LPRC at the 2nd SISBRAMME event, Porto Alegre

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On May 3, LPRC joined the 2nd SISBRAMME (South Brazilian Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration Symposium) held at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Porto Alegre, Brazil. This annual event is a joint effort from both the local SME (Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration) and the SEG (Society of Economic Geologists) student chapters. The 2018 edition’s theme was “Base Industries” and LPRC brought in a presentation entitled “Technological Innovations in Mining – Case Studies in Europe”, providing an overview over the portfolio of projects the company has been involved in recently and also the European context for research & innovation in the mineral raw materials sector. The event was attended by students, professors and local industry representatives.

The region of south Brazil is currently experiencing a renewed interest in mining through advanced projects (Phosphate and Zinc), prospect of new ones (Nickel and Gold), deep-sea mining and socio-political debates over environmental impacts and the future of local coal mining. Our Foresight expert and representative Marco Konrat Martins underlined the importance of Foresight as a powerful tool to help researchers, policy-makers and industry to deal with the diversity of expectations and the uncertainties stemming from mineral resources exploitation.

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CHPM2030 LTP Orientation workshop, Brussels

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The European Federation Geologists organized an orientation workshop for the National Associations (Linked Third Parties), involved in CHPM2030 project. The workshop was connected with WP6 – Roadmapping and Preparation for Pilots, managed by La Palma Research Centre. Earlier in the project, the LTPs were involved in data availability, and now in WP6 the focus shifts to data evaluation. The aim of the event was to update the LTPs about the recent development of the project and to create guidelines and instructions for CHPM prospective areas selection & evaluation.

The workshop started with a welcome and opening from Isabel Fernandez (EFG), followed by Éva Hartai’s (UNIM) presentation about the the project as a whole at its latest development stage. The next talk, by Gerhard Schwarz (SGU), presented the data availability and summary of country reports, that has been done earlier in the project. Tamas Madarasz (UNIM), then explained the details of the CHPM technology building blocks: underground heat exchanger, production pump, metal recovery at high pressure/temperature), surface heat exchanger in the geothermal power plant, gas diffusion electro-precipitation metal recovery, salt gradient power generation, injection well. The next presentation, by Tamas Miklovicz (LPRC), introduced the overall picture at WP6 level, and explained objectives for the study area evaluation. Before the workshop, Anita Demény, from EFG, further detailed the objective of the LTP efforts.

The workshop was divided in two parts: area selection and area evaluation for CHPM technology application. The first part was an example-led discussion, while considering different geological cases and deciding whether it was of interest for the project or not. The second part was dedicated to develop and elaborate an a harmonised framework, that will guide a possible study area evaluation for CHPM potential.

The workshop was very successful in both updating the LTPs on the latest CHPM technology development and on gathering ideas and adjusting the framework for study areas’ evaluation. During 2018, the LTPs will be selecting and evaluating areas in Europe, where the CHPM technology could be applied in the future, thus creating an EU spatial database for prospective locations.

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CHPM2030 Consortium meeting, Lanzarote

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The CHPM2030 5th Consortium meeting took place in Lanzarote, Canary Islands, between the 21st and 23rd of March, hosted by La Palma Research Centre. The meeting started with a one-day consortium meeting, followed by workshops on WP4 – System Integration and on WP6 – Roadmapping and preparation for pilots on the second day. During the last day, the participants joined to a field trip in the Timanfaya National Park.

The consortium meeting proceed according to the common practice: going through the each of the Work Packages, updating work done and new results since the last meeting (CHPM Brusels meeting, 2017.10.11-14). After a short welcoming of the participants and meeting practicalities from LPRC, Éva Hartai officially started the meeting with an overall project update, followed by a presentation from Aranka Földessy about preparations for the project reporting. The second session continued with presentations on WP2 – Laboratory experiments and orebody investigation by partners from University of Szeged, BGS, VITO and University of Miskolc. The next session in the afternoon presented progress in WP3 – Metal recovery and electrochemical power generation by VITO and KU Leuven colleagues. The first day also included an update on WP5 – Integrated Sustainability Assessment (University of Szeged and MinPol) and WP7 – Dissemination (EFG).

