The Atomic Energy Licencing Board will monitor Lynas’ thorium extraction, says Minister

KUALA LUMPUR: The Atomic Energy Licencing Board (AELB) will closely monitor the thorium extraction process from its radioactive waste by Lynas Malaysia, assures The Science, Technology and Innovation Minister.

Chang Lih Kang said thorium extraction involved no new technology and had been carried out in many other countries.

“In countries with mines, they do not use this method because it involves high costs. They need to use existing mines to re-bury (waste) in those mines.

“They don’t need processes like the water leach purification waste (WLP), but in our country, we can’t do that because there are no mines here,” he said while wrapping up for his ministry on the Supply Bill 2024 at the committee stage on Thursday (Nov 16).

Several government backbenchers MPs raised concerns about the disposal process of the water leach purification waste, which could be classified as radioactive.

They argued that the accumulated WLP waste in the Lynas plant could be considered hazardous and must be sent back to Australia, with some calling for Lynas to cease its operations.

Chang said there had been no discussions about this extraction technology process conducted by Lynas Malaysia or other parties.

However, Lynas Malaysia had expressed their preparedness to carry out thorium extraction.

“AELB will be a monitoring agency, and not only that the body will conduct periodic monitoring to see the progress on how they conduct the process from lab to the industry,” said Chang.

On Oct 24, the government allowed Lynas to import naturally occurring radioactive materials (Norm) on the condition that the company was required to extract thorium from the water leach purification (WLP) residue until the radioactive content met the required level as set by the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB).

Chang said the company would be required to ensure that radioactive content in the WLP residue was below one becquerel per gramme (Bq/g).

(Becquerel per gram [Bq/g] describes the rate at which radioactive material emits radiation in a given time period).

According to Chang, these were the new stringent conditions that the government had attached to the renewal of Lynas’ licence, which would expire in March 2026.