Cross-Cuts CAPITAL SPENDING CLIMBS

If capital expenditures are a reliable indicator of the relative health of an industry, the world’s copper producers are certainly looking robust these days. For incontrovertible proof that things are relatively rosy (beyond our borders anyway), we offer two press reports that crossed the editor’s desk recently. VME Americas Inc. has locked up a contract to supply Bougainville Copper in Papua New Guinea with 30 190-ton haulers. The contract is said to be the largest such transaction in the past year.

The rigid haulers are Euclid R190s, manufactured by vme Americas at its Guelph, Ont., plant. The 30 haulers will form part of the existing fleet of Euclid haulers in use at Bougainville, which moves more than 70 million tons of ore and overburden each year. The first fleet of Euclid 105-ton haulers was purchased when the mine was opened in 1972. Three years later, Bougainville bought fifty, 170-ton haulers to replace the old fleet. The new R190s will replace the 1975 fleet.

The second press release stated that the biggest ore mill drives on earth are being built in Berlin by Siemens ag. The drives are being assembled for two ore tube mills at the Chuquicamata open-pit copper mine in northern Chile. The gigantic mill cylinders, built by Dominion Engineering of Montreal, are capable of producing up to 1,100 tonnes of finely ground copper ore per hour.

They will be powered by Siemens motors, designed and built at the company’s Berlin plant. The motor stators are 16 m high when standing upright. Each of the two motors weighs about 400 tonnes. Still larger drives, with an outer diameter of about 18 m and weighing in at 460 tonnes, are also planned. These will be supplied to Chile’s El Teniente copper mine. A FISSION A DAY

Back in the 18th and 19th centuries, taking a cure at the “baths,” usually mineral or hot springs, was all the rage. In the 21st century, we might be flocking to nuclear power plants for the same reason. Absurd? It sure sounds like it given our society’s paranoia over the hazards of nuclear energy. But in a recent issue of Atom, a publication of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, scientist Keith Brown puts forward the proposition that low doses of radiation may be good for you.

There is no iron-clad proof yet of the beneficial effects of low radiation doses on humans, Brown notes. But experiments conducted on paramecia “have shown that natural background radiation, or a very low dose of X-rays or gamma rays, appears to have a stimulatory effect on the growth of these organisms. The effect is so striking that some scientists are of the opinion that low levels of radiation are an essential growth factor for this type of organism.”

Brown also cites a cancer study in the United States that found that the number of people dying from cancer in the seven high-altitude states was “significantly lower” than in the eastern seaboard states, where background radiation was only half as great. In addition, residents in high background radiation areas in Brazil, China and India are not more prone to cancer than people living in lower background areas.

The author links the findings to a process known as hormesis. “The word hormesis describes a general phenomenon in living organisms in which exposure to traces or low levels of hazardous physical or chemical agents stimulates the natural physiological defence mechanisms in a manner which benefits health and survival,” Brown states. In other words, non- toxic amounts of a known toxin can actually stimulate an organism. So there may be some threshold level at which exposure to radiation is beneficial.

“It is intriguing whether this beneficial effect of low level radiation will be found in man. As yet the evidence only suggests such a possibility,” Brown says. — 30 —