Another project of interest is a striking example of how improving the environment needs more, not less, technology.
Johannesburg, South Africa's biggest city, on the edge ("Rand") of the world's largest gold field, is surrounded and dotted with immense man-made hills¾the dumps of a century's mining. How do you reclaim the land underneath for residential, industrial or recreational use? By taxing the citizenry to provide for government agencies that will belabor the problem by producing more paper than there ever were tailings?
No. The municipalities let private enterprise clear the dumps, paying them nothing, and private enterprise is glad to get the dumps for free:
In a $190 million project, The East Rand Gold and Uranium Company (ERGO) reprocesses the tailings for gold, uranium, and sulfur. The largely automated process starts with water cannons cutting up the dumps, moving 1.5 million tons of slurry a month through a 70-mile network of large pipes connecting the reprocessing plants, and after the gold, uranium and sulfuric acid have been recovered, the slurry is thickened and disposed of far from built-up areas in thin, revegetated layers, leaving the original land tidy and at the level it was a century ago.
Where did they get the $190 million?
From the public, which oversubscribed their share offering 18.5 times within 1 month in June 1977; 15 months later, the giant plant went into production.
How long before it will reach an operating profit? Minus two years: It reached it three months after start-up.
That is how technology and free enterprise work for an improved environment when they are not obstructed.
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Vol. 8, No. 2
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Volume 8 Issue/No.: Vol. 8, No. 2 Date: October 01, 1980 04:08 PM Title: Phase Three
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
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