This year, the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) is reaching a major milestone – 75 years of providing valuable research, development and demonstration to Saskatchewan industry and beyond. SRC is focused on providing services that support the province’s key economic sectors, such as mining, minerals, energy, oil and gas, agriculture and biotechnology, as well as meeting the environmental needs of industry.
Throughout its history, SRC has been a part of many important firsts for the province. In the 1970s, SRC was a leader in energy efficient housing research and its work formed the basis for the development of the R-2000 standard for energy efficient homes. In the 1980s, SRC played a large role assisting the Saskatchewan energy industry by enabling the implementation of horizontal wells in and the use of carbon dioxide (CO2) for enhanced oil recovery.
SRC Geoanalytical Laboratories’ ISO/IEC 17025:2017 accredited secure diamond laboratory was established in the early 2000s and is now the largest such facility in the world. SRC’s Rare Earth Processing Facility, supported with $31 million in funding from the Government of Saskatchewan, will be the first-of-its-kind in North America as it comes online early in 2023.
Today, SRC’s environmental remediation work in northern Saskatchewan also leads industry with its community engagement, project management and environmental practices, some of which have translated to other government programs like the Ministry of Energy and Resources’ Accelerated Site Closure Program (ASCP).
These are just a few examples of how SRC has pioneered initiatives that benefit Saskatchewan over the past 75 years. Going forward, SRC is strongly committed to continuing to create positive impacts for the province while it supports government and industry in new and emerging strategic areas including the energy transition and critical minerals.
SRC is Canada’s second largest research and technology organization. With nearly 300 employees, $137 million in annual revenue and 75 years of experience, SRC provides services and products to its 1,500 clients in 27 countries around the world.
Don’t skip this important step for optimal workplace safety
Many aspects of safety management have evolved over the past few decades, but one of the things that has remained at the forefront is safety reporting. Safety professionals today still struggle to get the point across to the workforce that it is important to report hazards, unsafe acts and conditions.
The general attitude
Before getting into why employees should report hazards, let’s look at the general attitude towards reporting. When asked why they don’t report, employees working at different levels of an organization have a number of responses. The most common answer is, “When I see something unsafe, I fix it immediately and there ends the matter. Why waste time reporting it when it is not unsafe anymore?” (Some of the worst answers include “I don’t care” and “Nothing is going to change in this place anyway so why bother?”)
These answers are all wrong. On the surface, the first answer may seem correct. However, there are significant advantages of reporting hazards, unsafe acts or unsafe conditions, and this article is going to examine those next.
Why people don’t report safety hazards
The reasons people don’t report can involve human factors or the reporting process itself. Human factors range from having no trust in the organization to address the unsafe act or condition, reporting being seen as “spying” or “blaming,” a feeling that it’s a waste of time, not being aware or not understanding the benefits of reporting, laziness, forgetfulness and so on.
Process factors are important, as well. If there is a long and complex form to fill out and copies aren’t available close to the work area, employees may not be inclined to take that extra effort. Sometimes, employees do not have time even for a few minutes to be away from work. In some situations, management may even discourage reporting to save time or try to hide the conditions.
Benefits of reporting
Why report? The main thing people say, even from those who have very positive attitudes towards safety and who follow all procedures correctly, is that first answer mentioned above – it is only important to fix the unsafe act or condition. It is true that once fixed, a hazard is being removed and an accident is being prevented from happening. However, reporting what was seen and what was done will prevent not only that one incident but many other incidents, too.
How? The report can be communicated to others so they take similar steps in their work areas or activities to fix the situation and, therefore, prevent incidents from happening in their areas. All the reports collectively create a profile for a particular work site or the organization. The profile can be analyzed to identify trends that can help prioritize resources and form specific strategies.
For example, if there are a large number of reports related to employees lifting objects incorrectly, then training sessions can be arranged to educate on the right lifting technique.
Every report involves a lesson learned, whether it is the way people have behaved or the conditions or equipment that has been maintained.
This lesson can be communicated to others so they can take necessary actions. Communicating lessons learned from one incident and followed by others will prevent more incidents.
The number of reports indicates awareness and attitude of the workforce and can be a leading indicator in measuring safety performance.
All this would not be possible if the report was not there in the first place.
Every report involves a lesson learned, whether it is the way people have behaved or the conditions or equipment that has been maintained.
How to increase reporting
The first step is to educate the workforce about the benefits of reporting. This provides context and increases awareness about why reports matter. However, the single most effective measure is creating trust in the workforce: trust in management and the process that, once reported, things will change for the better and hazards will be removed.
