Symposium promotes an industry with potential as big as its challenges

The inaugural Australian Mine Waste Symposium has wound up in Brisbane leaving its audience with a wider appreciation of a future which sees the issues scaled up in proportion to the potential to produce minerals for the new economy. The symposium addressed both re-mining tailings dams and managing an exponentially larger waste stream generated by the new economy push towards a 2050 net zero carbon emissions. Main image: Glencore was represented at the symposium by Alastair Grubb and Daisy Ambush Solutions floated at the conference include locking the waste up in building blocks, extracting all minerals from the ore before it is dumped and unlocking reserves currently stored in legacy tailings. The devil in the detail was also revealed in the form of limits in processing capacity, political and regulatory issues and unintended consequences. A conference facing up to these and other issues had been long overdue, said co-chair and Superstar of STEM, Associate Professor Anita Parbhakar-Fox. Associate Professor Anita Parbhakar-Fox “I've been to so many international conferences of acid rock drainage, and I've always been the weird kid in the room because I've been the person who's been like, well, why don't we characterise the minerals and do something different? It's all resources,” Professor Parbhakar-Fox said. “And I guess time and time again, the engineers, the other practitioners in the room have been like, ‘no, we're just going to cover the wastes. We're going to try and monitor it for a few decades and then sign it off back to the government and job done.’ " The coming generation of geoscientists would rescue the argument and reprioritise goals, said Professor Parbhakar-Fox, who is also the lead on the Sustainable Minerals Institute's Mine Waste Through Characterisation program based at the University of Queensland. “One really exciting thing that I saw of these past two days was the enthusiasm and the interest from young generations to actually rise to the challenge, to actually position themselves and dedicate their careers to finding these waste solutions," she said. “They're committed to actually educating themselves in terms of the opportunities to mine waste, and they'll dedicate their time so differently. So, I think that's been fantastic to hear their voice here.” Quoting the guest speaker Ashleigh Morris from consultancy firm Coreo, Professor Parbhakar-Fox said the most urgent need was a change in attitude to make the term ‘waste’ redundant and see economic potential in the whole ore body rather than one mineral. Professor Mark Noppe, WH Bryan Mining Geologogy Research Centre On conclusion of the symposium, WH Bryan Mining Geology Research Centre Director Professor Mark Noppe said he was proud to see the range of representation from industry and government in the room. “And that was one of the themes, actually, was join the conversation,” Professor Noppe said. “What they've done is put together a program that's kicked that off and I think as Anita mentioned earlier in her opening as one of the co-chairs, let's look forward to what they put together for perhaps later next year as symposium No. 2 and hopefully we see a lot of advancement and improvement. “It's a rapidly changing landscape around mine waste, mine waste repurposing, rethinking mine waste as potentially not waste. That came through pretty well I think.” Delegate Chamari Pushpamali from the Geological Survey of Queensland said it highlighted the need for more research and innovation. Principal geoscientist RSC geology consultants Dr Nishka Piechocka Meanwhile, principal geoscientist at Perth-based RSC Geology consultants Dr Nishka Piechocka said she was surprised to learn of the scale of commodities that could be extracted from mine waste and said there was a commercial opportunity. "We have the capability and capacity to conduct the mineral characterisation work," said Dr Piechocka. "We have an experienced team of qualified Geoscientists and and in house SEM which means we can do that early stage characterisation of minerals in the samples allowing us to provide companies with valuable information regarding their mine waste." The success of the symposium, which attracted more than 160 delegates, was testament to how far the industry had come, Cobalt Blue's Brisbane-based project acquisition manager Dr Helen Degeling said. Dr Helen Degeling "A few years ago, if we'd held something like this, nobody would've shown up because, 'oh my God, how boring is mine waste?" Dr Degeling said. "But now, there is so much energy in this space, there's enthusiasm for it. "We've heard multiple technology solutions over the last few days. “We've heard multiple, multiple case studies of people doing good work, good geology and science, but also looking at the economics in a different way, understanding what is it that makes something viable, and is that beyond just our traditional view of viewing waste as a mining project, and does that economic lens apply? “There're just so many great ideas being thrown around and so many big brains from academia and industry and from government people as well, bringing all the great thoughts together.”

Symposium promotes an industry with potential as big as its challenges

Industry Queensland

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