Placebo Makers Seek New Markets

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August 27, 2009. Guapo, AZ.  The American Placebo Manufacturers Association concluded their annual meeting today. The meeting was hosted by the McCain Center for Advanced Placebo Research at Pultroon University.  The meeting included a symposium series on placebo research as well as an exhibition featuring state of the art placebo pill presses.

Noteworthy was a report on a general rise in placebo effectiveness seen across the industry. While the cause is uncertain, it was agreed that the trend was good for the industry.

In general, the conferees were divided into two camps – those advocating OTC availability and those for prescription-only. The prescription-only speakers made a strong economic case for prescription control of placebos.

“The only way to maintain profitable operation is to control the distribution by physician prescriptions” said Dr. Robert Stiphey, Director of Fauxpharmacy at Flaton Pharmaceuticals.  Stiphey is convinced that an over the counter offering of placebos would lead to a rapid collapse in prices and drive premium placebo manufacture to Central America or Asia. “OTC distribution would be a financial disaster” Stiphey remarked.

Spiratu Health Systems is a New Jersey based health care company planning a placebo based system of clinics and hospitals along the Atlantic coast. Emily Eubangelotos, President of Spiratu Health Systems, said that two fauxpharmaceutical clinics opened in the Atlantic City area in the second quarter with more openings planned over the next two years. “We’re offering a low cost alternative to high priced medicine” Eubangelotos said.

Veternary placebos have been on the market for many years. A black market has developed in the human use of these animal placebos. Indeed, some of them have proven to be actual drugs capable of arresting disease and pain in humans. Placebo manufacturers have lobbied for years to keep blackmarket veternary placebos off the streets.

Of Jeeps and Nissans

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I paid to have the TDC crank sensor replaced on the Jeep recently. I guess I should pay more attention to these things- I had no freakin’ idea this sensor existed. Just clueless.  Evidently this is a weak link in the design of the Cherokee. I’m glad it didn’t fail when I was 4 wheelin’ recently. Crikey! Extracting that thing from near timberline would’ve been a minor ordeal.

Today’s automotive adventure is to go to the Nissan dealer so I can have a bloody key made. Turns out that there is more to the modern ignition key than just bumps on a metal tab. These keys contain a transponder chip that is somehow interrogated for the proper code by RF. It immobilizes the car if the proper key is not present.

It is a nothing more than a way to increase the cash flow to dealers over the life of the car. No doubt it is just a bone Nissan threw to its dealer corps. I’d like to throw something at all of them …

And the SHIPLOP Prize goes to …

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Wow. Just got a bottle of obnoxious stuff (an isothiocyanate) from Alfa Aesar. The liquid was in a bottle in a bubble bag in a bag in a can (with padding) in a bag in a box (with peanuts) in a bag in a box =>  

 box(bag(box(bag(can(bag(bubble(bottle(liquid))))))))

If only the exterior layer was refractory the bottle might withstand reentry from orbit. This one takes the prize for the most shipping layers of protection. At least it isn’t radioactive.

Manganese on my mind

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I spent much of the weekend reading up on, of all things, manganese chemistry. It turns out that there is a tourist mine in Salida, Colorado, that offers a glimpse of a manganese mine. It is rather dramatically called the Lost Mine and the tour includes a 4WD ride to the site. This tour is on the master list of future visits – my teenage kid groaned when I let this news slip out. Pretty funny.

What piqued my interest is a rock I picked up at a rockshop in Leadville recently. It is a low grade sample of dispersed rhodochrosite with a bit of pyrite grown into it. Rhodochrosite is a light pink to rose colored semi-precious crystalline mineral and also happens to be the state mineral of Colorado. It is fairly scarce and increasingly sought after for collection and for jewelry.

