Lynas plant goes only if radioactive limits breached, says regulator
By Shannon Teoh, The Malaysian Insider
KUANTAN, April 6 — Lynas Corp’s rare earths refinery will remain in the Gebeng industrial park here unless the RM700 million facility fails to meet agreed radiation requirements, says the Malaysian atomic energy regulator.
The Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) was among a number of federal agencies that the Pahang government had called in to allay fears after residents in the state capital began a campaign to oppose the plant which is due to open by the third quarter of 2011.
However, AELB director-general Raja Datuk Abdul Aziz Raja Adnan admitted last night that there were no fixed safety requirements for radiation, saying the amount of thorium in the raw material was just an indicator.
“The main concern is the waste,” he said, referring to the radioactive element found in nearly all rare earth deposits.
Raja Abdul Aziz told reporters after a town hall meeting with residents here that approvals were decided on a case-by-case basis by the five-man AELB, but Lynas would then be held accountable to the standards it had promised.
“If the amount of thorium in the raw material exceeds 0.16 per cent, we will revoke the licence,” he told more than 300 people who packed into the hall last night.
Raja Aziz also said to reporters later that Lynas must stay under 500 parts per million (ppm) of thorium in its waste product or be told to cease operations.
The briefing was organised by the Pahang State Development Corporation after Kuantan residents, NGOs and opposition lawmakers objected to the potential radiation hazard from the plant to be built in the Gebeng industrial zone here.
The ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan after the recent earthquake and tsunami there has added to existing concerns that the Lynas plant will be a repeat of the last rare earth project in Malaysia, linked to at least eight cases of leukaemia, seven resulting in death.
