Although many proposed uses are engineer-ing applications, there are others in the area of wood and wood products that may eventually make rubber plantations important sources for enviro
Trang 1of a rootstock Upon a successful take, the bud grows
and the rootstock is topped or removed at the point of
growth The bud is then transplanted from the
nurs-ery to the field The tree is ready for tapping in five to
seven years, when tree girth reaches 50 centimeters at
1.60 meters from ground level Crown budding may
also be done before budded stumps are transferred to
the field This type of budding is used to provide a
crown that is tolerant of or resistant to disease or wind
damage Stand density in rubber plantations ranges
from 250 to 400 trees per hectare at an average
spac-ing of about 6 square meters
Rubber performs best on deep, well-drained soils
with a pH of less than 6.5 (in the 4.5 to 7.5 range)
However, Hevea brasiliensis can be grown on a wide
range of soils Thus, while in China rubber
planta-tions are found on latosols and lateritic red soils, in
Brazil—the primary center of diversity—rubber grows
on red yellow podosols In Malaysia, at one time the
world’s leading producer, rubber grows on lateritic
red soils
With regard to climatic requirements, P Sanjeeva
Rao and K R Vijayakumar, in Natural Rubber: Biology,
Cultivation, and Technology (1992, edited by M R.
Sethuraj and N M Mathew), summarize the
opti-mum conditions as follows: a rainfall of 2,000
millime-ters or more, evenly distributed without any marked
dry season and with 125 to 150 rainy days per year; a
maximum temperature of about 29° to 34° Celsius, a
minimum temperature of about 20°, and a monthly
mean of 25° to 28° Celsius There should be high
at-mospheric humidity in the order of 80 percent with
moderate wind, and bright sunshine amounting to
about 2,000 hours annually, at the rate of 6 hours per
day in all months These conditions exist in the major
rubber-producing countries of the world
Anatomy and Physiology of Latex
Latex is obtained from latex vessels called secondary
laticifers in Hevea The quantity of laticiferous tissue
in the tree is determined by a number of anatomical
factors such as vessel rings, size of laticifers, girth of
trees, and the distribution of latex and latex vessel
rows The flow of latex and, subsequently, the yield of
a rubber tree is dependent on these anatomical
fea-tures
Tapping, which causes injury to laticifers, does
not expel the nucleus or mitochondria as part of
the latex; that is, latex itself is a true cytoplasm Hence
latex reconstitution occurs following a complex
phe-nomenon that results in the plugging of the wound Several biosynthetic processes are responsible for the formation of latex from initial monomers through
a glycolytic pathway Increased yield can be obtained
by using chemical stimulants on the bark of trees The most effective and commonly used stimulant (2-chloroethane phosphonic acid) is commercially known as Ethrel or Ethephon This chemical keeps latex flowing by delaying the plugging mechanism, and through its use certain clones can be made to yield twice as much latex Present in the latex are three types of suspended particles, two of which are nonrubber (10 to 15 percent of the latex) and the third of which is dry rubber (40 to 60 percent of the latex, depending on clonal characteristics, con-ditions of cultivation and tapping, and other envi-ronmental factors)
Latex Processing and the Grading of Commercial Rubber
About four to five hours after tapping, the latex is col-lected from the trees Field latex or cuplumps and
“tree-lace” latex (strips or sheets of latex coagulated
on a tapping cut) are collected and taken to a factory, laboratory, or small-holder processing center At the factory or processing center, latex is sieved to remove foreign objects such as stones, branches, and leaves and is then blended by the addition of water or dilute acetic or formic acid About 10 percent of the latex
is shipped as latex concentrate following blending Concentrates of natural rubber latex are obtained by the process of centrifugation and creaming Mean-while, the remainder of the latex and field coagulum are processed, either into conventional types of rub-ber or into technically specified rubrub-ber (TSR) Conventional grades of dry rubber include ribbed smoked sheets (RBS), air-dried sheets (ADS), michel-lin sheets (MS), skim rubber (SR), pale crepe (PC), sole crepe (SC), and brown and blanket crepe (BBC) These conventional grades are based on visual exami-nation that is dependent on criteria set by the Rubber Manufacturers’ Association, headquartered in Wash-ington, D.C These criteria include the presence or absence of extraneous foreign matter, bubbles, uni-formity, intensity of color, and mold and rust spots The major drawback to this method of grading is the lack of technological basis or quantifiable assessment The limitations of the conventional grading of nat-ural rubber led to the development of technically specified rubber (TSR) systems Although the use of
