Police called in after sand mining opponents blast RM of Springfield officials at meeting
Police called in after sand mining opponents blast RM of Springfield officials at meeting
As a proponent of green energy: mining is absolutely required to transition out of oil. The alternative is hunter gatherer civilization. People protesting this are doing it wrong. At best, it's NIMBYism.
I'm a geophysicist. AMA if you have concerns and I'll try to allay your fears.
@troy Do you have a primer (video, article, whitepaper) on this kind of well drilling for silica?
Nothing off hand. I've been in industry for a while and am speaking from a gathered knowledge perspective. However, using google (or Google scholar), you should probably be able to find the information you're looking for with keywords like "sand slurry mining pumps" or similar. The technology is used in a lot of contexts, including some less savory targets (oil sands), but also to pump material into voids (mixed with small amounts of concrete) to stabilize the voids. The pump technology required to pump such a slurry is kind of gonzo, in my opinion. Think about how abrasive sand is! Compared to the pumps, the drilling is a trivial task.
The article is bereft of details and, admittedly, I did not go to the anti-camp's website etc. to learn more.
How many jobs are going to be created? How much profit will be extracted from the land? Is there a tariff they'll pay per tonne? What happens in the worst-case scenario wrt to ecological impact, and jobs? Is there a well-cleanup provision in place as well?
Something tells me that this is actually a very risky 20+ year project where this very valuable resource (pure sand, right?) ends up profiting a the owners and we get very little in return and actually incur the most risk and worst rewards of the deal.
I do agree with the council though. Their decision being overridden by an unelected board is undemocratic at best and at worst ignores the ecological impact that has not been considered by the land use board from what I can tell? Again, article lacks many details here as to how this undemocratic provincial board is now arriving at decisions that used to fall to local councils.
Can we appeal the appeal with *another * 50 person delegation (I think those are the rules for this unelected board to hear a case) 😏
Don't forget that ecological impact has far greater reach. We are a globalized civilization. The impact of preventing the project may result in slower deployment of solar, globally. And we all have a shared atmosphere. Don't forget to look at the forest while scrutinizing the trees, or game theory will get in the way of progress.
I don't know the financial details. Those are of little interest to me honestly. And it is very unlikely that the primary shareholders are local -- except maybe for gravel used in construction, mining industry shareholders are rarely local. They are subject to Canadian regulations, and mining is under provincial jurisdiction constitutionally. So there will always be some local say in any project. I would still support it even if it was Chinese owned. Because we need the panels to get off oil.