Mineral Resources: Stocks, Flows, and Prospects

This chapter focuses on metals as they provide the clearest example of the challenges and opportunities that mineral resources present to society, in terms of both primary production and recycling. Basic concepts, information requirements and sources of consumer and industrial resource demand are described as well as the destabilizing effects of volatile resource prices and supply chain disruptions. Challenges facing extraction of in-ground resources and production of secondary resources are discussed and scenarios for the future considered. The results of the scenarios indicate that particularly energy and, as well, water and land requirements could become increasingly constraining factors for metal production. Key research questions are posed and modeling and data priorities discussed, with an emphasis on areas that require novel concepts and analytic tools to help lessen negative environmental impacts associated with minerals. The challenge of sustainability requires collaboration of practitioners and analysts with a multidisciplinary understanding of a broad set of issues, including economics, engineering, geology, ecology, and mathematical modeling, to name a few, as well as policy formulation and implementation.

Life cycle based greenhouse gas emission assessment from ferroalloy production

Ferroalloys are defined as iron-bearing alloys with a high proportion of one or more other elements typically manganese, chromium, silicon, molybdenum and nickel. Ferroalloys are mainly used by the iron and steel industry and ferroalloy production is closely related to steel production. The leading ferroalloy-producing countries in 2008 were, in decreasing order of production, China, South Africa, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. These countries accounted for 77% of world ferroalloy production. The major ferroalloys are ferrochromium (FeCr), (ferro)-silicomanganese (FeSiMn or often referred to as SiMn), ferrosilicon (FeSi), ferromanganese (FeMn), ferronickel (FeNi), ferromolybdenum, ferrotitanium, ferrotungsten and ferrovanadium. The increased emphasis on sustainability in recent years has seen the value chains for the production of materials including metals, come under close scrutiny. Life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology has been developed to assist in this task, particularly in regard to assessing environmental impacts of these value chains. Despite the significance of the ferroalloy industry, there have been very few LCAs of ferroalloy production reported in the literature. The study described in this paper uses LCA methodology to estimate the greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of ferroalloy production, in particular, FeMn, SiMn and FeSi, and to update the GHG footprints of FeCr and FeNi previously estimated. This paper has been prepared assuming ferroalloy production is based in Tasmania with some broader Australian comparisons. Comparisons with other studies have also been presented

Energy use and Greenhouse Gas emissions issues facing the minerals processing industry

Mineral processing industry in Australia is facing significant challenges to use better energy sources so as to effectively reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. Cooperative Research Center for sustainable Resource Processing (CSRP) has presented the estimates of emerging situations for the industry, available technologies for the GHG reduction, identify examples of good practice in the industry, and investigate areas for targeted research. The main focus of the study remained mineral processing, metal production, excluded mining, and manufacturing. The availability of energy supplies and the emission of greenhouse gases are supposed to increasingly restrict the production of minerals and metals. The most economically sensible required responses to reduce GHG emissions should evolve in the form of improving efficiency, maximizing the benefits of existing methods of production, developing novel technologies, and undertaking the fundamental work of measuring, collecting, and analyzing energy requirements

Development of Low-Emission Integrated Steelmaking Process

This paper provides a summary of the progress made over the 8 years of an R&D program that focused on the development of know-how and processes that could result in substantial reduction in net CO2 emission by the steel industry. The processes that were developed covered introduction of renewable carbon and energy sources as well as minimising waste heat from processes. The current status of each of the processes and application areas is provided. The use of biomass-derived fuels and reductants in the ironmaking and steelmaking industry provides a sustainable option for reducing net CO2 emissions at a lower capital cost and technological risk than other breakthrough technologies under development. A key focus of this program has been to partially substitute these fossil-based fuels with renewable carbon (charcoal) from sustainable sources such as plantations of biomass species or forest wastes. Raw biomass is unsuitable for applications in ironmaking and steelmaking and should be converted into charcoal (char) through a pyrolysis process before use. A new pyrolysis process which operates continuously and autogenously has been developed and piloted. The biomass-derived chars and hydrocarbon fuels have great potential in lowering the net CO2 emissions of integrated (BF-BOF route) steel plants. Life cycle assessment has quantified the potential reduction in net CO2 emissions and covers cradle to gate, including plantation, harvesting, transport, pyrolysis and use of chars and bio-oil products. The properties of chars produced by biomass pyrolysis can be tailored to each of the several applications proposed (sintering solid fuel, cokemaking blend component, blast furnace tuyere injectant, liquid steel recarburiser, etc.), thus resulting in optimal performance and greater value-in-use of the char. Our economic analysis has made allowance for such value-in-use in applications, particularly as a replacement for BF pulverised coal injection. This analysis shows that key factors influencing the economics are the net cost of producing charcoal from biomass, selection of pyrolysis technology, value of the pyrolysis by-products, as well as the value-in-use for the charcoal. Dry slag granulation (DSG) has the potential to make a fundamental change in slag treatment and deliver a more sustainable alternative compared with the conventional water granulation process. The DSG process not only saves valuable water resources and reduces sulphurous emissions, but it may also recover a large amount of the high-grade heat in molten slag so to reduce greenhouse gas emission. CSIRO has been working on the development of a novel DSG process, integrated with heat recovery, since 2002 and has made significant progress in process design and optimisation based on process modelling, laboratory investigations, extensive pilot plant trials and characterisation of the solidified product granules