INTRAW WP2 meeting hosted by LPRC

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On the 11-12th of January 2017 LPRC had the opportunity to welcome project partners of INTRAW from FCT, Portugal, Assimagra – RecursosMinerais de Portugal, Fraunhofer IAO, Germany and EFG, Brussels and the University of Miskolc, Hungary who joined our colleagues on our road to create an international observatory on raw materials. During these two days, the partners were focusing their efforts on Work Package 2, fine-tuning the Action Plans on R&I, Education & Outreach, Industry & Trade and the Management & Substitution of raw materials.

The overall goal of the project is to set up and launch the European Union’s International Observatory for Raw Materials as a definitive and permanent raw materials knowledge management infrastructure in collaboration with technologically advanced non-EU countries (Australia, Canada, Japan, South Africa, & US) in response to similar global challenges. For more information, please visit: intraw.eu or follow the project on Twitter: @intrawproject

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¡VAMOS! Work Package 6 Kick-off Meeting on La Palma

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On Wednesday and Thursday this week, 7th and 8th December 2016, LPRC hosted a kick-off meeting in La Palma for a Work Package of the Horizon2020 project, ¡VAMOS! (¡Viable Alternative Mine Operating System!).

The workshop was organised with the objective of understanding and planning the various deliverables within the scope of the Work Package.

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Selected workshop participants in front of the Museo de La Palma.

Technical management was present, as was the Project Coordinator together with multiple partners with roles within the Work Package. Participants included senior representatives from specialist geological and industrial mining institutions such as GeoZS (Slovenia), Montanuniversität Leoben (Austria), Soil Machine Dynamics (England), and more.

In reference to the objective of the kick-off meeting, on Wednesday, each pre-identified deliverable was presented by the assigned leader: debate ensued, during which inconsistencies were identified, and understanding was conferred among the group.

The workshop concluded on Thursday morning with a round-up of solutions identified during the first sitting, a brainstorming exercise, follow-up business from the meeting, and a succinct summary action plan.

LPRC will now continue to coordinate this work package, presenting progress at the next ¡VAMOS! meeting in March.

 

Report on the 1st Raw Materials Week, Brussels

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Last week, La Palma Research Centre colleagues Tamás Miklovicz and Cameron Sword participated in a series of workshops and talks organised by the European Commission as part of the European Raw Materials Week in Brussels. The event gathered important players in the raw materials community from Europe and beyond, and focused on broad-ranging discussions between researchers, industrial partners, and policy makers.

On Monday afternoon, the kick-off meeting was held for our new project FORAM: Towards a World Forum on Raw Materials. During the kick-off meeting, the coordinator first introduced the project and consortium members, and then the floor was given to Work Package leaders to describe and explain the work in detail.

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Vitor Correia presenting FORAM Work Package 3: Vision and Focus

On Tuesday morning, Cameron and Tamas participated at the SLO (Social Licence to Operate) Conference, organised by Montanuniversität Leoben. The title of the conference was ‘Re-Connecting Raw Materials with Society.’ Speakers discussed a number of best practices and initiatives which significantly improve the connection between mining companies with local communities.

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Opening of the  SLO Conference by Peter Moser, Montanuniversitat Leoben

During the FORAM Public Launch on Tuesday evening, Mathias Schluep (WRFA) gave a concise overview of the project, which was then followed by a panel discussion. Amid an active discussion with the audience, panel members Ruediger Kuehr (UNU), Marcin Sadowski (EASME), Luca Demicheli (EGS), Vitor Correia (EFG), and Mathias Schluep (WRFA) debated obstacles, trends, opportunities, challenges, and initiatives within the world of raw materials.

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The panel discussion during the public launch of FORAM

On Wednesday morning, EFG and Fraunhofer IAO led a session on ‘INTRAW: Future Scenarios on International Raw Materials Provision’ at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. The workshop began with the project coordinator Vitor Correia giving a short presentation about the INTRAW project, followed by an introduction to the scenario technique by Flavius Sturm. Following this, the participants were divided into three groups whose objective was to discuss three end-member scenarios devised by the INTRAW team. Each group then engaged in a one-hour discussion on the credibility & accuracy of their scenario, its consequences for raw materials, and the specific actions that need to be taken for the EU to be well positioned in their specific scenario.

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Tamas Miklovicz (LPRC) and Tina Brenda (Slovenian Geological Survey)  facilitating discussion on the “Sustainable Alliance” scenario.

During the early afternoon, speakers presented the Raw Materials topics of Horizon 2020 Work Programme 2017, the ERA-MIN 2, and EIT Raw Materials calls. In the evening, various participants were presenting project ideas.

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UNEXMIN, VAMOS, and INTRAW project material was in displayed at events across Brussels during Raw Materials Week.

The 4th annual High Level Conference of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials took place on Thursday. The programme was divided into a high-level panel on Raw Materials Beyond 2020, and three distinct sessions. The first session regarded ‘Raw Materials Needs in a Future Circular, Low-carbon Economy’ – Prof. Julian M. Allwood gave an inspiring presentation on the low-carbon economy. The second session focused on ‘Copernicus for Raw Materials’, which is part of the European Earth Observation Programme. The day ended with a session on ‘Framework Conditions for Sustainable Mining.’

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LPRC’s H2020 projects in Budapest Water Summit 2016

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The Hungarian capital hosted  the “Budapest Water Summit 2016 (BWS 2016)”  between the 28th – 30th of November 2016. This was an important event that resulted from cooperation efforts made by the Hungarian Government and the World Water Council.

 The University of Miskolc exhibited several projects in which LPRC is involved, namely Kindra, CHPM2030 and UNEXMIN. The main goal of this space was to display internationally recognised water management technologies.

