What is the least percentage of lithium required? Is Auther coming in below 1.0?
I'm trying to find the post regarding Rio working on CO2 capture with tailings in experimental stage that was posted but can't find..
Found this:
Using tailings to get to net zero - Canadian Mining Journal and
Rio Tinto, OZ Minerals and Boliden select glycine leaching technology to manage tailings - MINING.COMCarbon mineralization is a natural process whereby rocks react with CO2 and convert it into rock, where it can be stored in a safe and stable form for thousands of years. Ultramafic rocks can contain highly reactive minerals that have strong potential for carbon mineralization. The mining process strongly enhances that potential by breaking up the rock.
“The overall process is a natural process of weathering, but it happens much much faster in mine waste because the rocks have been finely crushed and the surface area is much higher, Dipple says.
In fact, Dipple’s past work at BHP Billiton’s Mt. Keith nickel mine in Western Australia showed that mine tailings at the operation were offsetting 11% of its carbon emissions.
“We demonstrated it was doing 40,000 tonnes a year of captured mineralization in their tailings – accidentally and unknowingly at the time,” he says.
In addition to developing ways to measure the carbon mineralization process, Dipple’s work is focused on speeding up and enhancing the natural process.
“Our work looks to double or triple that rate through relatively inexpensive surface modifications like churning and managing water content.”
In the lab and last year, in the field with work funded by FPX Nickel and the federal government on material from FPX’s Baptiste nickel deposit, 90 km northwest of Fort St. James, B.C., CarbMin Lab succeeded in that goal.
The trial, conducted on 300 kg of sample material crushed to the same expected size of tailings (50-360 microns) demonstrated a rate of carbon capture of 2 grams CO2 for each kg of material when it was churned or stirred daily to a depth of 12 cm, compared to 1 gram CO2 in material that wasn’t churned.
“Our work has shown that if you just manipulate it less than 30% of their tailings – the 30% that are the most reactive, then the mine would be greenhouse gas neutral,” Dipple said. “And if you did more than that, it would have a negative greenhouse gas footprint.”
The first 24 days of the trial took place near Prince George, B.C. (with similar climate conditions to the project but away from Fort St. James and smaller communities as a pandemic precaution) and completed in Vancouver at the UBC campus. Results haven’t yet been released for the second part of the trial, but this year, tests on Baptiste material will be scaled up to a few tonnes from hundreds of kilograms.
The active mineral at Baptiste is brucite – and Martin Turenne, president and CEO of FPX Nickel says it is found throughout the deposit, so selective mining would not be necessary to access its carbon absorption benefits.
The junior has made a point of disclosing test results on Baptiste mineralization to show the fundamental science to the market.
(20min delay)