A Blog for Browsing Mining, Mineral Processing, and Metals Info

Republican senators led by Lisa Murkowski has introduced bipartisan legislation to secure mineral resources and supply chains, reducing reliance on foreign sources. The new legislation – the American Minerals Security Act – listed lithium, graphite, cobalt and nickel as “critical minerals” to the auto and energy industries.

Read more at: http://www.mining.com/us-senate-introduces-new-bill-boost-domestic-critical-minerals-supply/

Researchers propose modules attached to AC fans to help suck carbon out of ambient air.

A #German-#Canadian team thinks it might be possible to use ordinary building air conditioners to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and convert into “net-zero” emission carbon fuels.

These systems use large fans to expose air to carbon dioxide absorbing materials. The fans need to move vast amounts of air through the systems because carbon dioxide isn’t very concentrated in ordinary air. Even at its current high level, it’s only about 400 parts per billion in the atmosphere.

Read more at: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/may-4-2019-brain-resuscitation-hippos-supply-algae-skeletons-slug-surgical-glue-and-more-1.5119885/how-air-conditioners-could-keep-you-cool-and-capture-carbon-1.5119911

 

 

 

 

 

Booming demand for electric vehicles and insufficient investment in mines could result in a global shortage of minerals needed to manufacture rechargeable batteries in a few years’ time, a Tesla Inc. representative told U.S. officials and mining executives in a meeting in Washington.

Prices for some of the minerals, which include graphite, cobalt, lithium and nickel, could increase as a result of the high demand and the limited supply, Tesla global supply manager of battery metals Sarah Maryssael said in a closed-door presentation Thursday confirmed by the company. Investment is important to ensure there is sufficient supply for the industry to grow, she said.

Read more at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-02/tesla-manager-sees-risk-of-battery-minerals-shortage-in-future?srnd=premium-middle-east

The Scottish government will legislate to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2045 after receiving fresh advice from an expert panel.

The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) urged that Scotland set the target five years ahead of the UK as a whole.

The panel says Scotland has more potential sites for carbon capture and a greater landmass for tree planting.

It came after a report to the UN last year urged the world to go “further and faster” in tackling climate change.

Read more at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-48123960

Graphene and graphene oxide (a more stable version of the material in colloidal solutions) are carbon nanostructures that are extremely promising for biomedicine. For example, it can be used for targeted drug delivery on graphene scales and for tumor imaging. Another interesting property of graphene and graphene oxide is the ability to destroy bacterial cells, even without the additional use of antibiotic drugs.

In the current study, the researchers injected graphene oxide into solutions (nutrient medium and the saline) containing E.coli. Under the terms of the experiment, saline simulated water, and the nutrient medium simulated human body medium. The results showed that the graphene oxide along with the living and the destroyed bacteria form flakes inside the solutions. The resulting mass can be easily extracted, making water almost completely free of bacteria. If the extracted mass is then treated with ultrasound, graphene can be separated and reused.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2019-04-purifying-graphene.html

The esteemed scientist – who has long banged the climate drum and now leads a project that could lower the Earth’s temperature – is perhaps the world’s leading botanist and is on the cusp of something so big that it could truly change our planet.

“We’re trying to do something that’s a huge, complicated thing even though it sounds so simple,” Chory says. “Plants evolved to suck up CO₂ and they’re really good at it. And they concentrate it, which no machine can do, and they make it into useful materials, like sugar. They suck up all the CO₂, they fix it, then it goes back up into the atmosphere.”

She is now working to design plants capable of storing even more carbon dioxide in their roots. Her Ideal Plant project uses gene editing – via traditional horticulture and Crispr – to do so. On a large scale, this could suck enough carbon out of the atmosphere to slow down climate change.

This concept basically splices the genes of regular crops and everyday plants like beans, corn and cotton, with a new compound that makes them absorb more carbon. Their roots then transfer it to the soil to keep it there.

Read more at: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/16/super-plants-climate-change-joanne-chory-carbon-dioxide

LONDON, April 16 (Reuters) – For all the commentary around a transition to a clean energy system, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere is still continuing to rise rapidly and shows no sign of slowing down.

Climate change targets are slipping out of reach as the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to march higher, leaving policymakers confronting uncomfortable choices.

If the concentration continues to rise, policymakers will have to plan for a world with significantly higher temperatures, or rely on untested strategies to remove CO2 from the air later in the century.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/article/energy-climatechange-kemp/column-climate-change-targets-are-slipping-out-of-reach-kemp-idUSL5N21Y4A0

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The global nickel market and its key growth sector, electric vehicle (EV) batteries, will face grave supply shortages unless key Chinese-led projects in Indonesia start up in a timely and cost-effective manner, analysts said.

“The real issue is how quickly the Chinese investors and technology can deliver these projects to the market,” Jim Lennon, senior commodities consultant at Macquarie, told the Fastmarkets Battery Materials conference in Shanghai.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-metals-nickel/nickel-shortage-in-view-unless-china-led-projects-in-indonesia-succeed-analysts-idUSKCN1RN0V3

A new national lithium research hub in Western Australia is hoped to take the state a step closer to developing a battery manufacturing industry.

The $135 million centre, announced today, will operate out of Curtin University in Perth and will look at how to better source minerals and process them into chemicals that are used to develop batteries.

The research centre will be jointly funded by the Federal Government, the State Government and industry to the tune of $53 million.

It will also receive $82 million of in-kind support from the sector.

Read more at: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-10/new-$135m-lithium-battery-research-centre-for-wa/10990222

U.S. government officials plan to meet with executives from automakers and lithium miners in early May as part of a first-of-its-kind effort to launch a national electric vehicle supply chain strategy, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

While Volkswagen AG, Tesla Inc and other electric-focused automakers and battery manufacturers are expanding in the United States and investing billions in the new technology, they are reliant on mineral imports without a major push to develop more domestic mines and processing facilities.

China already dominates the electric vehicle supply chain. It produces nearly two-thirds of the world’s lithium-ion batteries – compared to 5 percent for the United States – and controls most of the world’s lithium processing facilities, according to data from Benchmark Minerals Intelligence, which tracks prices for lithium and other commodities and is organizing the Washington, D.C., event.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lithium-exclusive/exclusive-united-states-sets-sights-on-china-in-new-electric-vehicle-push-idUSKCN1RH1TU