MIT Global Summit on Mine Tailings

“Re-duce, Re-use, re-imagine” – the catchcry and theme adopted by the conference organisers could well have been lifted from the neighbourhood’s garbage trucks (my photo shows one that was spotted cruising nearby). Whereas the recent AusIMM and Gecamin tailings conferences focus on sharing best practice, this event had a different flavour; it was put on by ICMM and MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative with the lofty aspiration to eradicate tailings.

A small selection of the highlights for me include:

• Tábatha Chávez Matus ’s description of the ICMM’s effort to map out potential technologies and gauge their effectiveness and maturity. Extremely unsurprising (and slightly encouraging) to hear that independent research groups are walking all over the operators (and many OEMs) when it comes to productive output.
• Angela A.G. Kupper, Ph.D., P.Eng. from BGC who laid down some fertile ground for researchers looking for something to do (erosion prediction, emergency spillway performance, infiltration assessments for filtered deposits, and characterisation of unsaturated materials)
• A TED-esque presentation by Jaidev Prasad (who, it turns out, years ago lived in the same building as me) which left us convinced that we will one day delete tailings from the flowsheet.
• A somewhat surprisingly thought-provoking message on the value of sustainable sand from Daniel Franks as a boon to all site-based shotcreters.
• Catching up with Phil Newman to learn more about the HDS concept. I previously reported on this from the last tailings event, and I am sure it is a winning idea.
• Bruno Pelli who provided an entire catalogue of products which Vale are already making out of their “waste” (look up Agera.co , Circlua and Boston Metal do Brasil if you need proof of whether they are serious).
• A high-powered primer on sulfur by Antoine Allanore as a mediator for redistribution and phase growth from natural materials. More interesting and engaging than what it might appear at first blush!
• Elsa Olivetti divining incredible clarity from what appeared to be a tangled mass of unruly data. This is a superpower I need.
• An introduction by Abdellatif ELGHALI to the potential phosphate value chain, which at present appears to be virtually untapped.
• The best explanation I have seen on the details and challenges of fracking (for the purpose of in situ leaching) by Herbert Einstein.
• Priscilla P. Nelson laying it down plainly about our collective failings (in the kindest possible way)
• Desiree Plata who did a sensational job wrangling panellists and audience.
• Ana Fernandez-Iglesias, PhD who shared some of the impressive facilities being put to good work by ArcelorMittal R&D, and who touched very briefly on the concept of creating fertile soils. Would love to hear more. ?
• Truly inspiring innovations presented by start-ups, including...
• Brendan Smith and Jeff Grossman from SiTration, Inc. who have put clever material science to work in the form of highly selective nanoporous silicon filters able to remove some of the more conventional / inefficient metallurgical processes (SX, EWC, etc).
• Paris Smalls, PhD from Eden GeoPower whose team performs magic using electricity as a superior alternative to traditional hydraulic fracking methods.?
• Tomás Villalón Jr., PhD from Phoenix Tailings where they are busy scaling up an electrochemical process to extract REE from existing tailings.
• Jan Kwak putting in the effort to participate in what was, ultimately, a small gathering of tailings enthusiasts in an inconvenient location, on a late Friday afternoon. Good luck finding his peers at the other engineering houses showing the same support!

All in all quite interesting, but I can’t help but feel that there is a bit of a disconnect between some of our thought leaders and life on the coal face. For example:

• A large focus was on reducing (if not outright eliminating) the tailings produced. In all of the years I have spent helping Pump & Flow ’s customers, every single tailings job has been premised on the need for more; more tailings, at higher concentrations, with greater throughput, into bigger storage, etc etc. Perhaps we are just lucky in Western Australia, where there is unimaginably vast space available for storing tailings in remote and stable conditions. I’m glad we don’t have the same urgency as other jurisdictions.
• The most obvious and beneficial use of tailings was almost completely omitted from the proceedings; paste is literally completing the circle to ore body.
• The way that projects are evaluated, funded and managed mean that there are vanishingly few people empowered to take the risks associated with many of the topics discussed. Can ICMM compel change? Let’s just say that NPV (re closure costs) has been a problem for a much longer time. ?
• There seemed to be an excessive focus on “collaboration”; many presenters urged greater collaboration, and perhaps I just need to surround myself with better friends, but in my experience collaboration can be a pretty inefficient way of working. It sometimes came across like code for outsourcing the responsibility of thinking up a good idea and putting in the sweat to execute it. Or a funding request.
• An idea that “data” would save the day; many presenters lamented that things would be so much better if only we had data on the tailings being produced. This gives the metallurgists who develop our flowsheets short thrift. At the time of design, every mineralogy is very well known – it’s just plain economics what gets extracted and what goes into large unproductive storage facilities. More data wouldn’t necessarily change much.
• The wrong crowd? It strikes me that many of the technologies required to achieve the desired outcomes are well outside the wheelhouse of the average tailings professional. We probably represent interested stakeholders more than able-bodied developers inventing the transformative / disruptive tech to delete tailings streams. Even at the most basic fundamentals I still haven't personally seen anyone win an argument with the upstream processing folk that the improved geotechnical TSF performance is worth the loss in recovery associated with a coarser grind.

I believe this was the first event, so I’m interested to follow the series and see how things develop. Most of the issues that were discussed have very long gestation periods, so there is a risk of losing momentum but I hope not – it was a very interesting crowd worth hanging around with.

Also, I can rave about MIT’s technical facilities; absolutely superb, and well worth visiting to look at all the labs they have, and the incredible opportunities available to their students. It looks like an amazing place to learn. The students Sophia Apteker , Robert Fetell , Claire Webster and others associated with ESI did a terrific job running the event.