CRC ORE - Impact to Date - 2019
CRC ORE - Impact to Date - 2019
CLICK TO WATCH | 0:58
161
IES provides the opportunity to optimise downstream processing performance from this newly engineered feedstock .
Dr Adair urges that , to reduce the mining industry ’ s energy and water footprints , it ’ s important to take a “ helicopter view ” of where the sector is today .
“ We get delusional about the current status quo ,” he says . “ The fact is that for base and precious metal operations , we still mine huge volumes of rock and send it into a process plant where 99 % or more of this mate rial has no value whatsoever . Further , the comminution process used on this material is in itself less than 10 % energy efficient in breaking rocks and collectively consumes 3 % of the worlds ’ electricity — enough to keep the lights on in Germany each year !”
Dr Adair adds : “ We also over-grind the material to extract the target minerals , way beyond what is necessary to efficiently separate and recover the metal . Consequently , we generate enormous volumes of ultra-fine waste . Current process plants are also water intensive and these waste streams are too fine to self-drain . As a result , we store waste in wet tailings dams and
miningglobal . com