It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, August 22, 2021
Biden Administration Resumes Offshore Leasing After Court Order
The U.S. Department of the Interior has announced that it will comply with a court order compelling it to restart offshore and onshore oil and gas lease sales. The agency halted its federal lands leasing program in April pending a top-to-bottom review, but after an industry lawsuit contending that lease auctions are required by law, a federal judge ordered that the department must restart the auction process. DOI is appealing the judge's order, citing the climate impact of fossil fuel extraction on federal lands, but the agency said that leasing will resume while the appeal is pending.
"Federal onshore and offshore oil and gas leasing programs are responsible for significant greenhouse gas emissions and growing climate and community impacts," said the department in a statement. "Yet the current programs fail to adequately incorporate consideration of climate impacts into leasing decisions or reflect the social costs of greenhouse gas emissions including, for example, in royalty rates."
While the appeal moves forward, lease sales will resume, though the department reserved the right to "conduct leasing in a manner that takes into account the program's many deficiencies." It is compiling an internal review of the lease sale program and plans to propose changes to bring it in line with the Biden administration's climate targets, which call for a nationwide greenhouse gas emissions cut of 50 percent by the end of the decade.
DOI also cited a long series of government watchdog reports that suggest that the federal government could be earning much more from leasing drilling rights to private companies. In 2019, the Government Accountability Office assessed that Interior's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management "systematically underestimates" the value of offshore oil and gas leases, costing the government hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue. Management of federal oil and gas resources is one of the areas on GAO's "high risk list" due to persistent shortfalls in human capital, oversight capability and revenue-collecting capacity.
Despite its concerns, DOI promised that some amount of lease activity will resume while the court case moves forward, and the offshore oil and gas industry welcomed the announcement. “It is past time for U.S. offshore leasing to resume,” said Erik Milito, head of the National Ocean Industries Association, speaking to Bloomberg. “The administration should follow the plain letter of the law, and support high paying jobs and climate and emissions progress.”
Japan's Last Whaling Mother Ship May Cost Too Much to Replace
The whaling mother ship Nisshin Maru is due for replacement, and a new vessel would cost twice the amount that the entire industry takes in each year in sales (Kyodo Senpaku file image)
Anti-whaling activists are pleased that Japan's last whaling mothership operator is ordering a replacement vessel - not because they expect it to succeed, but because they believe that the cost and debt load from the order will put the firm out of business.
Whale hunting in Japan is an unprofitable industry, and its range - which once reached as far as Antarctica - has been limited to Japanese home waters since the nation withdrew from the International Whaling Commission in 2018. The industry is now formally classified as a commercial fishery, not a research venture, and it is sustained by government payments of about $2 in subsidy for every $1 in sales to the public. Whale meat - known for its gamey, beefy flavor - is not popular in Japan, and it accounts for about one tenth of one percent of the nation's meat consumption, despite years of industy-backed promotional efforts.
About half a dozen inshore whaling boats and one whaling mothership pursue Japan's national quota for minke, sei and Bryde's whales. The quota is currently set at about 1,500 tonnes per year, and is based on the latest science for responsible management, according to Japan's Fisheries Agency.
Japan's leading whaling operator, Kyodo Senpaku, acknowledges that this volume is not enough to support a profitable industry without subsidies. Still, the company plans to invest $55 million - sourced from loans, crowdfunding and non-whaling charter missions - to buy a newbuild replacement for its aging mothership, the Nisshin Maru.
The Nisshin Maru is the last factory whaling ship in the world, and she has a storied history of confrontations with anti-whaling activists. She collided with the Greenpeace vessel Arctic Sunrise in 1999 and again in 2006, and she was allegedly in collision with the Sea Shepherd vessels Steve Irwin, Bob Barker and Sam Simon multiple times during her 2013 Antarctic campaign (along with her own refueling tanker, the Sun Laurel).
After three decades of whaling, Nisshin Maru is nearing the end of her service life, and Kyodo Senpaku wants to replace her with a new Antarctic-capable vessel. However, the firm is a loss-making enterprise, and its annual subsidies from the Japanese government have recently been replaced by a $9 million per year loan package. Nisshin Maru costs about $6-7 million per year to maintain, and the $55 million price of a newbuild - more than twice the annual sales turnover of the entire Japanese whaling industry - may pose a commercial obstacle if the quota and catch area are not increased.