The second day brought something new to the meeting. The WP leaders decided to take a more interactive approach to introduce their work. The morning session was dedicated to WP4 – System integration, and it was moderated by the respective WP leader, Árni Ragnarsson (ISOR). This is a critical work package where the partners integrate and harmonize different elements of the system together. The discussed topics included: Conceptual framework for CHPM (Combined Heat Power and Metal extraction) power plant, Process simulation and optimisation, Process simulation and optimisation, Final design process.

The afternoon workshop was organized by La Palma Research Centre and was focused on WP6 – Roadmapping and Preparation for Pilots. This work package is setting the ground for subsequent CHPM technology implementation in the future. Therefore, it maps convergent technology areas, studies pilot areas and develops research roadmaps, in order to bring the realization of CHPM technology forward in time. This requires short-term planning (including pilot preparation) and long-term planning (including a Delphi survey).

The first WP6 workshop was dedicated to the long-term planning and the development of a CHPM2030 Delphi survey. Marco Konrat (LPRC) introduced the Delphi method, which will be used later to obtain experts’ opinions on the critical interest areas in CHPM technology. Marco explained that Delphi is a long-term foresight tool to make judgements in the face of uncertainty, expert knowledge based, containing 2 rounds of an iterative process, and that it will assess the long term (2050) applications of CHPM technology. After this, Tamas Miklovicz (LPRC) presented Task 6.1 – Horizon Scanning and Visions objectives, structure and methodology for the CHPM2030 Delphi survey. Within this subtask, Horizon Scanning will present a baseline for CHPM technology in 2018, the Delphi will assess the future of the technology, the established Vision (Visioning workshop later this year) will provide a goal to arrive by 2030/2050 and the Roadmaps will set the implementation of how to arrive to the desired vision.  The workshop participants were given the task to first map key interest areas (important for CHPM technology), identify gaps (which is important but uncertain) and nominate concrete issues within the gaps that we are interested in the experts’ opinion.

The second workshop was dedicated to the evaluation of the study areas. Within this subtask all efforts will be made towards the support of the first implementation of CHPM technology. In particular, the focus will be on four areas, represented by BGS (UK), SGU (Sweden), IGR (Romania), and LNEG (Portugal), beside an European Outlook of prospective CHPM location, with the help of EFG LTPs (Linked Third Parties). In WP1 the main objective was to survey data availability on these areas. In WP6 the effort shifts to data evaluation. In order to create a consistent assessment of each site, an evaluation framework has to be set up, which was the aim of this session. Anita Demény presented an update on the LTP work, summarising WP1 results and introducing WP6 planning. After the introduction, the study area representatives presented their plans to evaluate each study area. This was followed by the workshop. The goal of the exercise was to get the technology developers and study area representatives into a dialogue and discuss what a study area evaluation shall include. The technology developers presented requirements, while the study area representatives presented availability at their sites, in a matchmaking exercise.

The CHPM2030 Lanzarote meeting closed with a field trip to Timanfaya National Park, where the partners had a guided tour and learned about the formation and volcanic structures of the park. The eruption started in 1730 and lasted for 6 years – with 100 active volcanoes covering 50 km2! Even though the eruption was almost 3 centuries ago, the volcanic rocks are fresh, due to the arid climate and therefore the lack of chemical/physical weathering. This makes them the perfect place for a geological lesson!

The CHPM2030 Consortium gathers again in Iceland later this year!

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KINDRA Final Conference, Brussels

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Over the past 3 years the La Palma Research has been part of KINDRA project, aimed to gather and standardise groundwater knowledge and research across Europe by means of a EU-wide assessment of existing groundwater-related practical and scientific knowledge based on a new Hydrogeological Research Classification System (HRC-SYS), created by the project team. This classification is supported by a web-service – the European Inventory of Groundwater Research (EIGR) –acting not only as a knowledge repository but also as a tool to help identify relevant research topics, existing research trends and critical research challenges.

Panel discussion with Johan Stierna (DG Research and Innovation), Elisa Vargas (WG C, DG Environment) and Isabel Fernandez (EFG)

The project’s Final Conference in Brussels (BE) the 27th of February 2018, hosted in the Académie Royale de Bruxelles was co-organised by LPRC. The conference provided an overview of the work and measures developed, gathering feedback on the results obtained and planning for the future, so that the project outcomes -namely the EIGR- can be sustained after the end of KINDRA. Several member of the European Commission, as well as EASME, the International Association of Hydrogeologists and many more important stakeholders in science, research and groundwater were present and actively involved in Q&A and debates through the conference.

