Miners Test Greener Ways to Dig
July 16 2018 - 5:59AM
Dow Jones News
By Rhiannon Hoyle
Miners are considering new ways to make the dirt they dig up
green.
Across the U.S. border in Quebec, a research facility will
fine-tune a technology that its owners -- Alcoa Corp. and Rio Tinto
PLC -- believe could turn aluminum smelters carbon-free for the
first time. Another initiative under way in Sweden could see
hydrogen replace coking coal in manufacturing steel.
Miners have long seen investing in technology as a way to bring
costs down and protect profits during swings in the global economy.
But a new force for change has recently emerged: customers such as
Apple Inc. and Audi AG that see a marketing advantage in ensuring
their products are cleaner and greener than before.
Nestlé SA's coffee brand Nespresso, for example, wants to source
all the aluminum for its capsules from sustainably managed
operations by 2020, which includes strict limits on greenhouse-gas
emissions. Audi introduced sustainability ratings for suppliers a
year ago and said that was becoming just as important in
determining its purchases as cost and quality.
"You want your green iPhone, not your brown iPhone," said John
O'Brien, a clean-technology specialist at Deloitte in
Australia.
Alcoa had spent nearly a decade at a site near Pittsburgh
testing technology that would release oxygen instead of carbon
dioxide during the smelting process when it was approached by
Apple. Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple liked the technology's
potential but worried how long it would take to become commercially
viable.
"An iMac has more than half a pound of aluminum in it, so they
are really interested in supporting advancement of technologies
that allow them to reduce the footprint of their product," said
Vincent Christ, chief executive of the Rio Tinto and Alcoa joint
venture, called Elysis.
Sarah Chandler, Apple's senior director of operations and
environmental initiatives, said, "We wholeheartedly reject the
notion that you can't protect the environment while protecting your
bottom line."
For Rio Tinto and Alcoa, it wasn't just about satisfying a big
customer. Innovations like electric vehicles and batteries to power
homes are deepening markets for a basket of long-ignored
commodities such as cobalt. As a result, global mining companies
want to shore up demand for the metals and minerals that have long
generated the bulk of their profits.
Manufacturing iron, steel and aluminum can be heavily polluting.
Together, these sectors account for a combined 30% of direct
industrial carbon-dioxide emissions, according to the International
Energy Agency.
Producers want to ensure their metals don't get substituted for
cleaner alternatives or become exposed to carbon taxes. In the
U.S., a group of veteran conservative political leaders recently
established a political-action committee to amplify calls for a
levy on emissions.
Mr. Christ said low- or no-carbon metal likely can be sold at
premium prices, while the technology has the potential to lower
costs and lift production each by 15%. The venture aims to begin
selling the technology in roughly five years.
Consumer-goods companies concede they were caught off guard by
the strength of feeling among their customers about which
commodities they use, and in what amounts.
Nespresso had focused on promoting how it sources its coffee
when it realized customers were fixated on the packaging, said
Daniel Weston, who leads the unit's legal and corporate-affairs
team. He also is the chair of the Aluminium Stewardship Initiative,
an organization that has been set up to certify aluminum that meets
certain environmental, social and governance standards. In April,
Rio Tinto became the first company to be certified.
Critics say the mining industry has been slow to embrace change.
Rio Tinto and Alcoa's Elysis technology, if commercialized, will be
the first significant shift in the way aluminum is made in more
than a century.
In the Swedish city of Luleå, steelmaker SSAB AB, iron-ore miner
Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB and power-generator Vattenfall AB are
jointly building a pilot steel factory that will use hydrogen in
place of coking coal. They expect the facility to start testing
their Hybrit technology in 2020, with a goal of producing
fossil-free steel by 2035, SSAB said.
Sweden wants to become a net-zero emissions country in 2045, "so
that makes the need for developing a breakthrough technology even
more relevant," said SSAB Chief Technology Officer Martin Pei.
Other technologies on trial globally include a system in China
that pares steelmaking emissions while turning waste into a
sellable material used to make cement.
Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research
Organisation, or CSIRO, has spent a decade developing a supersonic
nozzle to make magnesium metal with 70% fewer
carbon-dioxide-equivalent emissions. It is racing to adapt it for
lithium, an in-demand commodity used in electric vehicles.
While the developers of the Elysis and Hybrit technologies hope
to revolutionize the steel and aluminum industries, CSIRO
mineral-resources director Jonathan Law said researchers have
largely focused on technologies that can "bolt on and have a big
impact quickly."
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 16, 2018 05:44 ET (09:44 GMT)
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