"The number of people who eat whale meat in Japan is decreasing year on year, so it is no longer a viable business," anti-whaling activist Ren Yabuki of the NGO Life Investigation Agency told SCMP. "The government should not support the whaling industry with money from taxes because this is a business conducted by private companies who should survive on their own budgets, just like any other Japanese company."
But there is a non-commercial reason to keep a small whaling fleet, argues Kyodo Senpaku spokesman Konomu Kubo: whaling could maintain Japan's food security in times of scarcity, just like it did 70 years ago. Japan's industrial-scale whaling operations began as an emergency effort after WWII, when Gen. Douglas MacArthur proposed to use whale meat to fill a food shortage in occupied Japan. It worked, and whales provided low-cost protein to keep the nation fed in the post-war period. In the event of a similar food shortage in the future, Kubo told SCMP, Japan could once again turn to whales for sustenance if it maintains a small high-seas whaling fleet.
Design for the World’s Largest Wind Turbine, 16MW from China
The giant 16MW wind turbine would have a seven pecenter larger sweep area (Ming Yang)
In the efforts to build more efficient and lower-cost wind turbines, China’s MingYang introduced a new design that it says offers the world’s largest offshore hybrid drive wind turbine. Rates for 16MW, the MySE 16.0-242 adds another seven feet to the length of blades versus the current largest design and also incorporates new features to make it less costly and more resilient.
Designed for high-wind operations, including typhoon-class, the 16MW turbine features a 793-foot diameter rotor with each blade measuring 387 feet. The turbine will stand 866 feet tall and have a 46,000m2 swept area, the equivalent of more than six soccer fields and nearly seven percent larger than Vestas Wind Systems’ 15MV turbine introduced in February 2021 and due for production in 2024.
With the industry’s largest rotor and highest nominal rating, MySE 16.0-242 is set to move the boundaries of wind energy production even further. A single MySE 16.0-242 turbine can generate 80,000MWh of electricity every year. It produces 45 percent more energy than MingYang’s previous turbine model, the MySE 11.0-203.
“In response to demand for anti-typhoon wind turbines in coastal Guangdong, MingYang is systematically developing high-quality products by collaborating with global supply chain partners and integrating cutting-edge technologies from industries such as aerospace, materials, and big data,” said Qiying Zhang, President and CTO of Ming Yang Smart Energy.
MingYang is highlighting other advancements in the design of their giant turbine drawing on the company’s previous experience expanding from 5.5MW to 11MW. For its size, MingYang said the nacelle weight of the new turbine has a lower weight at 37 tons per MW. Compared to a heavier nacelle, the modest head mass allows for more efficient use of the tower and foundation construction, resulting in fewer purchased materials and logistics. All the power electronics and MV-transformer have also been relocated up the tower into the nacelle, simplifying cabling and enhancing system maintenance. They are also highlighting an air-tight design that protects the nacelle from harsh salt spray corrosion while yet allowing for internal natural air cooling
The Hybrid-Drive transmission technologies, and in particular the medium-speed planetary gearbox with load sharing and forced high precision main bearing lubrication, have also been fully optimized. The company believes the combination of design enhancements over its previous smaller, lightweight models will provide additional robustness and efficiency for this new turbine.
The 16MW turbine can be used both with fix-bottom and floating system applications. The MySE 16.0-242, which was recently certified by DNV and China General Certification Center (CGC) for design, is scheduled for full prototype rollout in 2022. The company expects it will be followed by prototype installation in the first half of 2023 and commercial production in the first half of 2024.
Are Radioactive Diamond Batteries the Solution to Nuclear Waste?
These batteries are made from nuclear waste and could last thousands of years.
Nuclear power is considered a clean energy source because it has zero carbon dioxide emissions; yet, at the same time, it produces massive amounts of hazardous, radioactive waste that pile up as more and more reactors are built around the world.
Experts have proposed different solutions for this issue in order to take better care of the environment and people’s health. With insufficient safe storage space for nuclear waste disposal, the focal point of these ideas is the reutilization of the materials.
