My Picks for the Top 10 Resource-Related Stories of 2010:
1. Haiti Earthquake
2. Gulf Oil Spill
3. Chile Mine Rescue
4. Commodity Prices
5. Rare Earths
6. Massey Coal Mine Explosion
7. New Zealand Coal Mine Explosion
8. China Coal Mine Disasters
9. Hungary Dam Failure
10. World Population Growth
1. Haiti Earthquake
It’s not exactly what comes to mind as a resource story, except in the sense that having a safe place to live is a valuable resource, and Mother Nature was heavily involved. On January 12, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck near Port-au-Prince. Haitian authorities put the casualties at 230K dead, 300K injured and one million homeless. Later estimates put the number of dead at 92K. As of December 18, there have been 2,761 more deaths and 71K hospitalized due to the outbreak of cholera.
2. Gulf Oil Spill
Called by some the worst environmental disaster ever (move over for the moment, global warming), I have to go with the BP Spill in the #2 spot. On April 20, Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded during completion of BP well MC252, leaving 11 dead and an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico. The following weeks gave us the SpillCam, ROVs, Thad Allen press conferences and sound bites that Tony Hayward would like to forget. Crews worked around the clock, finally lowering a containment cap onto the wellhead on July 15. On August 5, the wellhead was successfully cemented in the second attempt at a ‘top kill’, about the time the government explained where the oil went via pie chart. On September 17, the first of two relief wells that were in progress successfully intersected the well. After further cementing, MC252 was officially declared dead on September 19. Needless to say, the environmental aftermath will be studied for years, and people in the Gulf will still be feeling emotional and financial pain. BP has yet to see the government’s final bill.
3. Miners Rescued at Chilean Mine
The feel-good story of the year goes in my #3 spot. In the midst of the BP daily headlines, on August 5 a cave-in occurred on the access ramp into the San Jose copper mine, near Copiapo, Chile, where 33 trapped miners waited a mind-numbing 10 weeks for rescue. The rescue came with US assistance in drilling a 28” borehole 2300 feet to reach the men underground. (At the same time, two other rigs four thousand miles away were busy drilling to intersect the BP well 13,000 feet below sea floor.) On October 13, an estimated one billion people watched and cheered as the miners were hoisted from the mine, one by one.
4. Rise in Commodities Prices
Perhaps the most talked about event, day in and day out in 2010, was the upward trend in commodity prices, almost always beginning with the price of gold. Gold began the year at $1104/oz, and ended at $1410/oz for a 28% gain. Silver had an even better year, rising from $16.99/oz to $30.63/oz, for an 80% gain. The year for copper was similar to gold, rising from $3.40/lb to $4.40/lb, for a 29% gain.
5. Rare Earths
Even for geo-types, neodymium, dysprosium and praseodymium do not exactly roll off the tongue. Department of Energy released its Critical Materials Strategy for 2010, which listed 9 of the rare earth elements (REE for short) as crucial for use in green energy technology, namely solar cells, wind turbines, vehicles and lighting. China, as we have come to realize, controls 97% of the world’s production. Realization that the US has potential for REEs from a former producer at Mountain Pass, California, sent Molycorp stock from $12 a share earlier in the year, to over $50.
The next 3 spots are grouped for their common association, being disasters at underground coal mines:
6. Explosion at Massey Energy’s Upper Big Branch Mine
7. Explosion at the Pike River Coal Mine, N.Z.
8. Explosions, Ground Falls and Floods at Coal Mines in China
Like the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, we see in these three the human cost of energy. We also see that the danger is not in the coal or the oil, but in the conditions man undergoes to extract them. In these instances, natural gas, i.e. methane, has been the killer. As we witnessed with the Chilean mine rescue, and mankind has known for millennia, mining is a dangerous business. Combine the confined space of an underground mine with an explosive gas like methane, and you have the makings of a majority of the mine disasters throughout history.
On April 5, the Upper Big Branch Mine of Massey Energy, in Montcoal, West Virgina, met with an explosion which killed 29 miners. Massey CEO Don Blankenship, officials from Mine Safety and Health Administration, and others gave testimony on events and suspected causes before Congress.
On November 19, the Pike River Coal Mine, near Greymouth, New Zealand, was struck by the first of four explosions, the last coming on November 28, that left, in an eerie coincidence to the Upper Big Branch Mine, 29 miners dead.
In China, where deaths in mining are reported to average 7 per day, the year was marked by a number of disasters, most involving methane explosions with fatalities per incident comparable to those in West Virginia and New Zealand. Of the disasters in China, one stood out by not being an explosion. On March 28, miners at the Wangjialing coal mine in northern China flooded the mine with water when breaking into a flooded mine shaft, a story similar to the 2002 flooding that trapped 9 miners underground at the Quecreek coal mine in Pennsylvania. At the Wangjialing mine, of 153 miners trapped underground, 115 were rescued, some said to have survived on a diet of wood and coal.
9. Tailings Dam Failure in Hungary
On October 5, a tailings dam containing smelter residues from the Ajka Timfoldgyar alumina plant in Hungary failed, sending a torrent of some one million cubic feet of red caustic sludge through villages towards the Danube River. Four were killed, and hundreds injured.
10. World Population to Hit 7 Billion in 2011
National Geographic this month tells us that the world is growing, and the UN Population Division predicts we will hit 7 billion inhabitants sometime in the coming year. Personally, we’ve only got the one guest bedroom, so some of you will have to sleep on the couch.
Noteworthy
There were a number of other stories during the year that deserve mention, but time prevented listing them here today. I’ll try to follow up next week with a 2010 Noteworthy list.
Best wishes readers for a happy 2011.
