maintenance services.  By ’92-’93, he had sold the business back to the franchisor and set up a residential property management firm in Canterbury, Kent.  The business became very successful and he is still involved with it, Val and Giles now running the business from their home in Cyprus. Moving to Cyprus provided Val with the opportunity to pursue her love of writing and her first book on expatriate life in Cyprus ‘Plastic Bag Trees’ was published in 2007, her second, ‘Not All Beer and Skittles’, in 2010.

Giles and Val, and their granddaughters Isabella (8) and Lexie (6) are pictured below. I am sure that they would love to hear from anyone who knew them in Chingola all those years ago.

 

How technology is evolving to improve grinding efficiency

There is no doubt that comminution is the hot topic in mineral processing at the moment. It is by far the greatest energy consumer, so methods are being sought to improve efficiency by new and improved machines and circuits, and better control and optimisation of the circuits.

All these aspects of comminution will be highlighted at Comminution '14 in 3 months time, so it is an opportune time for me to recommend an excellent article published in the CIM Magazine.

Authored by Eavan Moore, the article is a series of interviews with the top names in comminution, many of whom will be presenting work at Comminution '14, including MEI Consultant Malcolm Powell, Steve Morrell, Grant Ballantyne and conference sponsor Metso's Jonathan Allen and Walter Valery.

The paper discusses energy efficiency and circuit improvements, and ends with the question "what will a standard circuit look like in 10 years' time?". Alan Muir, of AngloGold Ashanti asks the provocative question "Can comminution be done away with altogether?" He thinks that this is a question worth posing, and will be addressing it in a keynote lecture at Comminution '14.

If Carlsberg made road signs......

I never tire of seeing this- surely the best road sign in the world?!

Look out for it on the A30 when entering Cornwall (hopefully for an MEI Conference!).