Radioactive diamond batteries were first developed in 2016 and were immediately acclaimed because they promised a new, cost-effective way of recycling nuclear waste. In this context, it’s unavoidable to deliberate whether they’re the ultimate solution to these toxic, lethal residues.
What Are Radioactive Diamond Batteries?
Radioactive diamond batteries were first developed by a team of physicists and chemists from the Cabot Institute for the Environment of the University of Bristol. The invention was presented as a betavoltaic device, which means that it’s powered by the beta decay of nuclear waste.
Beta decay is a type of radioactive decay that occurs when an atom’s nucleus has an excess of particles and releases some of them to obtain a more stable ratio of protons to neutrons. This produces a kind of ionizing radiation called beta radiation, which involves a lot of high-speed and high-energy electrons or positrons known as beta particles.
Beta particles contain nuclear energy that can be converted into electric energy through a semiconductor.
A typical betavoltaic cell consists of thin layers of radioactive material placed between semiconductors. As the nuclear material decays, it emits beta particles that knock electrons loose in the semiconductor, creating an electric current.
However, the power density of the radioactive source is lower the further it is from the semiconductor. On top of this, because beta particles are randomly emitted in all directions, only a small number of them will hit the semiconductor, and only a small number of those will be converted into electricity. This means that nuclear batteries are much less efficient than other types of batteries. This is where the polycrystalline diamond (PCD) comes in.
The radioactive diamond batteries are made using a process called chemical vapor deposition, which is widely used for artificial diamond manufacture. It uses a mixture of hydrogen and methane plasma to grow diamond films at very high temperatures. Researchers have modified the CVD process to grow radioactive diamonds by using a radioactive methane containing the radioactive isotope Carbon-14, which is found on irradiated reactor graphite blocks.
Diamond is one of the hardest materials that humanity knows — it’s even harder than silicon carbide. And it can act as both a radioactive source and a semiconductor. Expose it to beta radiation and you’ll get a long-duration battery that doesn’t need to be recharged. The nuclear waste in its interior fuels it over and over again, allowing it to self-charge for ages.
However, the Bristol team warned that their radioactive diamond batteries wouldn’t be suitable for laptops or smartphones, because they contain only 1g of carbon-14, meaning that they provide very low power —only a few microwatts, which is less than a typical AA battery. Therefore, their application so far is limited to small devices that must stay unattended for a long time, such as sensors and pacemakers.
Nano Diamond Radioactive Batteries
The origins of nuclear batteries can be traced back to 1913, when English physicist Henry Moseley found out that particle radiation could generate an electric current. In the 1950s and 1960s, the aerospace industry was very interested in Moseley’s discovery, as it could potentially power spacecraft for long-duration missions. The RCA Corporation also researched an application for nuclear batteries in radio receivers and hearing aids.
But other technologies were needed in order to develop and sustain the invention. In this regard, the usage of synthetic diamonds is seen as revolutionary, as it provides safety and conductivity to the radioactive battery. With the addition of nanotechnology, an American company built a high-power nano-diamond battery.
Based in San Francisco, California, NDB Inc. was founded in 2012 with the objective of creating a cleaner and greener alternative to conventional batteries. The startup introduced its version of diamond-based batteries in 2016 and announced two proof-of-concept tests in 2020. It’s one of the firms that is attempting to commercialize radioactive diamond batteries.
Nano-diamond batteries from NDB are described as alpha, beta, and neutron voltaic batteries and have several new features according to their website.
Durability. The firm calculates that the batteries could last up to 28,000 years, which means that they could reliably power space vehicles in long-duration missions, space stations, and satellites. Drones, electric cars, and aircraft on Earth would never need to make stops to be recharged.
Safety. Diamond is not only one of the hardest substances, but also one of the most thermally conductive materials in the world, which helps protect against the heat produced by the radioisotopes that the battery is built with, turning it into electric current very quickly.
Market-friendliness. Thin-film layers of PCD in these allow the battery to allow for different shapes and forms. This is why nano-diamond batteries can be multipurpose and enter different markets, from the aforementioned space applications to consumer electronics. The consumer version would not last more than a decade, though.