This can happen only if management, supervisors and occupational health and safety committee members take every report seriously and meticulously address the issues. Acting promptly goes a long way in reassuring the workforce that their reporting efforts are not wasted.
The education provided should also note that reporting is not “spying” or “blaming.” This message must be backed by actions (or no actions) by management, to encourage and recognize those who report. Recognition could be in the form of a simple “pat on the back,” a mention during the safety meeting or even establishing an award program to recognize the efforts to report and the quality of reporting.
Trust is a major motivating factor. Making reporting easy and convenient also helps a lot. A simple reporting form where minimal information is needed is helpful. Once workforce trust is earned, it is easier to get “reporting” into the culture of the organization and part of everyday work habits.
Create a safe workplace
When a hazard is seen, resolving it in the best possible manner is only the first step. It is just as important to follow with the second step: reporting it so others are aware and benefit as well. Spread the news around to help everyone create a safe workplace!
As the digital age continues to expand and our everyday tasks (e.g., emailing, banking, online storage) continue moving to the cloud, there seems to be never-ending requests for new login usernames and passwords.
For cloud service providers (those that offer free email, banks, credit card companies, business sites) and your workplace, you likely need a login username and password to access your data. (And your home computer and personal devices should have login credentials enabled, too!)
Password requirements vary from one cloud system to the next and in some cases, there are no format or length requirements. Herein lies the problem for you (and your workplace) – it’s an opportunity for hackers to gain access to your confidential information.
Cloud application providers with no requirements for their password lengths, composition or expiration (i.e., length of time before you need to change your password) allow you to use the same login username and password at multiple sites. The problem with this is once one site is compromised and your password is exposed, hackers can start using your login info at other sites (e.g., targeting popular social networking sites).
So, although these providers might be easy to access, the risk is greater than the benefit of what you’re signing up for.
Ideally, websites will require password length, composition or expiration, but of course this creates a new problem: “How do I remember all my different login credentials?”
One simple solution is to write them down and stick them to your monitor or under your keyboard. It’s probably not the worst solution to maintain your list, but also not the best since hackers and thieves know where to look for this info at places of business or homes. There are also password protection/generation applications, but the best ones come at a price.
So, what can a business or each of us as individuals do? This is where a subset of multi-factor authentication, called two-factor authentication, helps prevent the unauthorized use of your login username and password. If you think of your password as the first “factor,” then adding one more step is the second or “two-factor.”
The “two-factor” can be based on something you “know” or “have” or “are” or somewhere you are.
Something you “know”
The simplest to set up and the most commonly available to consumers (non-business solutions) is the something you “know.” This is usually offered by many sites when you set up your account or enable two/multi-factor authentication. You chose the question and provide the answer.
The questions available to you are usually ones that hackers can’t research to find the answer – so you will not see “what is your birthdate?” The questions are along the lines of where was your mom born? Where did you parents meet? What was the name of your first pet? Although it’s tempting to select a question that has an easy answer, keep in mind the easier it is for you, the easier it might be for a hacker to find, too.
Something you “have”
This one is typically based on a code that you must enter after your password is accepted. There are cell phone applications and tokens (small devices that generate the code) that generate a code that you can enter after your password is accepted.
There are also services that can send a text or call your cell phone with a code you enter in order to access your account or in the case of a phone call, press a number to permit your login.
Once one site is compromised and your password is exposed, hackers can start using your login info at other sites.
Something you “are”
This one is primarily based on biometrics, such as a fingerprint, retinal scan or a voice print. For example, many mobile devices and applications allow you to sign into your account with your fingerprint.
Somewhere you are
This is also known as “geofencing.” This permits you to login (or not login) when you are in a certain geographic region. For example, an application that only allows you to login if you are located within a five-kilometer radius of your place of business or house.
Let’s get into why two-factor authentication is so important.
Historical data shows us that hackers have breached some of the most significant cloud services and have gained access to millions of usernames and passwords. Sometimes, these same usernames and passwords are used at other sites by people like yourself, so it’s only a matter of time that one of the hacked username/password combinations allows cyber criminals into another application you have access to. (Remember: hackers have nothing but time and use multiple computers to try username/password combinations on various sites.)
Enabling two-factor authentication
Recently, cloud service providers have started to offer two-factor authentication (or in some cases multi-factor, which means more than one question must be answered).
This feature isn’t always turned on by default, so it must be enabled by you, the “user” of the account. (Tip: Search in the service provider’s online help for two-factor or multi-factor or search on the web to see how to set up two-factor for your service provider.)
