A mining technology pioneered by researchers at the Bureau of Economic Geology at The University of Texas at Austin could reduce the amount of energy needed to access critical minerals vital for modern energy technologies and capture greenhouse gases along the way.
A mining technology pioneered by researchers at the Bureau of Economic Geology at The University of Texas at Austin could reduce the amount of energy needed to access critical minerals vital for modern energy technologies and capture greenhouse gases along the way.
Transitioning the world’s energy to technologies and sources with low-carbon emissions will take, in part, tremendous amounts of lithium, nickel, cobalt and other critical minerals that exist in low concentrations in the Earth’s crust. Mining those elements takes much energy and produces waste, which can negatively affect the environment and create significant amounts of greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2).
This research could turn these emissions into a tool by using CO2 to weaken the rock containing critical minerals, reducing the amount of energy needed for mining. The ultimate goal is to significantly reduce the emissions produced during mining by storing them safely in the rocks, and potentially even make mining carbon negative – storing more carbon than is produced – by piping in and storing CO2 emissions from other industrial operations.
Read more at: The University of Texas Austin
