Waste from mining into a billion -dollar opportunity in the economy of Net Zero

The above calculation is published at “White Book: turning mine into Net Zero opportunities multi -billion dollars” by Arca Climate Company and non -profit organization The Climate Agency. ARCA Climate was founded in 2021 by Dr. Greg Dipple and geologists from the University of British Columbia (UBC), chosen as one of Canada’s most clean technology companies.

“99% of carbon on Earth is not in the air, the sea or the flora, but in stone,” said Dr. Dipple, an honorary professor at UBC and co -founder of ARCA. He added that seizing CO2 from the atmosphere to the stone is the most sustainable form on the planet.

According to ARCA’s White Book, Mafic Stone, Super Mafic or tail ore (the material is discharged during mineral separation from ore) is the main material in carbon removal technology. Credits to eliminate direct carbon (CDR) of the “gold” class on the credit market, because the authenticity, can be measured, with an average price of up to 449 USD per ton, a few dozen times more expensive than the credit reduced from forest protection projects, charcoal conversion.

Carbon credit (carbon credit) is a type of license or certificate that can be traded and provided to those who hold them the right to emit a ton of CO2 or other emissions on the list of greenhouse gas emissions.

Commonly direct carbon removal technologies include mineralization from mines, biomass (biochar coal, technology of seizing and storing Carbon Beccs) and direct emissions (DAC) (soil need, pipe system, absorption …). In particular, along with biomass technology, mineralization is the choice of saving resources and taking advantage of the industry’s waste.

If each credibility costs 100 USD, the operating mines have the potential to earn $ 100 billion per year when converting 3 billion waste exploited into carbon tanks. For mines that have stopped working, the amount of waste up to 28 billion tons is not having the potential to earn an additional US $ 870 billion (estimated that each kilogram of waste seized 310 grams of CO2).

The opportunity for technology to remove carbon is huge. The United Nations Intergovernmental Commission for Climate Change (IPCC) acknowledges the solution of carbon removal is inevitable to prevent global warming at a dangerous level. By 2050, scientists need to remove 10 billion tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year.

In fact, the process of absorption and storage of CO2 into stone is natural, but very slow. For example, when the Indian continent collided with Asia to form the Himalayas 48 million years ago, a large amount of carbon was removed from the atmosphere by the new mafic stone, which cooled the earth. This phenomenon helps the ultraviolet ice form on the area used to be a tropical forest.

“Fine mine waste causes them to react to the air thousands of times faster, due to increased surface area,” Dr. Dipple explained.

The process of converting waste into ARCA’s carbon tanks takes place in 4 steps. After gathering waste to a billion tons, the expert will detonate to stimulate the natural reaction of ore stone. Self -propelled vehicles help drying alkaline waste surfaces with air, increasing contact and absorption of CO2. At the last stage, the CO2 seizure index is measured and reported by third -party verification technology.

ARCA estimates that the disposable waste reaches 20%of the absorption rate, that is, each kilogram seized 200 grams of CO2. The company expects this ratio to increase to 31%, aiming to seize up to one million tons of CO2 per year at individual Nickel mines.

In 2023, ARCA tested a 18 -month project at a Nickel mine in Australia with the same method, and proved that these technologies could be integrated safely at an active mine. This is also a new direction for the mining industry to grow greener.

Carbon mineralization has the potential to become a solution that contributes to the goals of global climate, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI). However, this organization recommends increasing research and piloting this method to minimize the potential negative impact on environment and society. For example, technical activities and transportation of input materials need to be improved to minimize emissions.

In addition, this solution needs a multidisciplinary cooperation to map, understand the amount of alkaline waste available for mining CO2, in the context of existing data about mines or stop operating not updated for a decade.