Trang 2TSRs dates back to the 1950’s, the concept was first
introduced into the market by Malaysia as Standard
Malaysian Rubber (SMR) in 1965 The use of TSR
gradings has been facilitated by developments in
pro-cessing technologies, notably the heveacrumb and
communition processes The former is a
chemical-mechanical process, while the latter is a chemical-mechanical
process with no chemical additives
Technically specified rubber has the advantages of
quality assurance, consistency, reduced storage space,
and ease of handling TSR classification varies from
country to country In Malaysia there are at least ten
different grades, and in Indonesia there are more
than five Other rubber-producing countries have
also adopted the TSR grading system
Besides TSRs and conventional types of rubber,
there are at least ten other grades of natural rubber,
including technically classified rubber (TCR),
oil-extended natural rubber (OENR), tire rubber (TR),
deproteinized natural rubber (DPNR), peptized
rubber (PTR), powdered rubber (PR), skim
rub-ber (SR), superior processing rubrub-bers (SP),
hevea-plug MG rubber (MG), and thermoplastic
natu-ral rubber (TPNR) There are also other minor
grades, currently not of commercial significance
Vulcanization
In 1839, a number of fundamental weaknesses
as-sociated with manufactured rubber were resolved
with the development of vulcanization by Charles
Goodyear, a U.S inventor Vulcanization is the
process of treating natural rubber with sulfur and
lead and subjecting the compounds to intense
heat, resulting in what Goodyear first called “fire
proof gum” but later called vulcanized rubber
Present vulcanization technology is simply a
mod-ification of Goodyear’s invention Other forms of
vulcanization are available based on diurethanes,
which are stable at processing temperatures that
may be as high as 200° Celsius or more Vulcanized
rubber can then be processed into a wide range of
applications, including tires, fabrics, bridge
con-structions, condoms, and other latex products
such as adhesives and footwear
Future Uses of Natural Rubber
There are continuing interest and effort on the
part of research scientists and natural rubber
pro-ducers to find new uses for natural rubber Thus,
in addition to conventional uses, especially in tire
production, projections for further uses range from snowplow blades to uses in earthquake-resistant build-ings Although many proposed uses are engineer-ing applications, there are others in the area of wood and wood products that may eventually make rubber plantations important sources for environmental res-toration, given the increasing deforestation that has taken place in the natural rubber-producing areas of the world It should be noted that in rubber planta-tions that are more than forty years old, the regenera-tion of secondary forests with associated wildlife
spe-cies occurs frequently Thus, natural rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) is both an important industrial crop
spe-cies and a major renewable resource
Synthetic Rubber Much of what people typically consider rubber today
is actually synthetic rubber Synthetic rubber is a poly-mer of several hydrocarbons; its basis is monopoly-mers
Latex is gathered from a rubber tree in Phuket, Thailand (Jan-Pieter
Nap)
Trang 3such as butadiene, isoprene, and styrene Almost all
monomers for synthetic rubber are derived from
pe-troleum and petrochemicals The emulsion
polymer-ization process occurs at very high temperatures
There are different types of synthetic rubbers, three
of which are dominant in the rubber industry These
are styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR), polyisoprene
rubber (IR), and polybutadiene rubber (BR) Unlike
natural rubber, with a few exceptions, synthetic
rub-ber is produced mainly in industrialized countries
Theoretically, synthetic rubber production dates
back to 1826, when Michael Faraday indicated that
the empirical formula for synthetic rubber was
(C5H8)x The technology for synthetic rubber
produc-tion was not developed until 1860, however, when
Charles Williams found that natural rubber was made
of isoprene monomers Significant interest in using
synthetic rubber as a substitute for natural rubber
de-veloped only during World War II, when the Germans
were looking for alternatives to natural rubber The
severe shortages of natural rubber during and
imme-diately after World War II stimulated research on
syn-thetic rubber and its technology Today, synsyn-thetic
rub-ber is used in a wide range of applications, and it
constitutes about three-quarters of the total rubber
produced and consumed
Oghenekome U Onokpise
Further Reading
Allen, P W Natural Rubber and the Synthetics New York:
Wiley, 1972
Ciesielski, Andrew An Introduction to Rubber Technology.