KINDRA Project ran for three years organised by a Consortium of nine partners, twenty linked third parties and ten members of the Joint Panel of Experts, making a total of twenty EU-countries collaborating. La Palma Research is proud to be part of this very important mission for the future of groundwater research.

Closing of Minatura 2020 Project

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The Horizon2020 Minatura 2020 project oficially finished on the 31st of January. After three years, the project consortium was able to delineate and start discussions around a very important topic: land-use planning for geological resources with the definition of  MDoPI – Mineral Deposits of Public Importance.

The core of the work developed in Minatura 2020 was divided in 5 work packages:

WP1: Land use assessment – First, it was necessary to understand what are and what will be the sources of conflict between mining and other land uses (agriculture, hunting, etc.). This work was done based on existing methodologies and approaches at EU and national level.

WP2: Development of a harmonised mapping framework – With the data gathered from WP1 it was possible to start creating a mapping framework based on detailed qualifying conditions for classifying “mineral deposits of public importance”. The development of the mapping framework took into account appropriate existing mineral planning policies of countries considering the access to mineral deposits. This allowed for possible MDoPI areas to be mapped.

WP3: Regulatory framework – The objective of WP3 was to define the possibilities to incorporate the concept of MDoPI established previously, into the regional, national and EU levels of minerals land use planning. The idea was to explore and establish regional, national and EU-level regulatory criteria for the safeguarding of MDoPI at different levels.

WP4: Demonstration and pilot-testing of developed methodology at case-study level – In WP4 the methodology developed was tested in practical terms in some countries, such as Hungary and Slovenia, taking into account different national policy scenarios and their impacts.

WP5: Stakeholder involvement on mineral deposits of public importance – Finally, the always important involvement with different stakeholders was achieved by WP5. Here, the partners held national consultation workshops to get information and opinions from relevant stakeholders (Environmentalists, Governments) in the application of the MDoPI framework.

(Photo credit: Anita Stein)

Developing a mechanism to protect and safeguard mineral deposits in Europe proved to be a challenging task due to the many divergences present through all European countries and to challenges in land-use planning. However, the Minatura 2020 project was able to create a definition and establish different sets of criteria that can be applied by different countries to protect their mineral deposits for future use. This is the main conclusion coming from the Minatura 2020 final meeting that was held in Brussels on the 10th of January.

To obtain more information, including project publications, please visit the Minatura 2020 website!

Closing of INTRAW Project

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After three years of work, building networks, and identifying collaboration opportunities, the INTRAW project came to an end on January 31. During the first part of the project, Work Package 1 produced a contextual analysis of the selected five technologically advanced raw materials countries – Canada, Japan, USA, South Africa, and Australia. In parallel three transactional reports on the key thematic areas ‘Research and Innovation’, ‘Education and Outreach’, and ‘Industry and Trade’ were developed. Work Package 2 started off with the development of a ‘Strategic plan to international knowledge-sharing’. Based on this document, four ‘Action Plans’ were written, outlining the objective of enhancing international cooperation in the four thematic areas, which are, as mentioned above ‘Research and Innovation’, ‘Education and Outreach’, and ‘Industry and Trade’ and in addition ‘Management, recycling, and substitution of critical raw materials’. The work in this work package was finalised with a roadmap on the implementation of the action plans and a report on the crosscutting synergies between the four action plans, which was developed by LPRC. This work examined interlinkages between actions with the aim of maximizing their effect, while minimizing the cost and it identified tangible cooperation opportunities with the reference countries based on a workshop with experts and representatives of these countries. A major outcome of the project is the planning for and the launch of the INTRAW International Raw Materials Observatory accomplished in Work Package 3. The project ended with a final meeting of the consortium on La Palma!

All the deliverables and other interesting related publications can be downloaded from the INTRAW Repository on http://www.intraw-repository.eu

(Photo credit: Nelson Cristo)

 

Symposium on Social License to Operate, Leuven

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On the 21st of February, a symposium took place in Leuven, and LPRC was present. The event focussed on the thematic of Transitioning to a low-carbon economy and the social license to operate for mining and recycling of critical metals.