The light pinkish color of rhodochrosite stems from the oxidation state of Mn- Rhodochrosite is MnCO3. Depending on the ligand, the Mn (II) will have a high spin d5 electron configuration. The high spin d5 configuration requires a forbidden electron transition consisting of a jump between d orbitals and a spin flip on absorption of hv. Since this is a low probablility occurance, the molar extinction is low and accordingly, the color of the xtal is faint.

A fellow at the CC&V mine lamented that the ore body they process for heap extraction is loaded with manganese. He said that once they move the rock from the pit, the Mn levels cause it to become a pollutant (or some other term) as defined by the EPA. Manganese seems to be relatively abundant in parts of the Rockies.

Some Thoughts on Hazardous Goods

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When a customer orders a chemical from a chemical company, a series of events are triggered leading to the shipment. Every company has a unique business system for order fulfillment. Variable as the details may be though, certain aspects are shared by all companies.

There are special considerations for chemical goods that other manufactured items may not have. Chemicals must be packaged and shipped according to the nature of the material and to certain types of hazards that are present. The type of packaging is not just governed by good sense, but also by transport regulations.

Some substances are covered under regulations meant to control illicit drug manufacture or distribution. Diethyl ether, iodine, phosphorus, phenylmagnesium halide, phenylacetone, ephedrine, acetic anhydride, and many more seemingly ordinary chemical products are constantly under watch by authorities from behind the curtains.

Some substances may be used for explosives and munitions manufacture or use and prospective customers are screened accordingly. Other substances have been identified by the authorities as substances of interest. Phosphorus trichloride is one that comes to mind. Zirconium and titanium powders and components are subject to limitation also.

The kinds of regulatory constraints depend upon the compound of interest and whether or not it is an item for export or import. Import and export controls are in place for many reasons. The control of dangerous goods or illegal substances is an obvious goal. But the act of goods crossing the border is an opportunity for governments to temper the effects of international competition on behalf of homeland businesses through the imposition of duties.

International or domestic shipping of chemicals is rife with complications owing to the potential hazards of the cargo. Chemicals are classified according to their hazard and certain hazard classifications are barred from air transport or constrained to maximum package quantities. What is not transportable by air is usually fine for surface or ocean shipping, but these modes have their limitations as well. Fortunately, the regulations are internationally harmonized for the most part.

Woe is he whose container of hazardous goods is damaged or leaks at a foreign port of entry. Such an event may trigger remedies by the local authorities that will not only be very expensive, but will block the delivery of the material for a long time. This is why a smart manufacturer ships FOB -Free on Board. Once the order is on the truck and rolling off your mfg site, it is the responsibility of the customer thereafter.

For ocean shipments, the captain of the vessel has the final say as to what goes on the boat. Accordingly, your shipping container full of metal alkyls (Dangerous When Wet) will get loaded only at the pleasure of the skipper. It is not unheard of for the boat to sail without such cargos. More likely than not your container will get on the boat, but it will be placed at the top of a stack along side the railing. If there is a leak, over it goes.

A company that practices just-in-time inventory control with hazardous goods that come or go by boat must be prepared for delays and long transit times relative to air transport. It is always best to work with a logistics company that specializes in intermodal international shipments.

Rehearsal

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The play opens in two weeks so rehearsal is getting intense. My brain has some kind of grip on the lines, but it is a delicate grasp and subject to fumbling. Rote memorization is not my strength.

The play was made into a movie by RKO in 1938 and starred the Marx Brothers. They made it look easy. The madcap and rapidfire banter is really quite difficult for a drudge like me. I have to work at it. Luckily, I have minor roles and only 10 minutes of stage time.

There is a big difference between doing voices for a reading and actually acting out the role with 3 or 4 other actors on stage. My previous two plays have only gotten me to the point where I do not faint or wet myself on stage. But realistically, I suppose, the last two weeks are when a play shapes up in rehearsal.  Maybe there is hope.

