With growing stakeholder expectations for the mining sector to reduce its carbon footprint, current industry efforts are uncovering a range of practical opportunities to decarbonise at an operational level.
"For existing operations, there is a range of reduction alternatives to consider, where energy consumption can be minimised," says Philippa Burmeister, associate partner and principal scientist at SRK Consulting. "There are also replacement alternatives, where a renewable energy source is applied to replace the current carbon-intensive source."
Ashleigh Maritz, principal environmental scientist at SRK Consulting, notes that a recent study by SRK has explored a range of decarbonisation technologies being applied or tested by the mining sector across communities. This had highlighted many opportunities, but their application had to be carefully assessed considering each project's specific conditions.