The symposium elaborated on the paradox of the “Importance of critical metals for the transition to a low carbon, cleantech-based economy versus the not-always-so-positive image of the primary mining industry”. On one hand, Europe undoubtedly needs critical metals for the transition to a desired low carbon, cleantech economy – however, it is import dependent regarding most of the metals, needed to reach this transition. On the other hand, society often has a negative image on mining, since historical extraction gave mining a bad name.

The members of the audience, who were naturally divided into “social” and “technological” groups, had a passionate discussion about this topic and its implications to society. This shows that dialogue is crucial, and not only that, but also opens minds too, in order to arrive to a common understanding between different stakeholders.

The symposium opened with two introductory talks. The first keynote was from Serge de Gheldere (Futureproofed), who proposed business-led, sustainable solutions, resulting new businesses, reduced risks, better branding and lower costs. After the keynote speech, a panel discussion took place. The afternoon session, begin with two keynote presentations from Egbert Lox (UMICORE) and Leida Rijnhout (Friends of the Earth Europe) presenting social and industrial viewpoints. The discussions continued with a panel and Q&A session with the audience.

The event closed with an concise talk from Marcin Sadowski, Head of Raw Materials sector, EC EASME,  where he presented the overall European policy approach to achieve sustainable goals.

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INTERMIN Kick off Meeting

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Between the 13th and 15th of February, the INTERMIN (International Network of Raw Materials Training Centres) Consortium and Advisory Board members gathered together in Brussels, Belgium, for the kick-off meeting of INTERMIN – a 36-month H2020 Project aiming at the creation of a self-sustainable long-term lasting international network of training centres for the raw materials sector.

For that, scoping and mapping activities will be undertaken internationally, collecting information of relevant raw materials-related skills from training institutions around the globe offering a wide variety of programmes and courses. This will be followed by an assessment of the employers’ needs in terms of skills and knowledge as a means of analysing the existing gaps in the sector. This will be projected into short, medium and long timeframes. Once the gaps are identified and better understood, enhanced approaches and actions will be appraised for responding to these gaps in the sector, creating a new paradigm for international training centres in the raw materials sector.

LPRC is leading Work Package 2 (WP2): Raw materials sector skills, gaps and needs. The main tasks will be assessing the employers’ needs and developing a competency model for the raw materials sector. For that, LPRC will work closely with its project partners, particularly the American Geosciences Institute (AGI) and the French Geological Survey (BRGM).

Read more about the project at this summary.

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¡VAMOS! Partner Forum, Bled

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The ¡VAMOS! partner forum took place on the 31st of January in Hotel Kompas in Bled, Slovenia. In the morning, the partners discussed the lessons learnt from the first field trials that happened in October in Lee Moor, UK. Only  a few technical difficulties arose during the trials and most of these were already solved or are in the process of being solved at the moment, in a continuous effort from all the partners. Subsequently the results from the environmental tests were presented, which looked promising, although more data will need to be collected to come to any conclusions.

In the afternoon, the discussions mainly focussed on the upcoming work and plans, with the most important topic  being the second field trials in Bosnia and Herzegovina in spring. The current focus of the work is on the logistical challenges to be overcome, the preparation of the site, and careful planning and division of the various tasks.

The partners are hopeful of another successful trial!

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UNEXMIN Project Partners meeting, Bled

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The first UNEXMIN consortium meeting of 2018 took place during the 31st of January and 1st of February in Bled, Slovenia. The main points of discussions included the current and future developments of the UX-1 robot and the preparations for the first trial at the Kaatiala mine, Finland, in June.

The first meeting day started with a revision and update of the work developed by the project partners. In the afternoon, the UNEXMIN consortium and advisory board members – personnel with useful experience in the fields if robotics and raw materials – were separated into advisory meetings and technical UX-1 discussions. The day ended with the planning for the assembly of the UX-1 robot – to happen in Porto, Portugal, during April.

UNEXMIN project partners at the first 2018 consortium meeting

The second day was place to the further technical discussions for the present and future developments of the technology. Preparations for the first pilot trial in the Kaatiala mine in Finland were also agreed upon so everything can work properly. Following, there was a interactive discussion on exploitation measures for the UNEXMIN technology.

Preparations for the Kaatiala mine pilot test

Exploitation discussion for UNEXMIN technology

The consortium is working hard to develop the robotic system that will be able to explore and map flooded mines and other underwater environments!

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