Prawns and Cat Food

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The movie District 9 opened friday in the US. It is a SciFi action picture with an abundance of aliens and action. The story takes place in Johannesburg, South Africa, and deftly folds in the country’s history of aparteid and cross border dispute into the structure of the storyline.

The style of cinematography is somewhere between Saving Private Ryan and Cloverfield.  Most of the shots are from handheld camera work and the definition is low color density and a bit grainy. I’m guessing that this may be advantageous for CGI rendering, and to my eyes, adds considerably to the realism.

I won’t spoil the storyline. But I will say that it is quite violent with an abundance of Afrikaaner F-bombs and, in my opinion, not suitable for the under 16 crowd.

It really isn’t a “date movie”. Fellows, this is unlikely to make for a memorable evening for your date. After the (n + 1)th Prawn gets wasted, cell phones will come out and text messages will get checked. A sure sign of boredom.

All in all, I recommend that SciFi fans see it on a big screen. It is quite well done with an intriguing story and excellent visuals.

Significant New Molybdenum-Rhenium Find Announced

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A significant new ore deposit of molybdenum and rhenium has been announced by Ivanhoe Australia. The Merlin Mo-Re deposit is located in western Queensland, Australia, south of Cloncurry. The deposit is said to be worth $6 billion Australian. The core sample shown on a download contains 2.25 % Mo and 29 g/t of Re, according to the company.  The principal ore is Molybdenite, or molybdenum sulfide.

Ivanhoe claims the advantages of the ore stem from the high grade and shallow depth. High grade ore requires a smaller refining facility. Ivanhoe says that its rhenium is not a byproduct.

Climax Molybdenum, a Freeport-McMoRan company, is also a producer of rhenium products. Climax Molybdenum operates the Climax mine on Freemont Pass near Leadville, Colorado, and the Henderson Mine near Empire, Colorado.

The geochemical association of Mo and Re is apparently not limited to a unique location. Molybdenum deposits at Ivanhoe, Climax, and Copaquire all have associated rhenium.  Rhenium products such as rhenium pellets and ammonium perrhenate are supplied by Climax Molybdenum in addition to a variety of metallic moly and moly chemicals.

International PBX operates the Copaquire Mo-Re-Cu porphyry project in northern Chile.  The company estimates that 47,000 to 60,000 lbs of indicated rhenium reside in their part of the district. According to PBX announcement, the indicated moly is between 203 and 253 million lbs and indicated copper lies between 364 and 563 millions lbs. The company is quick to point out that 25 % of the deposit is above ground in a mountain.

As of 2005 the three leading producers of rhenium were Chile, Kazakhstan, and the USA, with the USA having the largest known reserves. How the Australian find will alter this distribution is unclear at this time. The estimated rhenium trade in 2005 was $32 million.

Rest Stop on Freemont Pass at Entrance to Climax Mine

Rest Stop on Freemont Pass at Entrance to the Climax Mine

 

View of Climax Mine (Copyright 2009 All rights reserved)

View of Climax Mine (Copyright 2009 All rights reserved)

The above photo of the Climax mine shows a processing building with what remains of Bartlett Mountain behind it. In fact there is a considerable lode of moly remaining in the mine.

Health Care and the Bell Curve

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In watching the political turmoil associated with health care, I’m reminded of how populations fall into bell-shaped curves. Some attribute sorted into some kind of frequency is represented as a distribution having a small population of outliers on either side of a larger population representing the mean.  There are normal distributions and distorted distributions. As you might imagine, the details and nuances require a good bit of coursework to comprehend.

So from between our bare feet on the Lazyboy recliner we can passively view on high definition television the spectacle of a kind of replay of The Empire Strikes Back. We can watch as a small cadre of elite influence workers (lobbyists) practice the art of propaganda upon a group of lazy thinkers. Dick Armey is still with us, but now he is stirring up the muck behind the curtains.

Some have cynically observed that what we are witnessing is one group of dumbshits rattling another group of dumbshits. A more polite description might be that it is a matter of the sly and conniving having their way with the analytically challenged. 

