US awards record $6bn to back industrial emissions reduction projects
The US Energy Department on Monday announced $6 billion in federal funding to subsidize 33 industrial projects in 20 states to cut carbon emissions, saying the investment would support well-paying union jobs and boost US competitiveness.
-
-
Visit: 73
Indonesia understates methane emissions from mining, report says
Methane emissions from Indonesia’s expanding coal mining sector are significantly underreported, jeopardizing the nation’s international climate commitments, according to new analysis from energy think tank Ember.
-
-
Visit: 67
Researchers monitor emissions from Africa’s Copperbelt mines from space
Mining News Pro - A new study led by the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) found that emissions associated with mining operations in Africa’s Copperbelt can be quantified from space.
-
-
Visit: 115
Australian coal miner’s plans may double its methane emissions
Mining News Pro - Whitehaven Coal Ltd.’s plans to expand its mining operations could double the Australian company’s methane emissions by the end of this decade, according to an analysis from energy think tank Ember, undermining the nation’s global climate commitments.
-
-
Visit: 157
Carbon-capture plants also have harmful emissions — but there is a solution
Mining News Pro - In a paper published in the journal Science Advances, the researchers explain that amines are compounds used in the chemical processes of carbon-capture plants and natural gas processing and refining plants. Amines are also used in certain pharmaceuticals, epoxy resins, and dyes.
SIGN UP FOR THE ENERGY DIGEST
The problem is that amines could also be potentially harmful to the environment as well as a health hazard, making it essential to mitigate their impact. This requires accurate monitoring and predicting of a plant’s amine emissions, which has proven to be no easy feat since carbon-capture plants are complex and differ from one another.
This is where the new development comes in.
Tested in Niederhauẞen, on one of the largest coal-fired power plants in Germany, the solution was used for a full year to monitor a slipstream that is sent from the power station into a carbon capture pilot plant.
Stress test
The scientists created a stress test to study amine emissions under different process conditions. “We developed an experimental campaign to understand how and when amine emissions would be generated. But some of our experiments also caused interventions of the plant’s operators to ensure the plant was operating safely,” Susana Garcia, co-author of the study, said in a media statement.
These interventions led to the question of how to interpret the data. Are the amine emissions the result of the stress test itself, or have the interventions of the operators indirectly affected the emissions? This was further complicated by a general lack of understanding of the mechanisms behind amine emissions.
“In short, we had an expensive and successful campaign that showed that amine emissions can be a problem, but no tools to further analyze the data,” study co-author Berend Smit said. “When Susana Garcia mentioned this to me, it sounded indeed like an impossible problem to solve. But she also mentioned that they measured everything every five minutes, collecting many data.”
Looking for patterns
With the help of PhD student Kevin Maik Jablonka, the group developed a machine-learning approach that turned the amine emissions puzzle into a pattern-recognition problem.
“We wanted to know what the emissions would be if we did not have the stress test but only the operators’ interventions,” Smit explained. “This is a similar issue as we can have in finance; for example, if you want to evaluate the effect of changes in the tax code, you would like to disentangle the effect of the tax code from, say, interventions caused by the crisis in Ukraine.”
In the next step, Jablonka used powerful machine learning to predict future amine emissions from the plant’s data.
With this model, the team was able to predict the emissions caused by the interventions of the operators and then disentangle them from those induced by the stress test. They were also able to use the model to run all kinds of scenarios for reducing these emissions.
The conclusion of this work was described as “surprising”. As it turned out, the pilot plant had been designed for pure amine, but the measuring experiments were carried out on a mixture of two amines: 2-amino-2-methyl-1-propanol and piperazine. The scientists found out that those two amines respond in opposite ways: reducing the emission of one increases the emissions of the other.
“I am very enthusiastic about the potential impact of this work; it is a completely new way of looking at a complex chemical process,” Smit said. “This type of forecasting is not something one can do with any of the conventional approaches, so it may change the way we operate chemical plants.”
-
-
Visit: 252
Nth Cycle’s critical mineral refining, recycling technology reduces emissions
Mining News Pro - Critical minerals became a much more mainstream media conversation with the recent introduction of US president Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
-
-
Visit: 360
How to Cut Steel Industry’s CO2 Emissions
Mining News Pro - RMI reveals product-level carbon accounting guidance, giving corporations and steel companies the power to accelerate decarbonization of a sector contributing ~7 percent of global greenhouse gases.
-
-
Visit: 733
BHP, Pan Pacific Copper and Norsepower partner to reduce emissions on shipping routes
Mining News Pro - BHP has partnered with Pan Pacific Copper – a member of JX Nippon Mining & Metals group, and Norsepower – a global provider of auxiliary wind propulsion systems, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from maritime transportation between BHP’s mines in Chile and PPC’s smelters in Japan.