Shawbury, England: Rapra Technology, 1999
Del Vecchio, R J., ed Fundamentals of Rubber Technol-ogy Fuquay-Varina, N.C.: Technical Consulting
Services, 2003
Finlay, Mark R Growing American Rubber: Strategic Plants and the Politics of National Security New
Bruns-wick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2009
Jackson, Joe The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire New York: Viking,
2008
Loadman, John Tears of the Tree: The Story of Rubber—A Modern Marvel New York: Oxford University Press,
2005
Morton, Maurice, ed Rubber Technology 3d ed New
York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1987
Roberts, A D., ed Natural Rubber Science and Technol-ogy New York: Oxford University Press, 1988 Sethuraj, M R., and N M Mathew, eds Natural Rub-ber: Biology, Cultivation, and Technology New York:
Elsevier, 1992
Web Site International Rubber Research and Development Board
About Natural Rubber http://www.irrdb.com/IRRDB/NaturalRubber/ Default.htm
See also: Brazil; Indonesia; Rubber, synthetic; Trans-portation, energy use in
Isoprene Units That Compose Natural Rubber
Synthetic Elastomer Chloroprene (Neoprene)
n = about 20,000 (n + 2) CH — C — CH — CH2— — 2 — CH C — CHCH –2 — 2 – CH C — CHCH –2 — 2 – CH C — CHCH —2 — 2
CH
| C
| C
| C
3
(
CH
| C
3
)n
(n + 2) CH — C — CH — CH2 2 — CH C — CHCH –2 2 – CH C — CHCH –2 — 2 – CH C — CHCH —2 — 2
Cl
| C
Cl
| C
Cl
| C (
Cl
| C )n
Formulas of Natural Rubber and Chloroprene, a Synthetic
Trang 4Rubber, synthetic
Category: Products from resources
Synthetic rubbers of more than two dozen types have
been manufactured since the late 1920’s Worldwide
production of synthetic rubbers totals approximately
13 million metric tons annually, almost 45 percent
more than that of natural rubber.
Definition
Rubbers, more properly called “elastomers,” are
com-posed of extremely long-chain molecules (in natural
rubber the molecules contain about twenty thousand
repeating five-carbon units) that are bonded to each
other so that they cannot flow The molecules assume
a coiled shape until they are stretched; then they
straighten out The tendency to reassume the coiled
form accounts for the elasticity of these materials— that is, their resumption of their original shape when stress is removed Natural rubber is made up of units
of isoprene The residual double bonds make it possi-ble to “vulcanize” the natural elastomer—to heat it with 1 to 3 percent sulfur to form −S−S− “cross-links” that hold adjacent molecules together so that they cannot slip and flow away The double bonds also make the rubber vulnerable to deterioration by reac-tion with atmospheric oxygen and ozone Resources used to create synthetic rubber include petroleum feedstocks, alcohol from grain, carbon black from pe-troleum or natural gas, finely divided silica, sulfur, and various organic and inorganic chemicals as cur-ing agents and accelerators
Overview One of the earliest successful synthetic elastomers was neoprene (ASTM code CR), made of chloroprene,
Source:Adapted from P W Allen,Natural Rubber and the Synthetics, 1972.
Crude petroleum
Primary distillation
Vacuum distillation
Gasoline fraction
Naphtha fraction
Gas oil fraction
Steam cracking
Acetylene, ethylene, propylene, butadiene, etc
Propylene, butylenes, isopentene, etc
Catalytic cracking
Distillation of higher molecular weight
fractions (kerosenes, waxes, etc.)
