Environmental Science, 10th Edition (Cunningham)

Chapter 23: Ecological Economics

GE Exercise: Norilsk Nickel Smelter, Russia

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To continue:
- Make sure you have the Google Earth software installed and running.
- Copy the following latitude and longitude and paste into the "Fly to" field under the Search tab.
- Hit "Enter" for Google Earth to take you to the specified coordinates, then come back here and read the following overview.

Latitude/Longitude: 69.3632, 88.1339

Overview: Norilsk Nickel Smelter, Russia, p. 523

Norilsk has the heavy metal mining complex in the world and is one of the world's most polluted places. Norilsk was founded in 1935 as a slave labor camp and it remains a closed city from which all foreigners (and observers) are excluded. The city still has much of the bleak, grimy character of its pioneer days. Every year the mines and smelters produce more than 400,000 metric tons of copper, 250,000 tons of nickel, 95 tons of palladium, and 22 tons of platinum. In this process, 2,000 tons of dust, ash, and toxic metals, including cadmium, copper, lead, nickel, arsenic, selenium and zinc, are dispersed into the city air. Other air pollutants in the city include Strontium-90, Caesium-137, sulfur dioxide, particulates, phenols, and hydrogen sulfide. Snow turns black as soon as it falls in Norilsk, and the air tastes bitter and metallic. Acids from sulfur and nitrogen oxides eat away paint. Everything is coated with soot and ash. Factory workers' life expectancy is 10 years below the Russian average (which is already one of the lowest in the industrialized world). Respiratory diseases are extremely prevalent. Children living in Norilsk are twice as likely to become ill as elsewhere in Russia. High rates of miscarriage and birth defects as well as infertility have been reported. Many residents would like to leave Norilsk, but, having been attracted there by relatively high wages, they are now too sick to move elsewhere.

This view shows the main factory complex. Note the smokestack shadows, as well as the uniform color of the landscape. Smelting (heating ore to extract minerals) produces large amounts of acidic air emissions that can damage or destroy vegetation downwind of a smelter. If you zoom out and move northeast and from this place marker, you can see that there is more than one smelter complex in the area. Russia produces about 20 percent of all the heavy metals in world commerce. We all benefit from this dirty industry. Without copper, nickel, platinum, palladium, gold, and other metals, your computer, cell phone, TV, automobile, and all the other machines on which modern life depends wouldn't be possible.

1
Note the housing complex just east of the factory. What are some of the costs that may be associated with this nickel mine and smelter?
A)High health costs
B)Lost work days
C)Reduced productivity of ill workers
D)Shortened life expectancies of workers
E)All of the responses above
2
Are environmental and health costs limited to the area near the factory? (Hint: Refer to the case of Sudbury, Ontario, discussed in chapter 16.)
A)The environmental and health costs from the operation of this factory are limited to the local region.
B)The effects of this factory's pollutants have wide, though diffuse effects (because high-altitude pollutants tend to distribute rapidly around the globe).
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