The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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Canadian tech company EnviCore and nickel mining company Talon Metals are teaming up to pioneer a "full value mining" technology that converts mine waste into products for the building, construction, and infrastructure industries. This new technology has the potential to transform waste from nickel mining – called tailings – into additional products with added value for stakeholders. The resulting byproduct would replace primary raw materials in legacy cement and concrete prod...
Li-Bridge alliance unveils blueprint to build resilient US lithium battery supply chain. A wide chasm lies between where the United States is today and securing the lithium battery mineral resources and manufacturing capacity required to achieve ambitious visions of a green energy future where electric vehicles are charged with low-carbon energy. An alliance of America's national laboratories and more than 40 companies representing the entire lithium battery supply chain have...
Highly promising startup reveals first commercial-scale rare earth element refinery in the US. Rising from the ashes, an American startup that was early in the field of rare earth element separation, Phoenix Tailings, has made a brilliant comeback with the announcement of the first rare earth refinery to begin production in the United States. Founded in 2018, Boston-based Phoenix Tailings had a significant head start at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Seeing the potential...
Awarded EPA grant for critical mineral waste and P2 prevention assistance at MO and AK mines. Wanting to better understand the effects of pollution and waste related to the mining of critical minerals, a Missouri University Science and Technology team has been awarded nearly $1 million from the Environmental Protection Agency for a study in their home state and Alaska. "The United States is facing a critical minerals crisis, and Missouri S&T is uniquely positioned to help...
Each year in Canada, roughly 200 active mines contribute to billions of tons of mining waste. The estimated number of tailing storage facilities surveyed worldwide is over 12,000. While considered industrial waste, these facilities also contain a number of useful minerals at a concentration deemed too low to be worth extracting-until now. Enter biomining, which covers several biological separation technologies offering eco-friendly recovery of valuable and strategic materials...
The growing list of critical minerals and conflict elements like cobalt are drawing intense focus and demand for alternative sources. Investors and consumers are increasingly focused on the environmental, social and governance (ESG) credentials, provenance, and indirect emissions of these supply chains. If done right, prioritizing urban mining – specifically moving recycled materials upstream in supply chains – could provide cheaper domestic supply with a lower emissions foo...
Rio Tinto, Fortune Minerals team up to recover critical minerals at Nico refinery in Alberta. To bolster the North American supply of critical minerals, global mining giant Rio Tinto and Canadian mine developer Fortune Minerals Ltd. are working together to improve the recovery of bismuth and cobalt from ore and waste streams. "We are committed to find better ways to provide the materials the world needs to grow and decarbonize," said Rio Tinto Kennecott Managing Director Nate...
A flurry of industry partnerships on battery material projects followed landmark alliance between nations. In a move that aligns Canada's rich minerals endowment with Japan's battery-making expertise, the two countries have entered into a historic battery supply chain agreement. "Canada and Japan are committed to advancing our shared ambitions to develop sustainable and reliable global battery supply chains," said Canada Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry...
From a small sprout to a mighty tree, Redwood Materials Inc. may share its roots with the Tree of Tesla but has grown into a pillar of stability in the realm of recycling amidst a time when electric vehicle battery materials are becoming increasingly difficult to source. This battery and e-waste startup's vision of creating a domestic supply through recycling has drawn nearly $2 billion in new investment to expand its operations in the U.S., spreading its own "Sequoian" roots...
As the cracks in the wall continue to chill the bones of an ill-prepared American clean-energy economy, attention has been paid to nearly every facet imaginable to obtain the minerals critical to fuel a zero-carbon future; however, all has seemingly been quiet on the unconventional front. Repeated time and time again during the ongoing transition, U.S. policymakers are becoming increasingly concerned about the overreliance on China for the minerals and metals essential to...
While lithium has been the poster child for optimism and controversy in equal measure, nickel has its own crucial role to play in the batteries powering the clean energy future – increasing range and capacity – but is traditionally carbon-heavy to produce. For nickel, the industry's focus has been twofold – obtaining enough and moving the needle between untenable quantities of emissions from mining and processing and the battery and alloying metal's necessary inclusion in ne...
Lithium is an indispensable element in the clean energy transition for several key reasons; like all alkaline metals on the periodic table, it has one more electron than it strictly needs, and this tendency to shed electrons makes it well-suited for passing them back and forth between cathode and anode, charging and discharging thousands of times without degradation. Pure lithium does not occur in nature, but traces are found throughout nearly all igneous rocks, mineral...