Producing Synthetic Rubber Monomers from Crude Petroleum
Trang 5which resembles isoprene in molecular shape
Neo-prene proved to be resistant to solvents such as
gaso-line and oils, unlike natural rubber, but it was
expen-sive It found applications in specialty tubing,
electrical insulation, gaskets and seals, and protective
clothing
Both the Germans and the Russians used
1,3-buta-diene (CH2=CHCH=CH2) in the 1930’s for synthetic
rubber, but the product was inferior until about 25
per-cent styrene (C6H5CH=CH2) was included in the
re-action mixture This produced styrene-butadiene
rubber (SBR), which is the most common type of
syn-thetic elastomer in use today In slightly varying
for-mulations, and always with about one-third carbon
black (sometimes powdered silica) as a filler and
strengthener, SBR accounts for most of the tire
rub-ber currently in use—which means about 75 percent
of all rubber produced
A reaction of butadiene with acr ylonitrile
(CH2=CH−CN) rather than with styrene produces
acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR), which has
ex-treme solvent resistance and is used in oil hoses, oil
well parts, fuel tank liners, gaskets, shoe soles,
print-ing rolls, and even as a binder in rocket propellants A
hydrogenated form of NBR, with the residual double
bonds eliminated by reaction with hydrogen, is highly
resistant to air oxidation and forms films that prevent
passage of gases
The poor quality of butadiene rubber (BR) was
overcome in the 1960’s by the discovery of special
cat-alysts for the rubber-producing reaction that made
the geometry uniform about the double bond This
produced BR with high resistance to abrasion and
cracking and with low heat buildup with flexing,
qual-ities that have been useful in tire treads, particularly in
the giant tires used on construction equipment
Many specialty elastomers, such as
ethylene-propyl-ene copolymer (EPM), silicone rubber (MQ),
fluoro-carbon elastomers (FPM), epichlorohydrin
elasto-mers (CO or ECO), and polyurethanes (PU), are
produced for their special physical or chemical
(resis-tant) properties Natural rubber still generally holds
the market edge in price, but synthetic elastomers
have taken over large parts of the automotive and
manufacturing markets
Robert M Hawthorne, Jr.
See also: Ethanol; Oil and natural gas chemistry; Oil
industry; Petroleum refining and processing; Rubber,
natural
Rubidium
Category: Mineral and other nonliving resources
Where Found Rubidium is widely distributed in the Earth’s crust in moderate amounts Although it is more common than lead, copper, or zinc, it is never found in concen-trations of more than a few percentage points The main sources of rubidium are various minerals con-taining potassium that are found worldwide It can be found in Maine and South Dakota, in evaporites from other states, and in pegmatite sources in Canada, Af-ghanistan, Namibia, Peru, Zambia, and elsewhere Brine and evaporite sources are located in Chile, China, France, and Germany
Primary Uses Rubidium is used in photoelectric cells and other electronic devices The radioactive isotope of rubid-ium is used to measure the ages of extremely old rock samples Rubidium is also increasingly used as an atomic clock for global positioning satellites
Technical Definition Rubidium (abbreviated Rb), atomic number 37, be-longs to Group IA of the periodic table of the ele-ments and resembles cesium in its chemical and phys-ical properties It has two naturally occurring isotopes and an average atomic weight of 85.47 Pure rubidium
is a soft, silver-white metal Its density is 1.53 grams per cubic centimeter; it has a melting point of 39° Celsius and a boiling point of 688° Celsius
Description, Distribution, and Forms Rubidium is a widely distributed element resembling cesium It occurs as oxides in various minerals that contain potassium in concentrations ranging from less than 1 percent to about 5 percent Because rubid-ium never occurs in higher concentrations and is dif-ficult to extract, its industrial uses are limited How-ever, the radioactive isotope of rubidium is used to determine the age of rocks, minerals, and meteorites
History Rubidium was discovered in 1861 by the German chemist Robert Bunsen and the German physicist Gustav Robert Kirchhoff Because rubidium was diffi-cult to obtain, it had little practical use until the
Trang 6ond half of the twentieth century, when the
electron-ics industry developed
Obtaining rubidium
Rubidium compounds may be obtained from various
potassium ores in a number of ways These
proce-dures all require a complex series of chemical
reac-tions In general, the first step is to obtain compounds
of potassium, rubidium, and cesium from the ore The
potassium compound, which makes up the majority
of this mixture, is separated from the others The
ce-sium is then separated from the rubidium These
sep-arations generally involve forming compounds that
have different solubilities The compounds are
dis-solved, and the least soluble one is crystallized while
the others remain in solution
Once a rubidium compound is obtained, it can
be transformed into free rubidium metal by various
methods One common procedure involves mixing
rubidium chloride with calcium and heating the
mix-ture to between 700° and 800° Celsius A method
of-ten used in the production of photoelectric cells
in-volves mixing rubidium chromate with zirconium
and heating the mixture to about 700° Celsius
Rubid-ium may also be obtained by heating rubidRubid-ium azide
to about 500° Celsius in a vacuum
Uses of Rubidium
The most important use for rubidium is in
photoelec-tric cells Rubidium releases electrons when it is
ex-posed to light, resulting in an electric current
An-other use is based on the fact that the naturally
occurring radioactive isotope rubidium 87 decays
into strontium 87, with a half-life of sixty-three billion
years By measuring the amount of strontium 87
pres-ent, scientists can measure the age of rocks The
ru-bidium atomic clock is extremely accurate, making
satellite and other high-tech applications significant
Finally, rubidium 82 is used in positron emission
to-mography (PET); hence, its applications have
ad-vanced with the use of PET medical technology
Rose Secrest
Web Site
WebElements
Rubidium: The Essentials
http://www.webelements.com/rubidium/
See also: Cesium; Isotopes, radioactive; Lithium;
Metals and metallurgy
Russia
Categories: Countries; government and resources
Russia holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves, the second largest coal reserves, and the eighth largest oil reserves Russia is also the world’s largest exporter
of natural gas, the second largest exporter of oil, and the third largest energy consumer In 2005, the miner-als sector accounted for more than 70 percent of the value of exports, and mineral fuels were the leading category of exports in terms of value Mineral products accounted for about 12 percent of the total value of im-ports in 2005.
