The Importance Of Mining Industry Essays - Mining,

The Importance of Mining Industry The importance of mining is definitely significant to Canada. Mining, is an important industry, and Canadians are very advanced in their mining technology, but during the mining process, there is certain level of pollution produced. The Canadian government and the mining companies have very good plans and controls toward this problem, while ensuring the smooth running of the industries, and also helping to create strong economy and employment. The world of today could not exist without mineral products. Canada produces about 60 minerals and ranks first among producing countries1. As well, Canada is the largest exporter of minerals, with more than 20 per cent of production shipped to world markets2. In a typical year, the mining industry is responsible for almost 20 per cent of Canada's total export earnings3 (See Appendix A). As for the employment rate, over 70 per cent of the mines are owned by Canadians and approximately 108,000 Canadians are directly employed in the mining industry4. Mining is very important in Canadian life. Not only do the products power the family car and heat the family home, the manufacturing sector, the high tech industries and even the better known resource industries are all dependent, in some way, on the mining industry. The mining industry will continue to be an important support to the economy. Mining is taking full advantage of the quick expansion of computers and microelectronics. These technologies are found in nearly every aspect of mineral development activity - from exploration methods, through production, mineral processing and even marketing. Computers and related equipment now have a lot of different applications in geophysical logging, geochemistry, geological mapping and surface contouring5. At the mine planning stage, the job of designing a mine is now greatly simplified by automation. Through the use of advanced software, geological models can be produced from drill hole data. Computers are also being used to develop plans for mine expansion, develop mining schedules for yearly, quarterly and in some cases, weekly operations. At the operating stage, this new technology is everywhere6. Both in research and operational applications, automated mine monitoring systems now determine immediate information on the status of equipment in underground or remote locations. Canada produces its 60 mineral products from roughly 300 mines across the country7. Before these products can make the trip from mines to the marketplace, they must be searched for, staked, tested, analyzed, developed. There are many difference methods to mine for minerals, an "open pit" mine is one of the method we use today. The ore - waste material along with the minerals, is recovered directly from the surface. Drilling rigs are used to drill holes into the ore areas and blasting charges will be set in them to break loose the ore. The ore: first stop is at the primary crushing station, often located underground, where the large chunks of ore are crushed to a finer size. Further crushing is required prior to sending the ore to the mill where it is ground to a fine powder8. The purpose of crushing and grinding is to free the minerals from the rock. Treatment may consist of gravity or chemical concentration techniques. The end product of the mill is a concentrate, whereby the percentage of valuable mineral has been increased by a factor of 10 to as much as 50 times contained in the ore9. The concentration operation may be complicated or relatively simple, depending on the mineral content of the ore. Milling processes are designed to separate the valuable minerals from the undesired minerals. Although the milling process separates valuable minerals from waste, it does not actually recover the metals in final form. The smelting operation treats the metal-bearing concentrate further, up-grading it to purer form called "matte". Basically: The ore concentrates are mixed with other materials and treated at high temperatures to change the material to other chemical forms. The metal in the matte can be separated further. Further treatment is applied to the final purification of the metal and finishing to the standards required in the metal-using industries. Mining, as we understanding, is a very important industry. But there are underlying dangers to our environment. Mining companies and the government have realized this problem, and regulations and controls have been applied to it. The major environmental problem usually results from the processing and transportation of mineral products rather than from the actual mining process. Example: when an oil spill has occurred in the ocean, the problem caused to the environment is very big, because gallons of oil is spilling over the ocean's surface, resulting in the death of many ocean organisms, and in the pollution of the ocean. (See Appendix B) In this article,

buy custom Marxism essay

buy custom Marxism essay Marxism is the most intriguing alternative vision in this chapter. This was developed by Marx and Friedrich Engels. For them, history moved through the following stages: feudalism, capitalism, socialism to communism respectively. They came up with scientific socialism, which was embedded in a materialist history theory. Marx and Engel claim that history consisted of continuous forms of exploitative productions and consequent rebellions against those productions; that what mattered was production of goods and the societys organization into classes of producers and that of exploiters (616). All this was in response to the Utopian socialism that had been previously developed by Fourier; Marxism contrasted utopian socialism. It criticized the post 1915 Europe that overemphasized on production. I found this alternative very interesting because of Marx and Engels prediction concerning the proletarian revolution. They argued that as industrialization advanced, more people would fall into the working class; the common people would not be able to have a share of this wealth, since it was monopolized by the capitalists. This gap between the wealthy capitalists and the poor masses would result in overproduction; while there would be under consumption and consequently the capitalists would get lower profits. This meant that the workers receive lower wages and or stay unemployed, thus triggering a revolution. This revolution would end the possession of private property, thus ending exploitation. Though the uprisings of the 1848 in European countries did not succeed, I feel that this alternative was the best. If the workers overthrew capitalism then the social landscape would change for the better (618). This alternative seems so practical unlike the previous Utopian socialism. It is important in the world history course since it is what that led to the uprisings of 1848 in some of the European countries such as France, Italy and others; led to more changes in the social landscape and brought about different views about Confucianism, which had is significant to the understanding of the world history. Buy custom Marxism essay