Waste stream yesterday, wanted minerals tomorrow

There’s a handful of people driving change, pardon the pun, in the renewable energy space in Queensland. Dr Helen Degeling is one of them. Cobalt Blue acquisition manager Dr Helen Degeling. Dr Degeling is a geoscientist with a career in academia and private enterprise including extensive field experience. She was also the head of minerals science for the Geological Survey of Queensland until recently. Looking back, the last five years will probably be viewed as an epoch in the development of new energy industries and Dr Degeling was in the right place at the right time. It was in this role that Dr Degeling became a focal point of policy development, public-private enterprise partnerships, community engagement and even the development of trade agreements. She’s now project acquisition manager for Broken Hill-based Cobalt Blue. Main photo above: Cobalt Blue's Broken Hill Cobalt Project The reason that so much cobalt has been left in tailings dams around North Queensland is partly because the processing code was too hard to crack. Cobalt Blue is like the Ford Motor Company of the 21st century. It has developed patented technology to process cobalt from pyrites. The company is developing the Broken Hill project in NSW and cobalt sulphate refinery in Kwinana, Western Australia which will the queen bee to a hive of other projects spread nationally and internationally. Waste stream processing had come of age, Dr Degeling said. “The situation we see now, is that there are a lot of companies very interested in the opportunities,” she said. “Government agencies are putting in money to create the data sets that will support that interest. “Off-takers are actively looking at what they see as a more ethical cobalt supply source, particularly when you consider the dominant sources of supply elsewhere around the world. “And then you've also got operating mines who currently focus on a different commodity, whether it be copper or nickel saying, ‘well, hang on, we've just processed these one or two metals for decades now, what else have we thrown away?’” “Added to that, funding agencies are now saying, this is actually something that we want to have in our portfolio of projects, and are actively chasing investment in waste streams projects. “So it's definitely a really great confluence of events that yesterday's trash is starting to become today's treasure.” Developing critical minerals domestically would be a journey, Dr Degeling said. “It takes a lot of time … you can talk the talk, but it takes time to then be able to walk the walk. This is almost a whole new part of the resources industry. There's a lot of infrastructure that needs to be built and a lot of money that needs to be spent by government and industry. “It takes time for resources companies to change their working models. They'll have existing offtake agreements already that are dominantly going be offshore. Existing infrastructure will need to be modified, or new infrastructure built. So we can't just flick a switch and all of a sudden these giant manufacturing centres pop up and they've got a ready supply of materials to start streaming in. “There's a series of steps that needs to be taken. It will be more of a partnership between industry and government than we’ve seen in the past. We're talking about creating an entire new industry here in Australia that previously hasn't been economic.” Australia is already a preferred destination for the supply of critical minerals to the EU and US due to the security of supply and high ESG standards to which it holds its industries.

Waste stream yesterday, wanted minerals tomorrow

Industry Queensland

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