CROSS-CUTS SUPERCONDUCTING R&D

This information comes courtesy of Falmouth Associates from a study entitled High-Temperature Superconductors: Raw Materials, Synthesis, Fabrication and Applications. According to Falmouth, “supply of certain alkaline earth compounds and some rare earths is constrained even now.” The Falmouth study details current worldwide production and refining capacity for superconductor raw materials; how they are synthesized and fabricated into superconducting powders, thin films, wires, cables, sheets and other useful forms; and demand for these materials.

The study costs $10,000 (us) and is available from Falmouth Associates Inc., 170 U.S. Route One, Falmouth, Maine, 04105. GREEN-THUMB MINING Inco’s success with growIing underground `veggies’ at the Creighton mine has spawned a new industry: hydroponic gardening. Inco’s agricultural department’s experiment in growing cucumbers and tomatoes underground is one reason for the expected success of a hydroponic lettuce factory that will provide fresher, better quality northern-grown lettuce for the Sudbury consumer, the Inco Triangle, a company publication, states.

Gro Systems President Walter Lukawski says the half-million- dollar hydroponic factory can work, a fact proven in part by Inco’s underground experiment. The company will combine several technologies that will yield 16 to 18 crops of high quality lettuce every year, or about 2,500 heads of lettuce per day. METHANE SENSORS

An innovative remote sensing system will be installed to continuously monitor methane gas levels in Domtar Chemicals Group’s Goderich salt mine. This is a new, 3-year joint project between Domtar and the Mining Research Laboratories of canmet (Canada Centre for Mineral and Energy Technology).

The central processing unit of the system, along with the video terminal and printers, will be in the mine office on the surface. Several methane and other environmental sensors will be installed at strategic locations underground. If methane concentrations rise above predefined levels, the sensor will transmit the data to the surface in seconds. Visual and audio signals will alert mine management to take quick action. LONGEST BORED RAISE COMPLETED

Dynatec Mining recently completed the longest bored raise in Canada, a 613-m- long raise to transfer fill from the surface to underground at Minnova Inc.’s Ansil mine. The raise has a diameter of 2.13 m and an inclination of 83 degrees .

The raise was completed under the direction of Dynatec foreman Pierre Habicht. MORE THAN OIL

Not satisfied with extracting only oil from the Alberta Tar Sands, a New Mexico-based company plans to win titanium, silver and gold as well. Solv-Ex Corp. says it has a new process that will not only draw the metals from the sands, but also improve oil recoveries. According to the company, the value of the metals should exceed the value of the oil taken from the ground.

The Solv-Ex process combines both solvent extraction and hot water treatment of oil sands without air flotation. Crushed oil sand is first conditioned in hot water after which any oversize and inert rocks are removed by screening. The material is then put through an extract phase, a middle water phase and a lower spent-sand phase. The company has been running increasingly larger tonnage tests since 1984. Solv-Ex proposes to build a bit umen and mineral extraction plant on its Bitumount Lease, north of Ft. McMurray, Alta.

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