New environmental regulations such as the guidelines on hazard solid wastes management, the updating of the air quality and emissions standards, the draft law on mine closure and environmental mining wastes (abandoned mines) that is being discussed by the authorities and the mining sector, or initiatives about efficient use of the energy and water resources will allow the environmental goods and services market to keep growing.
According to an estimation of the OECD, the annual average growth rate of the environmental goods and services industry will be about 10% in developing countries for the next years. For instance, in Chile this market reaches US$ 600 million annually. Unquestionably, the mining industry is following this trend, taking into account that the exploitation of mineral resources generates a high impact on the environment through the movement of materials, the consumption of water and power resources and the generation of gases, liquid effluents and massive solid wastes (waste rock, low grade ore, leached material, tailings, slags, etc.).
In the last decades, the mining and metallurgical industries worldwide, including Chilean companies, have had to modify their technological processes to meet the environmental regulations required by their governments, as well as to come up with the public opinion.
At present, companies that carry out mining projects have more environmental responsibilities, the concept “from cradle to grave” is applied. This means that companies should keep a preventive focus on each step of the project life cycle, from the exploration till the closure, including the monitoring for a number of years after the operations are closed.
Since environmental issues, like many others, have not been the “core business” for mining companies, a specialized market with firms capable to provide goods and services of high quality in various fields of environmental issues has developed
For example, between 1989 and 2002, the five State Chilean copper smelters invested over US$ 1.5 billion in their operations to comply with the new air quality standards (particulate matter and sulfur dioxide) and of arsenic emissions regulation .
These investments generated an important market for gases handling systems. At present, these smelters together with other two private ones use settling chambers, scrubbers and electrostatic precipitators to clean gases and recover dusts, containing mainly copper and arsenic. These dusts are leached afterward to recover copper for recycling into the smelter or for treating in SX-EW plants, while other elements are neutralized and deposited away in a safe way. Then gases containing sulfur dioxide (SO2) are treated in plants to produce sulfuric acid, which is used in hydrometallurgical processes.
Thus, a virtuous circle is created between two copper-processing technologies: pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy, said Dr. Mario Sánchez, professor at the Metallurgical Engineering Department of the University of Concepción in Chile.
Now, new environmental regulations such as the guidelines on hazard solid wastes management, the updating of the air quality and emissions standards, the draft law on mine closure and environmental mining wastes (abandoned mines) that is being discussed by the authorities and the mining sector, or initiatives about efficient use of the energy and water resources will allow the environmental goods and services market to keep growing. Marcela Angulo, Vicepresident of Association of Environmental Enterprises and Professionals (AEPA), Chile and Manager of Environmental and Chemical Metrology Department of Fundación Chile, thinks so. She also says that the transversal characteristics of environmental goods and services in industrial activities, other than the mining, could be emphasized in the following fields:
Use and Management of Water and its Effluents: The mining sector is the main water consumer in the north region of Chile, accounting for around 70% of the regional total water use (I to III Region), and this rate is estimated to keep growing along with the future implementations of new mining projects and the expansions in exiting operations. Under this context, the following topics could be considered as potential business opportunities.
- To improve use efficiency of resource in operations To increase the reuse and recycling rates
- To recover water from tailing dams and filtered water from mining pipes for other uses
- To prepare and dispose of final effluents, securing their qualities for other uses.
- To develop cleaning technologies y new selective products: resine, catalyzers, modified zeolites, bioabsorbers, nanomaterials, etc.
Waste Management
- Industrial Solid Wastes: Studies, transportations and disposals of slag, rubber, wood, tires, oil filter, etc, would create an important volume of business.
- Hazardous Wastes, Management of material such as vanadium catalyzers, lead wastes, used oil, smelter dusts, arsenic waste, some refractory bricks, etc. It is estimated that about 20% of total mining wastes fall into the hazardous denomination.
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: Under the present circumstance, it is important to study profoundly topics related to the potential energy saving through efficient use and management system. It is necessary to ask “What renewable energies would have potential uses in the mining region? Biomass, geothermal, wind energies, etc? It is worth noting that those projects, could initially not be profitable, but could become profitable when factors such as the value for emission reduction and fuel replacement in the carbon market are considered.
Risk Assessment and Passive Management: It is of crucial importance to have standardized methods for risk assessment, supporting systems for assessment and monitoring, and technologies for cost-effective remediation. Some applications in the current market, such as remote perception, satellite images, geophysics, geochemistry, hydrogeology and modeling, drilling, sampling and remote sensors will be great supports for assessing and monitoring mining passives.
Some examples of innovative technologies for controlling, rehabilitation and remediation are the permeable reactive barriers, the fitoestabilization with plants highly resistant and soil stabilizer for rehabilitation of tailing dams and the application of natural zeolites for water clarification in tailing dam, indicates Marcela Angulo.
Mining closure: It implies a huge demand for services, representing around 3% of the engineering and services market, i.e. US$ 60 million for specific studies on hydrology, hydrogeology, soil contamination, slope stability, engineering project design, closure plan preparation, etc.
Chilean Mining and Energy Ministry indicates that once the Mining Closure Draft Law become law, it would create a wide range of opportunities for companies that offer related services, including specialized consulting services on technical, environmental, financing and legal issues. Based on the requirements that mining companies should face to comply with the new law, opportunities would be created for firms that provide specialized technologies and machineries, for instance, those used for dismantlement of facilities, as happened in the closure of El Indio mine.
All of these services, of course, should rely on highly skilled human capital in various fields, including environmental management, mining taxation, risk assessment, occupational health, mining safety, natural catastrophe management, engineering, environmental supervision, geophysics, among others. This, at the same time, will stimulate universities and technical training centres to meet up with this particular demand.
On the other hand, technologies and instruments to avoid infiltration and drainage of subsoil, as well as to reduce emission, manage solid and liquid waste, to take on sampling and disperse contamination, etc, will be required.
The Chilean Mining and Energy Ministry also indicates that activities related to remediation of mining environmental passives, in effect, will create a great number of work opportunities for geographers, geochemicals, chemicals, geologists, landscapists, engineers, ecologists, botanicals, forest engineers, agriculture engineering, lawyers, economists, etc.
This draft law that requires high-level human resources will produce a proper atmosphere for innovation. This will encourage engineers, entrepreneurs, students, academics and researchers to transform innovative ideas into potential applications in fields of cleaning, acid leaching, soil recovering, use and recovering of mining and metallic resources, techniques of fitoremediation, soil stabilization and tailing dam, water treatment, among others.
In summary, there will be important business opportunities for mining environmental goods and services. In this sense, it is necessary to prepare and strengthen the local capabilities to meet them, and in the long run to export accumulated experiences, pointed out professor Sanchez.
For the above, we should improve the local research capability and technological development with emphasis on the needs of the industry, which should be supported by public and private financing resources, and a close connection with national and international network among companies, universities and technological centres.
