Lynas Malaysia will be allowed to import naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) until its licence expires in March 2026, says Chang Lih Kang.
The Science, Technology and Innovation Minister told a press conference at the Malaysian Nuclear Agency here on Tuesday (Oct 24) that Australian rare earth materials producer would also be allowed to carry out cracking and leaching activities on condition that radioactivity levels in water leach purification (WLP) residue remain low.
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The Science, Technology and Innovation Minister told a press conference at the Malaysian Nuclear Agency here on Tuesday (Oct 24) that Australian rare earth materials producer would also be allowed to carry out cracking and leaching activities on condition that radioactivity levels in water leach purification (WLP) residue remain low.
Read more at https://tinyurl.com/bddetkwr
WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news
SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar
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00:03 OK, I can start.
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03:34 can be extracted from the WLP residues, so that the residues can be released from the law under Article 304.
03:43 I am confident that with this development, the operation of the law will protect the interests of the people and the like.
03:53 The country will be able to attract billions of dollars in investment in the local natural gas industry,
03:59 to support the high-tech advanced material production industry.
04:04 I just want to clarify, out of the four conditions, we only amend two.
04:13 One is to allow them to continue to import lanthanide concentrate.
04:18 Secondly, allow them to have cracking and leaching.
04:21 But the other two, including BDF, they still have to build.
04:27 And the other one, of course, the 1% R&D fund, is not a softening of position.
04:35 Before this, our concern is we do not want continuous accumulation of radiative waste in Malaysia.
04:43 So we do not allow them to import and do not allow them to process it, because that will produce radiative waste.
04:51 So with the technology today that we are talking about, thorium extraction,
04:58 they can either extract thorium from the waste or they can extract from the feedstock lanthanide concentrate.
05:05 So once they have extracted, then they go through cracking and leaching, there won't be any radiative waste.
05:12 The waste will be scheduled waste, because it is under one beckerel per gram.
05:19 So it gels well with our initial intention, which is to not allow continuous accumulation of radiative waste.
05:32 But with this technology, thorium extraction, they are not going to produce any radiative waste in the future,
05:41 because we are giving them two years to scale it up.
05:44 So is this a proposal by Linus to do this thorium extraction?
05:49 So after two years, what happens?
05:52 After two years, they have to be sure that they can do that.
05:57 Because we also have our team to verify and do due diligence on the technology.
06:04 And it is feasible from our team point of view.
06:09 It is very feasible and they can be done in two years' time.
06:13 So we are giving them that grace period to scale it up from lab scale to pilot and to commercialisation.
06:20 I think people want to know, because they will continue to do cracking and leaching, right?
06:25 And they just want to know, given that BDF is not 100%, are they going to store, are they going to inspect, are they going to do it properly?
06:34 We have our team to inspect regularly from our nuclear, Jabatan Nuklir.
06:42 We will monitor, but at the same time, with this thorium extraction technology we are talking about,
06:52 in the future, we won't need to be worried about all this waste.
06:58 So in the meantime, over these next two years, how much waste did you expect to accumulate?
07:05 I mean, right now they already have 1.12 million tonnes.
07:07 The capacity of the BDF will be 1.6 million metric tonnes.
07:13 Now, approximately 1.2, so they still have about 400,000 metric tonnes.
07:20 So once they exit that, then they have to either stop or they have to extract thorium from there,
07:28 so that they could reduce it and they have more space to keep.
07:32 You are quite near the capacity already, right?
07:36 Now 1.2. The capacity is 1.6.
07:40 Until they can be ready to extract thorium from it, it is still highly radioactive?
07:46 Not highly, but radioactive that needs to be regulated.
07:50 It's about 6 becquerel per gram.
07:52 So the BDF is about half built?
07:56 Yeah, about half built.
07:58 And it should be ready next year?
08:00 I think so. I need to find out.
08:06 So if that 1.6 million and the BDF is only half built, that means part of the BDF waste is exposed?
08:14 Yeah, it is. I mean, now it is.
08:16 But we can only ask them to speed up the building of BDF.
08:20 But they are putting it in a temporary site.
08:25 I mean, of course, people make noise because of that.
08:28 But we are pushing them to speed up.
08:33 But that condition, we didn't change. We didn't amend that.
08:37 So they still have to build.
08:39 The temporary site is also in the same place, right?
08:42 Yeah, in their compound.
08:45 So there is no new land given to them? It's the same place?
08:48 No land given.
08:50 Okay. Thank you.
08:52 Thank you.
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