The Country Russia is located in northern Asia and eastern Europe and borders the Arctic Ocean between Europe and the North Pacific Ocean In 2008, Russia’s gross do-mestic product was $2.225 trillion, which ranked it
as the world’s eighth largest economy The promi-nent land features in the country are vast interior plains and plateaus rimmed by rugged mountains Between 1924 and 1991, Russia was the cornerstone
of the Soviet Union, or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) On December 25, 1991, the last Soviet president, Mikhail Gorbachev, resigned, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist Boris Yeltsin became the first president of the Russian Federation The Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was then established by republics of the former Soviet Union, including all former Soviet republics except the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
In 2005, the members of the CIS were Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz-stan, Moldova, Russia, TajikiKyrgyz-stan, TurkmeniKyrgyz-stan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan In August, 2005, Turkmen-istan discontinued permanent membership and be-came an associate member Following the South Ossetian War in 2008, Georgia’s parliament voted unanimously to withdraw from the regional organiza-tion
Russia’s economy is heavily dependent on oil and natural gas exports, and its economic growth in the first decade of the twenty-first century was driven primarily by such energy exports Rapid industrial-ization led to massive exploitation of natural re-sources with little thought to environmental protec-tion
Trang 71044 • Russia Global Resources
Russia: Resources at a Glance
Official name: Russian Federation Government: Federation
Capital city: Moscow Area: 6,602,148 mi2; 17,098,242 km2
Population (2009 est.): 141,700,000 Language: Russian
Monetary unit: Russian ruble (RUB)
Economic summary:
GDP composition by sector (2008 est.): agriculture, 4.7%; industry, 37.6%; services, 57.7%
Natural resources: wide natural resource base including major deposits of oil, natural gas, coal, many strategic
minerals, timber; may have significant other natural resources whose exploitation is limited by harsh climate, terrain, and distance
Land use (2005): arable land, 7.17%; permanent crops, 0.11%; other, 92.72%
Industries: mining and extractive industries producing coal, oil, gas, chemicals, and metals; all forms of machine
building from rolling mills to high-performance aircraft and space vehicles; defense industries including radar, missile production, and advanced electronic components, shipbuilding; road and rail transportation
equipment; communications equipment; agricultural machinery, tractors, and construction equipment; electric power generating and transmitting equipment; medical and scientific instruments; consumer durables, textiles, foodstuffs, handicrafts
Agricultural products: grain, sugar beets, sunflower seeds, vegetables, fruits, beef, milk
Exports (2008 est.): $471.6 billion
Commodities exported: petroleum and petroleum products, natural gas, wood and wood products, metals, chemicals,
and a wide variety of civilian and military manufactures
Imports (2008 est.): $302 billion
Commodities imported: vehicles, machinery and equipment, plastics, medicines, iron and steel, consumer goods,
meat, fruits and nuts, semifinished metal products
Labor force (2008 est.): 75.7 million
Labor force by occupation (2007 est.): agriculture, 10.2%; industry, 27.4%; services, 62.4%
Energy resources:
Electricity production (2007 est.): 1.016 trillion kWh
Electricity consumption (2006 est.): 1.003 trillion kWh
Electricity exports (2007 est.): 18.6 billion kWh
Electricity imports (2007 est.): 6 billion kWh
Natural gas production (2007 est.): 654 billion m3
Natural gas consumption (2007 est.): 481 billion m3
Natural gas exports (2007 est.): 173 billion m3
Natural gas imports (2007 est.): 68.2 billion m3
Natural gas proved reserves ( Jan 2008 est.): 44.65 trillion m3
Oil production (2007 est.): 9.98 million bbl/day Oil imports (2005): 54,000 bbl/day
Oil proved reserves ( Jan 2008 est.): 79 billion bbl
Source: Data from The World Factbook 2009 Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency, 2009.