From promising solid-state battery technology that could eliminate range anxiety for electric vehicle owners to solar panels and thermoelectric devices that transform sunshine and heat into low-carbon energy, tellurium is emerging as a secret ingredient of the clean energy future. "It has flown largely under the radar, even though it's essential for cadmium-telluride solar panels and new lithium-tellurium batteries that could revolutionize energy storage," said Tyrone...
Urges the mining industry to build goodwill and trust to survive societal, geopolitical, and new technology megatrends in a changing world. Newmont President and CEO Tom Palmer did not waste his keynote address at the Minerals Week 2023 gathering in Australia to tout the many achievements of the world's largest gold mining company he leads. Instead, he delivered a powerful and sometimes foreboding message to the mining leaders in the room and around the world about the...
$2.1M awarded to three companies advancing tech for more sustainable, productive mining The Greater Sudbury region of Ontario is so enriched with deposits containing nickel and other metals needed for the clean energy transition that one of the area's parliamentary districts is named Nickel Belt. Looking to also be an epicenter of sustainable mining technologies, Marc Serré, member of parliament for Nickel Belt, and Viviane Lapointe, member of parliament for the neighboring...
U.S. policymakers have become increasingly concerned about overreliance on China for the minerals and metals essential to clean energy technologies. Today China controls roughly one-third of the global market for critical minerals and rare earth elements, and several countries, including Australia, are making strides toward developing robust domestic resource extraction and processing industries of their own in response. To take advantage of recent federal tax credits for elec...
At first glance, it appears that mining giants have been slow on the uptake during the booming market for battery materials. This may demonstrate an unusual lack of forethought, or over the next few years, may actually prove they've been two steps ahead. In less than a decade, the likes of lithium, cobalt, and graphite went from minor materials to a demand so intense that several electric vehicle (EV) and battery manufacturers are jumping the usual supply chain and investing...
Similar to some International Space Station experiments for mining in space, the University of Waterloo in Southern Ontario has been using microorganisms as an environmentally friendly means of breaking down tailings here on Earth, reclaiming critical resources and cleaning up the leftovers of yesteryear at the same time. A common byproduct of mining, tailings are typically fine-grained waste material left after extracting a target ore mineral. Stored in various media such as...
While not quite as easy as whipping up a science experiment in the kitchen, a research group from the Osaka Metropolitan University Graduate School of Engineering has developed an inexpensive and eco-friendly way to condense various rare earth elements (REEs) from natural water sources using common, food-safe ingredients. The research group, led by Professor Masayuki Azuma and Associate Professor Yoshihiro Ojima, have successfully tested an adsorbent material using dry...
Global electrification of an extensive amount of industrial processes necessitates a counterbalance to the wave of new mining required for the electric vehicles and renewable energy infrastructure to meet carbon neutrality imperatives without doing further damage to the environment or simply displacing problems to other areas of the value stream. Technologies for capturing carbon dioxide are improving, but the captured CO2 still needs a rock-solid alternative to expensive...
PNNL to verify G1 Graphite material for EV batteries; Sandia to explore innovative green tech to extract critical minerals. Toward its goal of establishing an all-American supply chain for the graphite that goes into the lithium-ion batteries powering the transition to electric vehicles charged with low-carbon energy, Graphite One Inc. is working with two U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories for the testing of active anode material made from graphite sourced from...
The challenge of reducing emissions from the mining industry as a whole is ongoing and especially vital for the metals needed in renewable power and de-carbonized transportation. Taking center stage in this push, the electric vehicle space is being tasked to evaluate the overall environmental impact of EV battery life cycles. Scalable solutions are needed by 2030 for the anticipated first wave of batteries soon reaching end-of-life to keep them out of the toxic waste stream....
OZ Minerals, Rio Tinto and Boliden launch initiative that encourages entrepreneurs to reimagine mining and mine tailings. Setting aside professional rivalries for the greater good, OZ Minerals, Boliden, and Rio Tinto have joined forces to nurture new technologies that will reduce the environmental risks posed by mine tailings and extract value from these materials currently considered waste after the targeted metals are extracted. "It isn't very often that competitors come...
Chosen as one of 16 projects across 12 states, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's "Re-Mining Red Mud Waste for CO2 Capture and Storage and Critical Element Recovery" (RMCCS-CER) project will receive $1 million in funding to advance a technology that may kill two birds with one stone in the race for critical materials. Announced in November, as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Mining Innovations for Negative...
Rio Tinto, Scania are reimagining mining with more agile and efficient self-driving truck. Will the automation and electrification of mining trucks shrink the size of equipment used to dig up and haul ore and waste rock at mines around the globe? Rio Tinto believes it could and has teamed up with Scania to develop more energy-efficient and agile autonomous haul trucks at the Channar iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. "Rio Tinto is excited to partner...
