Topics on Mining & Mineral Processing

This is a series of posts on topics of general interest in mining & mineral processing.

Abandoned Mine Tailings and Recovery of Critical Minerals:  Where the past becomes the future.

Some General Thoughts on Mining:  Some general thought directed to the first time investor on mining company size, mining economics, and land ownership.

An Introduction to Mineral Processing:  An explanation/overview of the basic tenets and principals used for mineral processing.  The more detailed discussion of the actual processes is under the Notebook section.

An Introduction to Dry Mineral Processing:  A brief look at some of the methods for processing without water.

Mineral Processing Applications: Different ore types tend to be processed with different methods.

Tonnage vs. Volume: A Weighty Subject that speaks volumes or what is the true plant capacity

Moon Mining: Mining on the moon is coming, but there are a few details that still need to be worked out.

Rare Earth Elements, Rare Metals, & Battery Minerals: Modern society runs on rare earths and battery minerals, so an overview on what they are and where they come from.  Also, why rare metals (while very important) are NOT the same as rare earths.

Rare Earth Elements vs. Rare Metals: an overview - Rare earths are a hot topic, but rare earths and rare metals are different.

All Rare Earth Elements are not equal: Talk is about rare earths and how important they are, but there are actually several rare earth elements.

Rare Earth Element Mining and Processing: How do you mine and process rare earths.

Rare Metals: an overview of Tantalum, Niobium, Cobalt, Zirconium, Gallium and Indium

Battery Minerals:  Lithium & Cobalt

Graphite: The other key battery mineral

Mining for Solar Cells:  Solar cells/panels also rely heavily on mining.

Discrete Event Simulation:  An overview of discrete event simulation

What to do with an old process simulator:  Using an old process simulator to help plant operations.

Spreadsheet Process Model:  A spreadsheet showing a simulation of a sand classification circuit.  Allows the user to make changes and see the impact on performance.

Sizing Equipment using Simulation:  Sizing a raw ore handling system using discrete event simulation.

Mobile/Modular Plants in Mining:  With increased emphasis on fast tracking projects, especially for REE's and other relatively low production (less than 500 t/hr), mobile/modular is a great idea.

Challenges of Deep-Sea Mining: Brief look at some of the design issues with mining the sea floor.

Seafloor Mining: how little we know

Voyage to the bottom of the sea: Overview of sea floor mining

Cyanide Alternative:  As cyanide use gets more regulated, try Flotation!

Cyanide Leaching Methods:  An overview

Back to the Future in Plant Construction: Advantages of wood.

Project Management:  Projects from a few thousand dollars to over a billion all need to be managed.  Knowing what to do and what not to do is key to success. These are some of my experiences (often learned the hard way) on project management.

In here I discuss -

Developing a Mining Project:  When outside experts can help.

Scope and the Project: Project managers are always fighting scope creep due to cost, but there are some other issues to consider.  Scope creeps impact on safety and how cutting scope can actually raise costs.

Tools of Project Management: In managing a project you need to have a good handle on how well the project will perform, how well it is performing, and how well it did.  VIR is a good tool to evaluate project alternatives.  Dynamic budgeting is a good tool for seeing how well you are doing.  Comparing your budget to actuals allows you to see how well you did.

Estimating a Project:  A key part of any project is preparing a good and reasonable estimate.  While not extremely difficult, it is tedious and very time consuming.  But not doing it correctly can be very painful later, especially in the pocket book.

Thoughts on Managing a Project: From 40 years of project work in mining, petro-chemicals, and industrial operations some thoughts on managing projects from both sides of the table. Having been (and still am) a project manager for both the owner and for the engineer/contractor, I can state that the view is very different depending which side of the table you are on.

Why Mining Projects Go Bad: Mining projects have some special reasons to not go as well as planned.

Big Data Collection and Use : Big data is here, and knowing about it is important, in particular that data is only as good as how it is collected,  how it is analyzed, and how accurate and precise (two different things) it is.

Articles:  Some of my published articles

HDC 900 Horizontal Centrifuge : Basic information on the design of my patent US Patent No. 5,616,245 High Gravity Separator - process technology for fine particle gravity separation

Life without Mining:  Even subsistance living requires some mining.  Modern life requires a lot more.