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

Climate scientists meeting in #Korea are being urged to avoid relying on untested technologies as a way of keeping global temperature rise under 1.5C.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will shortly publish a report on how the world might stay below this limit.

Early drafts said it would require machines to suck carbon out of the air.

The IPCC special report, to be released on Monday, is expected to point towards the use of technology as a critical part of efforts to keep below the guardrail figure.

Earlier versions of the document stated that all the pathways to keeping below 1.5C required rapid reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions with net-zero reached by the middle of this century.

If emissions continue at the present rate, the world would “overshoot” 1.5C by 2040. If this happens, researchers believe that carbon dioxide removal technologies, in some form, would be needed to help bring the Earth’s temperature back down.

The IPCC report is expected to mention a number of approaches that range from planting more trees, to direct air capture of CO2, to bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS).

The latter involves growing large amounts of plants that capture CO2, and then burning them for energy while capturing and storing the gas that is emitted.

This has long been a controversial approach – requiring huge amounts of land to grow crops for burning. Previous research calculated an area twice the size of India would be needed to help the world stay under 2C of warming this century.

“It sounds crazy, and it is crazy,” said Dr Glen Peters, a climate researcher at the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, Norway.

“But this may be the only way to keep temperatures well below 2C.

“I struggle to see how the world can remove billions of tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere for decades, but if we want 1.5C then we have to accept that this may be the only possible pathway.”

Read more at: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45742191

A team at #MIT has come up with a lithium-based battery system that soaks up carbon dioxide directly from inside power plants, converting the waste steam into a (#CO2-loaded) electrolyte – one of the three main parts of a battery.

#Lithium-carbon-dioxide batteries typically require metal catalysts to function, because carbon dioxide is not very reactive. The problem is, the catalysts can be expensive to source, and the chemical reactions involved can be difficult to control.

To get around this, a team led by mechanical engineer Betar Gallant achieved electrochemical carbon dioxide conversion without the metallic catalyst, using only a carbon electrode.

The answer was to use CO2 in a liquid state, incorporating it into an amine solution.

Read more at: https://www.sciencealert.com/new-lithium-battery-technology-could-soak-up-carbon-dioxide-to-power-itself-co2-ccs-capture-storage-sequestration

The only operating rare earths mine in the U.S. – and once the world’s biggest — is caught up in the crossfire of the #Trump administration’s trade war with #China.

Rare earths, an esoteric group of materials used in everything from #Tesla Inc. automobiles to high-tech military equipment, were dropped this week from the U.S.’s final $200 billion catalog of tariffs on Chinese goods, but China didn’t reciprocate on its own hit list.

“The ten-percent tariffs provide a real challenge, and the prospect of 25 percent is daunting,” James Litinsky, chief executive officer of JHL Capital Group LLC, the majority owner of the Mountain Pass consortium, said by email. “We believe that we can compete without tariffs, and we don’t understand why there would be tariffs on us, when there are no tariffs on #Chinese producers.”

Read more at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-27/the-californian-rare-earths-mine-caught-between-trump-and-china

Two decades earlier, #WanGang persuaded #China’s State Council to throw its vast power behind the risky, unproven technology of electric cars. He advocated using government money, including subsidies, to help create a world champion industry that would surpass Western automakers. That coupe he was admiring at the April auto show? It was built by homegrown NIO Inc.

#ElonMusk made a name for himself promoting new-energy vehicles, but when the history of the electric car is finally written, #Wan may loom larger. #Chinese drivers buy one of every two #EVs sold, and the global auto industry is pivoting to adjust. It’s a revolution fomented by #Wan, a former minister of science and technology whose achievements are even more extraordinary when you consider that he never joined the Chinese Communist Party.

Read more at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-09-26/world-s-electric-car-visionary-isn-t-musk-it-s-china-s-wan-gang

Chemists at the Department of Energy’s (#DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (#ORNL) have demonstrated a practical, energy-efficient method of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from air. If deployed at large scale and coupled to geologic storage, the technique may bolster the portfolio of responses to global climate change.

For the recent ORNL study, Williams and Flavien Brethomé mixed amino acids with water to make an aqueous sorbent to grab CO2 from air. Amino acids are safer than caustic sodium or potassium hydroxides or smelly amines, the sorbents used in industrial CO2 scrubbers.

The scientists put their aqueous sorbent in a household humidifier to maximize contact between air and sorbent and thus speed CO2 uptake. Once absorbed into the liquid, the CO2 formed a bicarbonate salt.

Read more at: https://www.ornl.gov/news/chemists-demonstrate-sustainable-approach-carbon-dioxide-capture-air

 

The #US appears to have shelved its plan to levy tariffs on a critical collection of minerals used in everything from hybrid vehicles to electronic gadgets and military hardware.

Rare earths including #Scandium and #Yttrium are absent from the latest list of about $200 billion of #Chinese goods on which the #Trump administration plans to impost duties from next week. They were among a number of items scrubbed from the preliminary target list released in July along with car seats and Bluetooth devices.

Read more at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-18/china-s-grip-on-rare-earths-may-have-proven-too-strong-for-trump

By Fergus Jensen

JAKARTA, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Several global metals producers have set their sights on Indonesia’s nickel reserves to tap an expected surge in demand for the metal for electric vehicle batteries.

Sumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd (SMM) said on Thursday that it and nickel miner PT Vale Indonesia are conducting a feasibility study to build a nickel processing project in Pomalaa, Southeast Sulawesi.

Read more at: https://www.nasdaq.com/article/nickel-producers-eye-indonesia-to-plug-into-ev-battery-market-20180914-00171

#Nickel, which recently hit its lowest since December, could climb as high as $16 000 a tonne by the end of 2018 and $18 000 a year later – #Macquarie Capital.

Read more at: http://www.miningweekly.com/article/nickel-price-to-benefit-from-short-supply-strong-steel-demand-through-2019-2018-09-12

#Congo is the world’s biggest source of #Cobalt, which is used to make rechargeable batteries in electric cars manufactured by companies including #Volkswagen. The country also produces more than a quarter of the world’s #Tantalum, used in Apple iPhones and other smartphones.

The Democratic Republic of Congo plans to establish special economic zones for companies that manufacture goods from the country’s minerals.

Read more at: http://www.miningweekly.com/article/congo-plans-to-build-special-economic-zone-for-cobalt-users-2018-09-12

It’s been a rough road for carbon capture. But are we underestimating its long-term potential?

Earlier this summer, a #Harvard researcher said he can potentially pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere for as little as $100 per metric ton. The news reinvigorated many people who had resigned themselves to an ever-warming planet. The announcement also received push back from some scientists and environmentalists who fear creation of a “moral hazard” if experimentation undermines the political will to halt emissions and the subsequent technology turns out to not work well enough to halt global warming.

Nevertheless, money is already flowing into this “negative emission technology” research. #Microsoft co-founder #BillGates and others are supporting at least three demonstration projects — in #Iceland, #British #Columbia and #Switzerland — that strive to take carbon out of the air, and more investment is on the way. The #US tax code has also improved the risk profile of carbon sequestration projects in the United States with new Section 45Q tax credits offering up to $50 per metric ton and lifting a pre-existing annual cap on emissions.

Read more at: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/if-carbon-tech-follows-batterys-path-co2-capture-could-be-super-cheap-by-20#gs.qC9cXkU