People who are vehemently against big government somehow find it acceptable to be shills for big business in this battle.  All in the name of marketplace economics. But the fact is that the medical industry “marketplace” is deeply distorted and is itself far from being a system that can respond to consumer demand. The supply and demand balance is not sensitive to the needs of the patient- supply and demand is a battle fought between insurance carriers (the economic consumer) and medical organizations (the supplier).  

Consumers of medical services have few real choices- be sick or plug into a complex, gold plated system. In order for the medical system to be a functioning marketplace, there must be lower octane choices for the consumer.

That part of the affluence bell curve that cannot pay for modern, high tech, and expensive health services really must have access to a form of care that they can afford. The health care “debate” should focus on new forms of affordable medical services rather than simply new mechanisms of payment for a system that is economically distorted and inaccesible to significant numbers of people.

Medical school needs to be cheaper so that more universities can train more doctors to feed into the market. This is a supply & demand question that we seem to be unable to even define. The professional and business elitism of medicine must be toned down a bit. It is not sustainable.

The Gangues of Leadville

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The mining history of Leadville, Colorado, is well documented and the details are left to the reader to pry out of the internet. As a process chemist, my interest in mining is more directed to the geochemistry and milling of the ore. How did they get the pay out of the paydirt?

How does it come about that we can get our hands on particular elements like molybdenum, gold, silver, uranium, tungsten, vanadium, etc? How do the elements manage to concentrate into ore bodies that are worth the effort and expense to refine?

When you take the various mine tours around the country, the spiel offered by the guide is usually geared toward the lowest common denominator- our fascination with fabulous wealth. The miners were certainly taken with the possibility of wealth. Gold and silver mines are an easy sell because everybody has greed and everybody yearns to pluck a fat nugget of gold from a pan of gravel.  Other types of mines are a tougher sell entertainment-wise and require a bit more explanation of the relevance of the obscure element that is being extracted.

Mining is an activity with good and bad effects. To sustain modern civilization, if you can’t grow what you need, you have to mine it. Mining is inherently extractive in nature and requires that large volumes of earth be disturbed. Open pit mining requires that overburden be removed and the mineral value be moved to a processing site. Material sidestreams are generated and must be dealt with. 

Underground mines also generate large volumes of material that must be piled somewhere. To ensure responsibility for reclamation costs mining companies are required to put up a surety bond to cover the costs of future reclamation under 43 CFR section 3809.

The inevitable trade-off that a society must make is one of environmental insult for material goods. The balance point is always hard to find, and in fact is usually a moving target on account of politics, employment, and environmentalism.

Mining can have substantial effects on the landscape, the watershed, real estate, and the future tax base. Land that is not available for habitation or sustainable commercial use is fundamentally limited in potential value. An area covered with mine tailings, mine shafts, the occasional blasting cap, and acidic runoff is an area that requires cash infusion on a long timescale.

But if we enjoy the benefits of lead batteries in our cars, or silver jewelry, tungsten elements in our light bulbs, zinc plated wire fences, or the ten thousand other metal products in our lives, we must come to grips with the consequences for having such material goods. At some stretch point, everybody becomes a Luddite. Question: How much technological triumphalism can we take? Answer: Whatever the market says we can take.  

Runoff Collection Pond from Mine Tailings in Leadville Mining District.

Runoff Collection Pond from Mine Tailings in Leadville Mining District.

Our society has benefitted greatly from metallurgy. The compulsion to recover metals from the ground is one of the great economic forces in civilization. No amount of highminded pontification will stop it. Metals enable industry and war which are forever entangled in politics and greed. The goal is to be smart about how we mine elements from the ground so that maximum value of the surrounding land may be enjoyed. The enthusiasms of the time come and go. But metals are forever.

Mine Waste, Leadville Mining District August 2009

Mine Waste, Leadville Mining District August 2009