Nano-diamond batteries are scheduled to come onto the market in 2023.
Arkenlight, the English firm commercializing Bristol’s radioactive diamond battery, plans on releasing their first product, a microbattery, to the market in the latter part of 2023.
The Future of Radioactive Diamond-Based Batteries
The portability of modern electronic devices, the increasing popularity of electric vehicles, and the 21st Century race to take humanity on long space missions to Mars have triggered a growing interest in battery technology research in the last few years.
Some types of batteries are more appropriate for certain applications and not as useful for others. But we can say that the conventional lithium-ion batteries that we are familiar with won't be replaced with radioactive diamond batteries any time soon.
Conventional batteries last a shorter time, but they are also much cheaper to manufacture. However, at the same time, the fact that they do not last that long (they have a lifespan of about five years) is problematic, because they also produce a great deal of electronic waste, which is not easy to recycle.
Radioactive diamond batteries are more convenient, because they have a much longer lifespan than conventional batteries. If they can be developed into a universal battery, like NDB Inc. proposes, we could end up with smartphone batteries that last much longer than the life of the smartphone, and we could simply change the battery from one phone to the next, much as we now transfer the SIM card.
However, the diamond betavoltaics developed by Arkenlight won't go that far. The company is working on designs that stack up lots of their carbon-14 betabatteries into cells. To provide high power discharge, each cell could be accompanied by a small supercapacitor, which could offer an excellent quick-discharge capability.
However, this radioactive material also has a lifespan of more than 5000 years. If that radiation were to leak out of the device in gaseous form, it could be a problem. That's where the diamonds come in. In the diamond formation, the C-14 is a solid, so it can't be extracted and absorbed by a living being.
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) calculated that 100 pounds (approximately 45 kg) of carbon-14 could allow the fabrication of millions of long-duration diamond-based batteries. These batteries could also reduce the costs of nuclear waste storage.
University of Bristol researcher Professor Tom Scott told Nuclear Energy Insider that, “By removing the Carbon-14 from irradiated graphite directly from the reactor, this would make the remaining waste products less radioactive and therefore easier to manage and dispose of. Cost estimates for disposing of the graphite waste are 46,000 pounds ($60,000) per cubic meter for Intermediate Level Waste [ILW] and 3,000 pounds ($4,000) per cubic meter for Low-Level Waste [LLW]."
Don’t all these features make them one of the best options for the sustainable future that we need? We’ll have to wait and see if the manufacturers can find a way of dealing with production costs and low energy output, and get their diamond-based batteries onto the market cost-effectively and accessibly.
Researchers work to make solar energy more efficient
A study found that hematite might be at the center of the way to make solar energy possible across large areas and through long-term sunless periods.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF AUGUST 21, 2021 Left to right: Dr. David Ellis, Dr. Daniel Grave, Yifat Piekner (photo credit: RAMI SHLUSH / TECHNION) Advertisement
New research conducted at the Technion may be instrumental in solving problems with solar energy.
The study, which was published in Energy & Environmental Science, was headed by Professor Avner Rothschild and doctoral student Yifat Piekner from the Technion.
Solar energy is important to human life and if we are able to harness the energy transmitted by the sun we may be able to minimize and even end the use of fossil fuels and pollutants. The biggest problem in switching to solar energy is that the sun is only visible for limited hours of the day, and sometimes only in specific seasons. In order to use solar energy at all times, we need to be able to store the sun's energy.
The problem is that the only existing method of storing energy is through using batteries, and batteries cannot store enough energy needed to power entire cities, neighborhoods, or even smaller areas like a manufacturing site. The other problem is that batteries can only hold power for a few hours, so they cannot provide power long time, like through entire seasons.
A possible solution to the storage problem is the conversion of solar energy into hydrogen through the use of photoelectrochemical solar cells, which split water into hydrogen and oxygen. These cells are similar to the cells that convert solar energy into electricity, but the photoelectrochemical cells convert the energy into hydrogen instead.