-
-
Visit: 626
Tussle over new UK mine embodies fight over coal-related emissions
Mining News Pro - The UK is weighing whether to approve its first deep coal mine in three decades, a controversial £165 million ($199 million) project now facing opposition from an environmental law nonprofit group that says it exposes investors “unreasonably and unnecessarily” to financial risk.
-
-
Visit: 466
Ten financial actors own half of the world’s oil, gas, coal emissions
Mining News Pro - Ten financial actors with the most influence on the fossil fuel economy own 49.5% of potential emissions from the world’s largest energy firms, a recent study has found.
-
-
Visit: 513
Feeding copper to microbes may help curb GHG emissions
Mining News Pro - New research has shown that in the complex, dynamic aquatic environments some microbes call home, there might not always be enough copper available for denitrification, an important process that helps the earth fight climate change.
-
-
Visit: 447
Australia’s opposition party flags more ambitious emissions goal
Mining News Pro - Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton indicated his group will set a target before the next election for a bigger cut in emissions, but said that coal and gas should continue to be “a part of the mix.”
-
-
Visit: 771
Canada to invest millions to cut emissions at BHP potash mine
Mining News Pro - Canada will announce a multi-million dollar investment on Monday to make the Jansen potash mine run by the globe’s largest listed miner, BHP Group, “the cleanest and most sustainable in the world,” a government source said on Sunday.
-
-
Visit: 585
MKS PAMP first precious metals refinery to set SBTi-approved carbon emissions reduction targets
Mining News Pro - MKS PAMP, provider of financial and physical trading services and precious metals refinery, announced Wednesday that it is the first precious metals company in the world to have SBTi approved carbon emissions reduction targets, committing to a 1.5°C emissions reduction in line with the Paris Agreement.
-
-
Visit: 491
How 12 key industries can cut emissions in line
Mining News Pro - Seven years after the 2015 Paris Agreement, a growing number of countries and companies have committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
-
-
Visit: 510
Steel industry emissions to decline 30% by 2050
Mining News Pro - Steel industry’s carbon emissions are expected to fall 30% by 2050 compared to 2021 levels, according to a new report by Wood Mackenzie.
-
-
Visit: 764
Nickel, graphite make up half Tesla’s battery emissions
Mining News Pro - Elon Musk has on more than one occasion expressed concern about nickel availability, but Tesla’s headaches when it comes to nickel don’t end there.
-
-
Visit: 592
Are the emissions targets of companies ambitious?
Mining News Pro - We analysed the emissions reduction targets of 1,138 companies to find out which are leading the way, and which are lagging on their commitments.
-
-
Visit: 557
BHP to cut emissions by 30% with first LNG-powered bulk carrier
Mining News Pro - BHP has taken a key step towards its goal of reaching net-zero by 2050 after receiving the first of five LNG-powered carriers to transport iron ore from Australia’s Port Hedland to Asia.
-
-
Visit: 442
Platinum catalyst may be the key to reducing methane emissions
Mining News Pro - Researchers at Iowa State University, Purdue University and Johns Hopkins University have found and tested a catalyst technology that appears to be safe and efficient to keep methane out of the atmosphere and make use of the greenhouse gas.
-
-
Visit: 608
China vows to cut carbon emissions from aluminum smelters by 5% by 2025
Mining News Pro - China pledged to cut carbon emissions from aluminum smelters and reduce steel capacity under a five-year plan that adds some details on Beijing’s drive to reshape heavy industries.
-
-
Visit: 639
How Congo could become low-cost, low-emissions producer of battery materials
Mining News Pro - In a report launched at the DRC-Africa Business Forum 2021 taking place this week in Kinshasa, BloombergNEF (BNEF) states that the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) could leverage its abundant cobalt resources and hydroelectric power to become a low-cost and low-emissions producer of lithium-ion battery cathode precursor materials.
-
-
Visit: 680
Teck and Oldendorff team up to reduce supply chain CO2 emissions from BC port
Mining News Pro - Teck Resources and Oldendorff Carriers have announced an agreement to employ energy efficient bulk carriers for shipments of Teck steelmaking coal from the Port of Vancouver to international destinations to reduce CO2 emissions in the steelmaking coal supply chain.
-
-
Visit: 631
Rio Tinto CEO says zero emissions path might not be clear until 2030
Mining News Pro - The chief executive officer of Rio Tinto Group, the world’s biggest iron ore miner, said it might take until the end of this decade before the company has a clear view on how it will become fully carbon neutral.
-
-
Visit: 676
Top miners doubt customers can match their zero-emissions target
Mining News Pro - The world’s top miners are confident they can eliminate emissions from their own operations by 2050, but aren’t yet sure their customers can do the same.
-
-
Visit: 453