Investor demand and spot commodity prices: Reply 2

This, our second reply to Östensson, supplements our earlier more technical analysis with a simple intuitive explanation of how investor demand can be driving commodity prices higher even when investor stocks are falling.     

Exploring the origins of ‘social license to operate’ in the mining sector: Perspectives from governance and sustainability theories

In the mining sector, local communities have emerged as particularly important governance actors. Conventional approaches to mineral development no longer suffice for these communities, which have demanded a greater share of benefits and increased involvement in decision making. These trends have been spurred by the growth of the sustainable development paradigm and governance shifts that have increasingly transferred governing authority towards non-state actors. Accordingly, there is now widespread recognition that mineral developers need to gain a ‘social license to operate’ (SLO) from local communities in order to avoid potentially costly conflict and exposure to social risks. A social license can be considered to exist when a mining project is seen as having the ongoing approval and broad acceptance of society to conduct its activities. Due to the concept's relatively recent emergence, however, only a limited body of scholarship has developed around SLO. Drawing on examples from northern Canada, this paper uses governance and sustainability theories to conceptualize the origins of SLO in the mining sector and describe some of the associated implications. Further research is needed to determine governance arrangements which help facilitate establishment of SLO in different mineral development contexts.     

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Burkina Faso: Suggestion of multi-agent methodology as a complementary support in elaborating a policy

In order to better manage artisanal and small-scale gold mining, the Burkinabe authorities have planned to build a suitable methodological support as an aid to elaborating appropriate policies and actions. The developed methodology concerns (a) at a spatial level, the generation and analysis of a geological resources map needed by the artisanal miners and (b) at a socioeconomic level, analysis of the miners' activity. This paper reports and discusses the results of our suggestion to also introduce the use of an approach known as multi-agent system (MAS) as a complementary part of this initial methodology, at a downstage level to the above two analysis stages. MAS methodology could be used to develop simulation models to forecast the future of the activity. MAS is appropriate for describing the dynamics of systems where it is impossible to obtain all output data of a model from a purely mathematical or statistical transformation of input data. Our suggestion involves (i) demonstrating the capacity of the approach to simulate all parameters needed by mining policy makers and (ii) evaluating to what extent the methodology is accepted by them, as well as, at a more scientific level, the literature regarding mining system simulation.     

Could a public ecology approach help resolve the mountaintop mining controversy?

In recent years, controversy has grown around decisions related to mountaintop removal mining of coal in Central Appalachia, USA. While this mining method can be particularly efficient, it necessitates removal and relocation of huge volumes of earth—permanently altering the natural landform and potentially impacting local environments and communities. Current decision-making systems and regulatory frameworks have been largely ineffective at incorporating the values and concerns of stakeholders. This is due, in part, to contradicting policies, a legacy of distrust, and problems related to scale. Further, the lack of good civic science related to mountaintop mining and meaningful routes for public involvement have also hampered effective decision-making. We propose that the fundamental concepts of public ecology may provide a progressive approach to resolving these complex issues, and examine the challenges that must be met along the way.     

Oil windfalls in Brazil and their long-run social impacts

In 1997, Brazil changed the regulatory framework of its oil and gas sector. After this change, a restrict subset of localities started to receive large amounts of oil rents. The goal of this paper is to evaluate whether such rents distributed under this law contributed to improving some social indicators relative to the national average in the eligible municipalities. We used a “difference-in-differences” measurement to compare changes in selected social indicators within affected Municipalities in the last two decades, taking the unaffected districts as control group. The Municipal data on social indicators were collected from three National Censuses, conducted in 1991, 2000 and 2010. Results show that royalties had a positive and statistically significant impact on household’s access to electric wiring, piped water and waste collection, as well as in the decrease of illiteracy rate. This means the eligible districts were able to improve some of their social indicators in the long-run.     