Notes: Data are the most recent tracked by the CIA Values are given in U.S dollars Abbreviations: bbl/day = barrels per day;
GDP = gross domestic product; km 2 = square kilometers; kWh = kilowatt-hours; m 3 = cubic meters; mi 2 = square miles.
Moscow
Finlan
d
Uk
r
in
e
Ka
zakhst
an
China Mongolia
R u s s i a
Caspian
Sea
A r c t i c O c e a n
Trang 8Natural Gas
Russia holds the world’s largest natural gas reserve,
with nearly one-third of the world total Russia gets
about 55 percent of its domestic energy needs from
natural gas It is the world’s largest natural gas
ducer and exporter Almost all the country’s gas
pro-duction is under the control of Gazprom, Russia’s
state-controlled gas company Growth in Russia’s
nat-ural gas sector has been slow because of aging fields,
state regulation, Gazprom’s monopolistic control over
the energy industry, and limited export pipelines
Nearly 70 percent of Gazprom’s natural gas
produc-tion comes from three major fields in western Siberia,
Medvezh’yegorsk, Urengoy, and Kingisepp
Produc-tion from these fields will decline In the future, most
of Russia’s natural gas production growth is expected
to come from independent gas companies
Russia exports significant amounts of natural gas to
customers in the CIS states However, Gazprom has
expanded its natural gas exports to serve the rising
de-mand in the European Union, Turkey, Japan, and
China From 1960 to 2010, natural gas consumption
increased more than fivefold Natural gas generates
smaller amounts of greenhouse gases (GHGs) than
do other fossil fuels and contains fewer pollutants
such as sulfur In addition, natural gas is easier to
clean and burns with much higher efficiency in
elec-trical power plants than do other fossil fuels The
Kyoto Protocol calls for many nations to reduce the
emission of GHGs, especially carbon dioxide Using
natural gas instead of coal in electrical power plants
cuts down on the amount of carbon dioxide emitted
by one-half Natural gas is anticipated to become one
of the main energy sources of choice as the
twenty-first century unfolds The usage of natural gas
world-wide was expected to nearly double from 1996 to
2020 The Russian Federation’s ministry of energy
predicted that natural gas production in Russia would
range between 635 and 665 billion cubic meters in
2010 and between 680 and 730 billion cubic meters in
2020 More natural gas pipelines will likely be
con-structed to export natural gas to many European
countries and to China, Japan, and other Asian
coun-tries
Petroleum
The Russian city of Baku first began trading its oil
around 300 c.e., and by the late 1600’s nearly five
hun-dred hand-dug wells existed in Baku, producing
re-fined oil for lighting and ointments throughout
Per-sia and RusPer-sia In 1833, commercial oil production began in Chechnya In 1846, the first oil well was drilled in Baku by engineer F M Semenov The first American well, drilled by Edwin Drake in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859, marked the beginning of the modern petroleum industry
During the 1980’s, the Soviet Union was the world’s largest oil producer, and the Russian republic pro-duced more than 90 percent of the total However, by
1999, Russia had become the world’s third largest oil producer The fall in oil production was attributed to economic factors following the collapse of the Soviet Union Oil output began to rebound in 1999 after the privatization of the industry following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the rejuvenation of old oil fields As of 2009, Russia was the world’s second larg-est oil exporter Russia gets about 19 percent of its do-mestic energy needs from oil More than 70 percent of Russian crude oil production is exported to CIS coun-tries, Germany, Poland, and other destinations in cen-tral and eastern Europe The majority of Russia’s oil exports are transported via Transneft-controlled pipelines Russian oil exports to the United States have almost doubled since 2004, rising to more than 400,000 barrels per day of crude oil and products in 2007
A Russian tanker ports liquefied natural gas, a major Russian ex-port, to Japan (Kyodo/Landov)
Trang 9According to energy statistics from the U.S
gov-ernment released by the Energy Information
Admin-istration (EIA), Russia holds the world’s eighth largest
oil reserves However, Russia ranked second in the
world in petroleum reserves after Saudi Arabia, based
on the assessment of the Russian government
Rus-sia’s major reserves come from the West Siberian
ba-sin and the Volga-Urals region Offshore baba-sins in the
