A potentially highly significant “development” has just been announced in China.
At first sight, it relates only to changes in methods of refining nickel, primarily in the manufacture of stainless steel. But, if verified, the process has profound (and negative) implications, both for the health of Chinese people, and for that of communities in Indonesia and the Philippines. Already saddled with proposals for massive new conventional nickel mines, citizens in these two south-east Asian countries may now well ask: will this technology displace the old, only to threaten different dangers with the new?
The development also has profound implications for London-listed BHP Billiton and Xstrata, both heavily invested in nickel.
See http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=10184.