Left to right: Yifat Piekner, Dr. Daniel Grave, Prof. Avner Rothschild,
Dr. David Ellis (credit: RAMI SHLUSH / TECHNION)
The advantage of converting solar energy into hydrogen instead of electricity is that hydrogen is easier to store long-term, and can be used when needed to be converted into electricity. It can also power electric vehicles, replacing the current heavy and expensive batteries.
Another advantage is that using hydrogen for fuel is environmentally friendly because its production does not involve emissions of any sort except oxygen and water, meaning that it would greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The main challenge in this method is that the production of the electrodes that convert the sunlight into electrochemical cells is not stable in the chemical environments in which water can be efficiently split into hydrogen and oxygen. Silicone is used as this material when converting solar energy directly into electricity, but silicone is unstable in electrolyte, a substance used in the creation of electricity, so it won't work for the suggested method.
The study suggests the use of hematite as a solution to this problem. Hematite is an iron oxide that is chemically similar to rust. It is inexpensive, stable and not toxic. It also has properties that make it suitable for water splitting.
The issue is that theoretically hematite-based devices should produce double the energy that they do in practice. The research team may have discovered why.
They discovered that the photons absorbed by hematite produce localized electronic transitions that have very specific abilities which do not include splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Photon activity in a 32 nanometers thick hematite layer. Only the photons in green contribute to hydrogen generation. (credit: COURTESY TECHNION)
Piekner and her colleagues, Dr. David Ellis and Dr. Daniel Grave, used a new analysis method developed by Piekner to measure data that has never been measured before.
The first type of data measured was the minimal efficiency of productive and non-productive electronic transitions in a material as a result of different wavelengths, and the other type of data measured was the efficiency of separation in an electron-hole, which is a single unit of the generation and elimination in an inorganic semiconductor.
While these two types of data have been measured together previously, this is the first time they have ever been examined separately. The separated measurements gave the researchers a better understanding of the efficiency of the materials used for the conversion of solar energy into hydrogen or electricity, which will pave the way for future breakthroughs in the field.
New Fuel Tank Captures Carbon Dioxide for Emission-Free Cargo Shipping
In one year, a large container ship can emit pollutants equivalent to that of 50 million cars.
Cargo and tanker ships account for 3% of all CO2 emissions and research has shown that in one year, a single large container ship can emit pollutants equivalent to that of 50 million cars. But cargo ships are very rarely discussed when it comes to reducing emissions. This is because they are a complicated group to deal with it.
One solution is onboard nuclear reactors but this is option is way too expensive for cargo ships. Luckily, a team of researchers at Northwestern University has come up with another solution.
They have conceived of CO2-capturing solid oxide fuel cells: in other words, cells that capture “burning” traditional carbon-based fuels and store them to then be sequestered or recycled into renewable hydrocarbon fuel.
This option has only been conceived of now because it is associated with polluting carbon-based fuel, Northwestern University’s Scott A. Barnett, senior author of the study, said in a statement.
“It might be harder for people to see onboard CO2 capture as climate-friendly because it uses conventional, carbon-based fuels,” explained Barnett.
He added that people tend to turn to hydrogen fuel cells and electric vehicles when looking for climate-friendly options. But these processes are not what they seem as power from electric vehicles may come from burning coal and hydrogen is often produced by natural gas.
Barnett goes on to explain that batteries are just not an option for cargo ships as they would have to be as big as the ship to function. Projects such as the Smart Green Shipping Alliance and the Carbon War Room have also proposed that ships be propelled by renewable energy but this option has also been dismissed by Barnett and his team.
"When it comes to long-range vehicles, carbon-based fuel combined with onboard CO2 capture is arguably the best way to make these vehicles CO2 neutral," said Barnett.
To store and reuse this CO2 Barnett and his team have invented a patent-pending dual-chamber storage tank. After all the carbon emissions on board are captured by this tank they would then be offloaded as carbon to be geosequestered deep underground at each destination port. Now, that's a solution that may work.
Desperate to fund fight against climate change, former Maldives president calls for debt restructuring
Social Sharing
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Reddit
LinkedIn
Email
Mohamed Nasheed says without restructuring, the nation can't afford projects to protect islands and citizens
CBC Radio ·
An aerial view shows the Maldives capital Male on Dec. 14, 2009. Former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed says that without debt restructuring, the island nation won't be able to afford needed climate change mitigation projects. (Reinhard Krause/Reuters)
Without debt restructuring, the Maldives will struggle to fund much needed climate change adaptation measures — even as the island nation faces the existential threat of rising sea levels — according to the country's former president.