The recommendation is to enable two-factor/multi-factor authentication on all your personal accounts (e.g., email, bank, credit card, online shopping). After your password (the first factor), then the second, third and fourth factors (or more) are something the hacker will have a difficult time guessing or researching. For them, having only your login information won’t be enough to break into your account. Hopefully, they’ll give up and move on to the next person.
Two-factor and working remotely
In 2020, a large part of the workforce moved to a “working remotely” strategy. In some cases, this may have presented an opportunity for hackers to gain access to your corporate network. Guess what your first line of defense is? Two-factor or multi-factor authentication! Make sure your business has enabled two-factor/multi-factor authentication and if not, enable it on your business account.
It takes a bit of extra work to use two/multi-factor authentication, but it takes less time than recovering your online accounts (and life) if you’re hacked.
In the coming decade, the need for rare earth elements (REEs) will increase many-fold due to their importance in high-growth technology areas such as wind turbines and electric cars. Canadian rock formations hold 12 per cent of the world’s REE measured resources. But currently, no REEs are being processed in Canada due to both a Chinese monopoly as supplier and end user, as well as the lack of a fully developed supply chain in North America.
The Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) is looking to change that by securing an early and important piece of the supply chain for industry – a Rare Earth Processing Facility. The $35 million dollar facility was announced in the summer of 2020 by the Government of Saskatchewan. The facility will be located in Saskatoon, Sask., and completion is slated for the fall of 2022.
The facility, a first-of-its-kind in North America, will begin to establish a REE technology hub in Saskatchewan, forming an industry model for future commercial REE initiatives and supply chain development.
A key element of the facility is a commercial processing plant, which will include concentration and separation stages and treat monazite sands at approximately 60 per cent concentration. Monazite is a source of mainly so called “light” REEs (especially cerium, lanthanum, praseodymium, neodymium) which are some of the critical elements for the permanent magnets used in clean technologies. SRC will work with the mining industry to secure this feed stock from across Saskatchewan, Canada and internationally.
The $35 million dollar facility was announced in the summer of 2020 by the Government of Saskatchewan. The facility will be located in Saskatoon, Sask., and completion is slated for the fall of 2022.
An intermediate concentrate of mixed rare earth carbonates will be produced from the concentration plant and further processed in a separation plant to produce separated rare earth oxides, as the market requires. These will be sold by SRC and further refined and processed to provide the inputs that original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) require.
The treatment capacity of the plant will be 3,000 tonnes per year, producing an initial product: mixed rare earth carbonate. Part of the mixed rare earth carbonate will be fed to the separation plant to produce approximately 500 tonnes of separated, individual rare earth oxides, excluding cerium.
SRC’s Rare Earth Processing Facility will follow the most stringent operating standards. To minimize the risk for the environment, the plant will be designed to have zero liquid discharge, which means that there will be no solution waste streams that are released into the environment. All solid waste will be handled and disposed of properly following regulations and procedures, as SRC and mining companies in Saskatchewan currently do.
SRC has decades of experience in testing and development of concentration and separation technologies of REEs from various minerals, as well as operational experience. With mining clients in Canada and across the world, SRC has developed and piloted many REE concentration and separation processes. This experience, combined with being located within Saskatchewan’s world-class mining jurisdiction that has a vibrant and sustainable uranium industry, are key assets to future success. The uranium industry also produces a REE-rich solution waste stream (containing mainly so called “heavy” REEs) that can be an additional feed source for the plant, as markets require.
SRC currently offers a large variety of REE services through existing service lines and facilities. These include:
Rare earth processing technology development and commercialization
Uranium tailings processing and treatment; recovery of thorium and uranium
Validation and demonstration of rare earth processing technologies in bench, pilot and semi-commercial scale
Rare earth production from bastnaesite, apatite and uranium processing waste
Once the facility is operational, SRC will be able to offer a number of other services to industry including potential toll separation of individual rare earth elements and potential toll processing of monazite. This will mean that mining companies around the world will have the option to sell their feedstock to a North American Rare Earth Processing Facility for the first time.
In the future, SRC plans to use this facility as a starting point for the creation of an REE technology hub, which will likely include developing downstream and upstream aspects of the REE supply chain. Future development also includes new applications for lanthanum and cerium. In order to do this, SRC is currently developing capabilities for downstream rare earth product development and the production of magnets and alloys.
The future certainly looks bright for the rare earth elements industry in North America and this facility and the proposed REE technology hub will play a key part in securing a supply chain right within Canada.