Barents and the Kara seas and the Caspian basin are
considered to be promising areas for further
develop-ment Russia’s production growth between 2010 and
2020 will depend on the availability of viable export
routes Inefficient construction practices and poor
maintenance have led to frequent pipeline breaks
and leakages, which have impacted the environment
and ecosystems If more efficient oil pipelines are
con-structed, new field developments would likely
pro-duce more than 50 percent of the country’s oil by
2020
Coal
The United States, Russia, and China hold about 60
percent of the nearly 1 trillion metric tons of
recover-able coal reserves Russia holds the world’s second
largest recoverable coal reserves, behind the United
States In the first decade of the twenty-first century,
Russia ranked fifth in the world in coal production,
af-ter China, the United States, India, and Australia In
2006, Russia produced 291 million metric tons of coal,
consumed 235 million metric tons, and exported 55
million metric tons Russia’s two largest coal basins
are the Kansk-Achinsk lignite basin in East Siberia and
the Kuznetsk Basin in West Siberia
Russia gets about 16 percent of its domestic energy
needs from coal Environmental concerns and
grehouse-gas emissions pose challenges to coal as an
ergy source In February, 2005, the Kyoto Protocol
en-tered into force after being ratified by Russia and
other nations By 2007, 169 countries had ratified the
Kyoto Protocol, with the United States and Australia
the only major nations abstaining The Russian
gov-ernment and energy industry wanted to increase coal
production and consumption so that more natural
gases and oil could be exported However, this action
could increase Russia’s GHG emissions
Uranium and Nuclear Energy
Uranium mining in Russia was conducted entirely
by the corporation JSC TVEL’s ore mining
enter-prises, through open-pit mining at its subsidiary JSC
Priargunsky Industrial Mining and Chemical Union Annual uranium production has been about 3,400 metric tons, of which more than 90 percent is pro-duced by Priargunsky Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia owned a large uranium stock-pile, which totaled between 200,000 and 250,000 met-ric tons The country’s annual natural uranium con-sumption amounted to approximately 9,000 metric tons Most of the uranium consumption lies in nu-clear power facilities
Sustainable economic growth and rapid industrial-ization have led to increasing demand for alternative energy resources in the twenty-first century Hydro-power and nuclear Hydro-power are two common alterna-tive energy resources used by many countries Hydro-electric power is productive and supplies nearly all of the electricity in some countries such as Norway Nu-clear power accounts for about 19 percent of the elec-tricity generated worldwide In Russia, power from fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal-fired) accounts for about 63 percent of the electricity generated by Russia, followed by hydroelectric power (21 percent) and nuclear power (16 percent) The Russian govern-ment intends to expand the role of nuclear and hy-droelectric power generation to reduce GHG emis-sions and allow for greater export of fossil fuels However, Russia’s nuclear power facilities are aging and nearly one-half of the country’s nuclear reactors
use the reaktor bolshoy moshchnosti kanalniy, more
com-monly known as RBMK, design employed in the Ukraine’s ill-fated Chernobyl plant In 1986, a reactor explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant near Kiev, Ukraine (then in the Soviet Union), caused a nu-clear meltdown considered to be the worst nunu-clear ac-cident in history; the immediate area had to be evacu-ated and the contamination is not expected to be fully dissipated for at least two centuries To avoid nuclear accidents and radioactive pollution of this or any other magnitude, the Russian government and the nuclear industry need to take actions to ensure the safety of old nuclear power facilities and to develop new nuclear power plants that employ up-to-date technologies
Gold Gold was adopted as the monetary standard by the British Empire in 1821, which led to “gold fever” in the second half of the nineteenth century Many gold-rich placer deposits were discovered in Siberia, Alaska, California, Australia, and South Africa, and
Trang 10gold coinage became the largest use of gold for more
than a century The first gold rush was in Russia,
where the czar encouraged exploration for gold The
production went from 1.5 metric tons per year in 1823
to 5.9 metric tons per year in 1830 By 1846, Russian