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Kindra, CHPM2030 and UNEXMIN projects’ booths in the University of Miskolc’s area.

It is extraordinary, when the projects in which you are involved get to be recognised by no other than the President of the Republic of Hungary (see photo below)! Also, it is important that the technologies, actions and decisions discovered and developed in these European projects get to all the necessary stakeholders, represented also by people in higher positions.

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President of Hungary, János Áder, visits the exhibition booth of University of Miskolc and their projects: on the left, Tamás Madarász, on the center, Péter Szűcs, Dean of the Faculty of Earth Science and Engineering and on the right, János Áder, the President of Hungary.

 

Minatura2020 3rd Consortium Meeting

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From the 15th to the 17th of November 2016, LPRC Project Manager Luís was present at the 3rd Minatura2020 Consortium Meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

The agenda included important items for the project’s development, including the key findings and challenges of the running Work Packages, the MDoPI (Mineral Deposits of Public Importance) concept, an interactive workshop between the partners, and a review of National Stakeholders’ Workshops (in many countries around Europe) and stakeholder groups themselves.

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Interactive workshop with the consortium partners.

After some discussion among the participants, a set of future steps were decided for the next phase of the project, which is working towards the goal of defining areas to protect strategically important mineral deposits for future generations in Europe.

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Discussion of the work done and the future steps for communication and dissemination of Minatura2020.

On the last day of the meeting the partners travelled to Western Slovenia to visit a sustainable cement plant, Salonit Anhovo. This plant is using a whole range of minerals and its operations have significant social responsibility and impact in Slovenia.

Slovenia is considered one of the greenest places in Europe, with Ljubljana being chosen as European Green Capital of 2016 – and one can see why!

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A beautiful view of the area surrounding the cement plant, taken from a height of 100 m.

 

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Scientific week in the Canary Islands: “Semanas de la Ciencia y la Innovación en Canarias”

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LPRC is part of the “Semanas de la Ciencia y la Innovación en Canarias”, a scientific event that is occurring during this week over all the Canary Islands. Starting from yesterday to the end of the week, LPRC have three exhibitions running (KINDRA project, UNEXMIN project, CHPM project and the general Horizon2020 program) and today, tomorrow and Thursday will have presentations on the UNEXMIN project.

Today, Tuesday, LPRC received about 60 students from a scientific and technological high school from Villa de Mazo, in the island of La Palma, where the company is located. The presentation made by Luís (Project Manager in the UNEXMIN project) and Ariadna (Communications Manager) covered the most important aspects of the project that is developing a new multi-robotic system for the autonomous exploration on 3D mapping of flooded mines. Images and videos from the work that the UNEXMIN team has been developing were also shown to the audience.

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Luís and Ariadna answering questions from the young students.

The reception of the presentation was very good (both the information and the pictures and videos), with many of the youngsters being interested, asking questions and wanting to learn more about the project.

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The students that were present in the UNEXMIN presentation, on Tuesday.

The exhibitions from LPRC are located in Calle Real 21 in Los Llanos de Aridane and can be visited during the day by anyone.

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UNEXMIN 2nd Follow-Up Meeting in Madrid

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On the 25th and 26th of October, UNEXMIN partners met in Madrid for a follow-up workshop related to developments of the UX-1 robot.

The first day of this 5th UNEXMIN meeting was dedicated to an overall review of the latest steps and the status of the work packages defined in the project.

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UNEXMIN team during the Workshop

On the second day, the group present at the meeting was divided into three main work groups covering hardware, software and stakeholders topics.

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Workshop session on UX-1 mechanics

This follow-up workshop in Madrid allowed the UNEXMIN consortium to gain a greater perspective of what is being developed and the future steps that must be taken to ensure the best development for this unique and ambitious European project.

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UNEXMIN group photo

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CHPM Advisory Board meeting in Sweden
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A CHPM Advisory Board meeting took place in Älvkarleby, Sweden on the 13th of October.

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Group picture of the CHPM2030 project consortium

The partners met for the first time with the Advisory Board members. During the morning session, Work Package leaders introduced their WPs. In the afternoon, the AB members provided valuable feedback during the questions and comments section

5 out of the 8 Advisory Board members: Miklos Antics, Gioia Falcone,Thomas Schneider, Ladislaus Rybach, Christian Boissavy (from left to right)

Before the Advisory Board meeting, an internal meeting took place in order to follow-up the work which had been done prior to the meeting, mostly related to WP1: Methodology framework definition and WP2: Laboratory experiments and orebody investigations.

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INTRAW Cornwall meeting
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October 3-7: INTRAW consortium, review meeting and workshop with the experts in Cornwall!

On Tuesday the project had its mid-term review meeting with EASME. From Wednesday-Thursday the experts were involved in ongoing project tasks, including the development of the observatory business model and the fine-tuning of the scenarios for the action plans.

On Friday the group visited the Geevor and Botallack tin mines, which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

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Session 3: discussion on the observatory services

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Session 2: fine-tuning scenarios

Ore procssing in Geevor: separation of tin rich grains

Ore processing in Geevor: separation of tin rich grains

Classic Cornwall landscape at Botallack tin mine

Classic Cornwall landscape at the Botallack tin mine.

MICA meeting in Brussels
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The second MICA meeting took place in Brussels from the 27th to the 29th of September.

The 3-day meeting provided valuable inputs for the Work Packages, as well as a general overview for all participants on the project’s progress.

LPRC brought in the last day with a presentation on Raw Materials Past International Foresight Study Cases during WP5’s meeting.

Read more about MICA here.

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