دانلود کتاب پسماندهای معدنی و مهندسی اکولوژیکی آب و استخراج فلزات

Mining, as it is currently practiced, is an extremely wasteful pursuit. A space alien watching us mine a tonne of rock – and throw 99% of it back, as we do with gold ores and nickel laterites, for example – would correctly think we are crazy. The act of mining the ore is the most expensive part of metals extraction, yet we happily throw most of what we mine away, at the same time creating vast amounts of tailings, waste rock and contaminated fresh water. The mining industry needs a paradigm shift in thinking to recognise that supposedly uneconomic materials that we currently throw away – such as iron, magnesium, silica, calcium and aluminium – are finite and valuable resources in themselves. We have taken the trouble to dig them up, so we should take further trouble to recover them. This is the first reason for writing the book. The book is targeted at a wide-spectrum audience, mining executives and professionals, government regulators, environmentalists and anyone with an interest in our planet and its ecosystems. However, it is the mining executives and government that we would like to embrace the Way Forward, because stewardship of our planet is a necessity. Current practices must change. Society, in general, recognises that there is a crisis with climate change and global warming. Mitigation of mining wastes is thought to be being driven by the so-called electric revolution. This revolution needs metals and minerals in large amounts to facilitate the dream of renewable energy. The waste sites of these minerals are growing, consuming more land and contaminating more water. The second reason for writing the book is to offer suggestions of ways to responsibly go about mining. The book also describes the balance between mining and ecology, and how the latter, particularly the roles of microbes, can assist in mitigating, reversing and containing much of the damage that mining has created. It is a topic that is not generally well understood, and to which there is a general reluctance to embrace, but it is one that we believe is crucial and essential to preserve the viability of the planet. This is the third reason for writing the book. Contaminated drainage from mining wastes, as it is believed, is not “the price to be paid for metals”.