production was more than half of the world
produc-tion In the twentieth century, rapid increases in world
gold mining and production occurred Production in
the Soviet Union began a long climb in the mid-1950’s
toward its peak of 302 metric tons in 1990
Total world gold production from its beginnings in
prehistory through 2000 was estimated to be 142,000
metric tons, of which more than two-thirds came from
only five countries—South Africa, 34 percent; Russia,
11 percent; the United States, 10 percent; Australia,
7 percent; and Canada, 6 percent In 1999, Russia
ranked sixth in world gold output The majority of
production was from placer deposits in the eastern
part of country More than 65 percent of the
re-sources are located in eastern Siberia and the Russian
far east In recent history, foreign companies have
controlled 15 to 18 percent of Russian gold
produc-tion, which was the largest share held for any
com-modity in the Russian mining industry
Diamond
In 1999, Russia was estimated to be the world’s third
largest producer of gem and industrial diamonds
The first diamondiferous kimberlite pipe, a low-grade
pipe, was found in Siberia in 1954, and several
higher-grade diamondiferous kimberlite pipes have been
discovered since Among them, the Mir pipe (also
known as the Mirny Mine) was one of the world’s
larg-est excavated holes, with a depth of 525 meters and a
diameter of 1,200 meters Similar to the
diamondifer-ous kimberlite in South Africa, a regional zoning of
the kimberlites occurs within the Siberian Platform A
central zone of diamondiferous kimberlites is
sur-rounded by a zone with pyrope and lower-grade
dia-mond and, then, by a zone of pyrope, and, eventually,
by an outer zone of kimberlites, in which neither of
these high-pressure minerals is present The Almazy
Rossii-Sakha Association (ALROSA) accounted for
97 percent of Russian diamond production and about
25 percent of world rough-diamond production in
2005 Its major mining operations were located in the
Sakha Republic However, in 2005, the company
be-gan production at the Lomonosov diamond deposit
in the northern European part of the country in
Arkhangel’sk Oblast Almost all the production came
from kimberlite deposits near Mirny in the Sakha Re-public ALROSA was able to maintain its level of mine output by gradually switching to underground min-ing to extract low-grade diamond ore reserves Poten-tial production of gem-quality synthesized diamonds may influence the diamond market in the future Rus-sia is also one of the major producers synthesized dia-mond
Nickel Russia is the world’s leading producer of nickel Ac-cording to Russia’s minister of natural resources, the country has 36 percent of the world’s nickel reserves The Noril’sk region had 77.5 percent of the country’s nickel reserves The world-class deposits of copper, nickel, and platinum group metals of the Noril’sk-Talnakh district in Russia are hosted by relatively small, complex mafic-ultramafic bodies that intrude Permian sedimentary rocks and the lowermost suites
of the Siberian continental flood-volcanic sequence Noril’sk has world-class nickel sulfide deposits, with
an estimated reserve of 900 million metric tons of ore Nickel is an important ferroalloy metal used to make nickel steels, nickel cast irons, coinage, and many other alloys More than 90 percent of nickel in Russia has been produced by Noril’sk Nickel, which mines deposits of mixed sulfide ores mainly near Noril’sk in East Siberia, but also on the Kola Peninsula
The city of Noril’sk in western Siberia is probably the most polluted city in Russia Millions of metric tons of toxic gases and wastes are released by the Noril’sk Metallurgical Combine each year The soci-ety and ecosystem in the region are severely damaged Local physicians have reported that residents in the region have a high incidence of respiratory illness and shortened life expectancy (as low as fifty years)
Iron Russia is the world’s fourth-ranked steel producer af-ter China, Japan, and the United States Russia and Ja-pan are the world’s leading steel exporters From
1998 to 2005, Russian steel production increased by more than 50 percent Steel companies in Russia re-lied on iron ore from domestic deposits These depos-its often were owned by more than one Russian steel company Almost 60 percent of iron-ore reserves are located in the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly (KMA) in Eu-ropean Russia, and about 15 percent are located in the Ural Mountains region More than 50 percent of the country’s iron ore was mined from the KMA