“Horizontal” and “vertical” diffusion: The cumulative influence of Impact and Benefit Agreements (IBAs) on mining policy-production in New Caledonia

The scale, duration and intensity of conflicts over mineral resources vary greatly. However, they always involve, in varying proportions, the triad stakeholder model—corporation, state, community—each element of which is internally heterogeneous. Increasingly, new players are entering the scene: international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), environmental grassroots groups, indigenous transnational networks, international aid and development agencies. Nevertheless, conflicts and arrangements around access to and control over mineral resources can take the apparent form of dyadic relationships between companies and local communities, resulting in negotiated company-community agreements, often called “Impact and Benefit Agreements” (IBAs). In our analysis, local agreements on mineral resource governance are seen as building blocks in the production of mining policy “from below”, even though they seem at first sight to exclude the state. This paper argues that these agreements, and the negotiations surrounding them, inform debates around mining through both “horizontal diffusion” (influence on other localities facing similar situations) and “vertical diffusion” (influence on policy design and implementation at upper political and administrative levels). This diffusion may occur in a “positive” sense, effecting further change in line with the intent of the original agreement, or in a “negative” one, actually making substantive change less likely, whether at a community or policy level. We build this argument through two case studies from New Caledonia, in the south-west Pacific, where mining has long been a key issue, especially in the current context of “negotiated decolonization” launched by the 1998 Nouméa Accord.     

New mercantilism: A perspective on how politics is shaping world metal supply

The major countries consuming metals tended historically to be also the major countries producing them. It was in their interest to promote mine development to provide low cost raw materials. Over the past fifty years, the share of global production accounted for by consuming countries has declined and producers and consumers of metals have been slowly moving into separate camps having distinct and differing interests. As a consequence of this, governments of producing countries have become more focused on how to maximise the benefit of metal extraction to their economies rather than on how to supply cheap raw materials; a tendency which has found expression in resource nationalism. Governments of consuming countries have in response become increasingly concerned about the implications of this tendency to their economic development and some countries, most notably China, have adopted robust policies to secure their supplies. Through their actions to influence capital flows within the mining industry and to force metals trade into channels which better serve their national interests (a process characterised here as ‘new mercantilism’), metal producing and metal consuming countries are reshaping global supply.     

30种离子液体对青海弧菌Q67的毒性效应

应用微板毒性分析法系统地考察了30种具有不同烷基链长度、阴离子基团和阳离子骨架(甲基咪唑、二甲基咪唑和吡啶)的“绿色溶剂”离子液体(ionic liquids,ILs)对一种新型淡水发光菌青海弧菌Q67 (Vibrio qinghaiensis sp. Q67)的毒性效应.非线性拟合结果表明,Logit或Weibull函数可有效地表征30种ILs的剂量-效应曲线,其相关系数R>0.98,均方根误差RMSE<0.053;30种ILs对Q67的毒性差异很大,pEC₅₀值在1.01～5.48之间;ILs对Q67的毒性具有烷基链效应,且烷基链上每增加2个碳原子,其pEC₅₀值增加近1倍;ILs的阴离子基团、阳离子骨架及ILs本身的吸光性不显著影响ILs对发光菌Q67的毒性.     

492Q发动机分层进气燃烧净化节油系统研究

492Q发动机分层进气燃烧净化节油系统的研究,是为了使国产492Q发动机的油耗水平下降,同时也降低其排放对大气的污染。为此,采用稀薄燃烧原理,使发动机在空燃比(AF)为18左右也可正常燃烧,达到降低油耗,同时也减少了CH、CO、NO_x的排放。      

Inactivation effect of pressurized carbon dioxide on bacteriophage Qβ and ΦX174 as a novel disinfectant for water treatment

The inactivation effects of pressurized CO2 against bacteriophage Qβ and ΦX174 were investigated under the pressure of 0.3–0.9 MPa, initial concentration of 107–109PFU/mL, and temperature of17.8°C–27.2°C. The optimum conditions were found to be 0.7 MPa and an exposure time of 25 min. Under identical treatment conditions, a greater than 3.3-log reduction in bacteriophage Qβ was achieved by CO2, while a nearly 3.0 log reduction was observed for phage ΦX174. The viricidal effects of N2O(an inactivation gas with similar characteristics to CO2), normal acid(HCl), and CO2 treatment with phosphate buffered saline affirmed the chemical nature of CO2 treatment. The pumping cycle, depressurization rate, and release of intracellular substances caused by CO2 were its viricidal mechanisms. The results indicate that CO2 has the potential for use as a disinfectant without forming disinfection by-products.