Posted: 16 Feb 2014 06:01 AM PST

Mark Creasy, the lucky Australian prospector who stumbled on a large nickel deposit while searching for the wreckage of a space station, has struck it rich again.

Down Under's richest living prospector got US$167 million richer last week after swapping his remaining 30% stake in the Nova-Bollinger nickel-copper discovery, for cash and shares in Sirius Resources (ASX:SIR).

In a statement, the company —planning to develop a new nickel mine in Western Australia— said this move would make it easier to secure funding to develop both deposits.

It added it expects to derive significant financial and timing benefits from having 100% control of both proposed mines, and to achieve further operational cost savings by avoiding the need for a production joint venture.

Creasy identified the potential of the nickel deposit in 1979, when he drove deep into Australia's red centre to search for debris from the Skylab space station, reports The Australian.

Soon enough he realized a joint venture between Newmont, WMC (since taken over) and Anglo American had struck nickel and copper in the area years earlier. He staked out a position around two decades later, when nickel prices climbed.

He did find some debris, two oxygen cylinders that he has for display at his Perth office.

The Australian reports that Creasy's search for the next big discovery is far from over:

"I've got a very major exploration program under way, which I've had going since 1968," he was quoted as saying.

Image by PPR Australia, via YouTube.

Duke Energy coal ash spill now subject to criminal probe

Posted: 16 Feb 2014 04:34 AM PST

Coal ash pond that was the site of a spill into the Dan River in Rockingham County, North Carolina. Courtesy of Duke Energy.

US federal authorities have launched a criminal investigation into a massive coal ash sludge spilled from a Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) power plant into a North Carolina river, which supplies drinking water for nearby towns.

Prosecutors are asking the company and state regulators to hand over reams of documents related to the early February accident, which Duke waited nearly two days to disclose publicly.

The firm initially said as many as 82,000 tons of ash, enough to fill up to 32 Olympic-size swimming pools, spilled into the Dan River after a pipe broke under a 27-acre ash pond at its coal plant.

The spill, one of four known major toxic leaks in North Carolina within a matter of weeks, forced authorities to treat the drinking water supply for Virginia, Danville and South Boston in order to remove toxins.

It was the third-largest coal ash spill in US history.

On Saturday, Duke said a second pipe under the coal ash dump is not in immediate danger of collapse, despite concerns from state regulators that the pipe could fail and trigger another toxic spill into the river, AP reported.

Conservation groups have accused the state environmental regulatory agency of protecting Duke Energy, the country's largest electric utility, and of failing to enforce laws against polluting waterways with coal ash. They attempted to sue Duke last summer, alleging that for years it has allowed toxic coal ash to seep into waterways from 14 coal-fired plants in the state.

Image: Coal ash pond that was the site of a spill into the Dan River in Rockingham County, North Carolina. Courtesy of Duke Energy.

Ten books every miner should read

Posted: 15 Feb 2014 08:40 PM PST

My all time favorite is the SME Mining Reference Handbook. It doesn't explain concepts, but has most of the formulas, charts, and tables that mining engineers use.

I would also recommend the SME Mining Engineering Handbook as another good general book and it does explain concepts. Both are expensive so you should check to see if your university provides you access to online resources.

Profound advice. Admittedly the SME books are good. But they do not tell you about mining if you are a student.

r/mining is the site from which this comes. It is new to me. And probably won't be visited often by me.

It consists mainly of questions like the following—to which question no answers are posted:

I am a mining engineer based in the American Southwest. I've been looking at comparing cash costs of production for differing mining companies. For some companies, (like Freeport) cash costs and average sale prices are very easy to find, and are clearly stated in their annual reports. Other companies are more difficult. If I wanted to find cash costs of production by commodity for Rio Tinto, how would I do so? Is there a good resource for this?

Admittedly I do not know the answer to this question, but then I cannot believe this is a question to agonize over.

Which leads us to the essential question: which ten books should every miner read? Here is my personal list:

Finding Far Away by Lisa Wade is the best there is on being a young person in the mining industry. It deals with sex too.

The Plundered Plant which tells us what countries should, but generally do not, do with mining profits and royalties.

The Northern Miner's Mines Handbook is the best introduction I know of.

EduMine Courses. There are many courses on EduMine for the beginning miner. The most popular is Mining 101 by Scott Dunbar. I have a few including Mining Investment- Understanding the Risks that is very popular.

The Origins of Political Order by Francis Fukuyama gives insight into the nature of society and politics. Better than all those vacuous publications on socially responsible mining and sustainable crap.

Antifragile by Nassim Taleb. Also read his books on Black Swans and other topics. His insight will inform all young miners about the realities.

Elixir, A History of Water and Humankind by my favorite author Brian Fagan. Required reading if you are going mining and will have to face the water issues that are now the center of all mining successes and failures.

Principle and Practice of Waste Encapsulation by Caldwell and Reith. We wrote this book in 1993. It is still available on Amazon.com for a large sum. It was the first to expound the issues of waste management in a rational way. Most of what has been written since is but derivative.

De Rerum Natura by Lucretius. Written BC, it is still the best and most beautiful poem on the nature of things. If you have not read and appreciated this book, you have no business mining or exploiting nature for the benefit of mankind. Who can resist a poem that includes lines like these that are the essence of the mill managers domain?

And wine, we see, will flow on the instant through

a sieve, but oil is hesitant and slow,

either because its particles are larger,

or else more hooked and tightly intertwined,

and this is why they can't be pulled apart

so quickly into separate single atoms

that seep through single openings, one by one.

And for number ten, I nominate all those conference proceedings. Every one contains papers by practitioners bent on telling of what they do, have learnt, and know. Conference proceedings are the lifeblood of knowledge accumulation and transfer in the mining industry. Go for the proceedings in paper and book format. If the information is worth reading, it will be on paper and in a book. If the conference is but a commercial venture to give an excuse to the privileged to travel, you get only an e-version. Don't fret about such conferences. They are but exercises in vanity.

OK, this is my personal list. Highly subjective I know. So please comment on your ten favorite books for miners.

Legendary Aussie prospector search for space junk turns to gold

Legendary Aussie prospector search for space junk turns to gold

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