Publication: CIM Magazine
Clear and clean
Monitor, share, innovate, reduce and repeat. This is the new water cycle for mines. Access to water is a growing global humanitarian and environmental challenge. In the latest World Economic Forum Global Risks Report, water crises ranked fifth in terms of global impact. Competing demands for water will result in food crises, large-scale involuntary migration and... Read more »
Publication: CSIROscope
Biomaterials are the business
By Kylie Williams Petrochemicals are, like, so last century. Biodegradable, bioderived biomaterials are all the rage, and for good reason too. Products like plastics, paints, adhesives and lubricants are mostly derived from dwindling supplies of petroleum, an increasingly costly finite resource. With pressure mounting to reduce our dependence on petroleum products, CSIRO is leading the... Read more »
Publication: CIM Magazine
Less is more
The retrofit at Rio Tinto’s Kitimat operation has the smelter producing more without an increased footprint In 2011, Rio Tinto announced plans to modernize the 60-year-old Kitimat Aluminum Smelter in north-central British Columbia. Four years and $ 6 billion later, construction of the new smelter was complete. The plant has been operating at full capacity... Read more »
Publication: CIM Magazine
From white rocks to green products
Hudson Resources sees multiple uses for the unique deposit at its White Mountain project Large deposits of pure, highly calcic anorthosite have only been discovered in two places in the known universe: Hudson Resources’ White Mountain project in Greenland and the moon. The Vancouver-based miner’s project contains high calcium, low-sodium anorthosite, an igneous rock that... Read more »
Publication: Innovation
Mercury Rising: Artisanal Mining in Developing Countries … a Global Pollution Problem
Many Canadian engineers and geoscientists who visit projects in developing countries see evidence of artisanal mining—people panning barefoot in a muddy stream, a hillside pockmarked with holes and tunnels, or rudimentary processing plants belching toxic fumes into the air. These isolated sightings under-represent the global scale of the problem. More than 30 million people worldwide are artisanal miners. Half are artisanal gold miners,... Read more »
Publication: Ontario Mining Review Fall 2016
Tiny creatures making a big splash in Ontario mines
By Kylie Williams Stored in the basement of a building at the University of Guelph is an unusual library. As of late June 2016, it contained five million snippets of DNA or “barcodes” for 550,000 unique species – the first and largest collection of DNA barcodes in the world. Ontario is the birthplace of DNA barcoding. Dr. Paul Hebert, director of... Read more »
Publication: Ontario Mining Review Fall 2016
Energy solutions for ultra-deep mines
By Kylie Williams A number of alternative energy sources and innovations are being developed across Canada to overcome the challenges of mining at depths greater than 2.5 kilometres below the surface. Ranging from electric vehicles to geothermal heating and cooling options, these products and solutions are rapidly being brought to market by small to medium... Read more »