Mohamed Nasheed, who led the Maldives from 2008 until 2012 and pushed for greater attention to the effects of climate change on the country, says that vulnerable countries will struggle to pay down debt while mitigating the effects of a warming planet.
"The planet has already heated enough, going out of its usual course, and therefore we are going to face challenges with extreme weather coming upon us," Nasheed told Day 6 guest host Faith Fundal.
Among the world's lowest-lying nations, 80 per cent of the islands of the Maldives are only one metre above sea level. That makes the archipelago's approximately 1,200 islands extremely vulnerable to storm surges and severe weather events.
The inhabited islands, about 200, are home to a population of about 530,000 people, which means solutions are needed urgently.
In order to protect the islands, Nasheed says the country must invest in mitigation projects like water breakers to help slow coastal erosion.
But he says with the country spending approximately 30 to 40 per cent of its budget on debt repayment, and another 25 per cent on adaptation measures, the Maldives are facing a financial crunch.
Maldives' former president Mohamed Nasheed led the country from 2008 to 2012. During his tenure, he held an underwater meeting with ministers to draw attention to the effects of climate change. (Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)
"For us to be able to have a decent living, we must be able to suspend our debt repayment and spend on adaptation measures as well," said Nasheed, who is now an ambassador for the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of countries disproportionately affected by climate change.
'Most vulnerable country in the world,' says minister
"Climate change is real and we are the most vulnerable country in the world," she said.
As the sea level rises, ocean water is encroaching on land, which is already being consumed by increasingly powerful waves that are eroding coasts. Warmer oceans, too, have resulted in coral bleaching and the loss of biodiversity, impacting the region's fishing industry.
Fresh water supplies have also been contaminated by sea water, requiring costly desalination, Nasheed says.
A resort island in the Maldives. Approximately 80 per cent of islands in the Maldives are one metre above sea level. (Reinhard Krause/Reuters)
It's no surprise that the country, best-known for its luxury resorts, is already preparing for a warmer future.
The government has built sea walls and is also implementing natural solutions like planting coral reefs to help reduce coastal erosion.
But efforts to mitigate climate change require funding — and Nasheed maintains that will be impossible without debt restructuring for vulnerable countries like his.
"It is through [restructuring] that we would be able to find some space in our budgets to build the water breakers, to build the embankments, to raise our land, to build flood defence systems, to have better irrigation for us to survive," he said.
On the heels of the report, Nasheed warns the Earth is at a tipping point.
"Everything is going out of control. We are losing the equilibrium of the planet," he said, echoing calls for measures that would limit warming to just 1.5 C and reduce carbon in the atmosphere.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the world is dangerously close to runaway warming — and that humans are "unequivocally" to blame. 3:48
Even still, Nasheed says he's positive about the possibilities that technology holds in the effort to slow global warming.
"I'm very optimistic, mostly because renewable energy now is financially viable, economically feasible," he said. "Even if people try to sell fossil fuel, soon it [will] go out of the market."
"The world will be challenged. There's no doubt about that…. But the question is, how far can we adapt ourselves to survive the extreme weather that will be upon us?"
Written by Jason Vermes with files from Reuters.Produced by Sameer Chhabra.
Hear full episodes of Day 6 on CBC Listen, our free audio streaming service.
Water Scarcity Is Starting to Bite in Biggest Copper Supplier
James Attwood and Thomas Biesheuvel Fri, August 20, 2021 Water Scarcity Is Starting to Bite in Biggest Copper Supplier
(Bloomberg) -- Water shortages are starting to threaten copper production in a country that accounts for more than a quarter of global supply.
In Chile this week, a BHP Group mine was ordered to halt groundwater pumping for three months, while Antofagasta Plc warned it will produce less than expected this year amid water supply constraints.
While BHP’s Cerro Colorado is a small operation coming to the end of its life and Antofagasta’s guidance cut isn’t huge, the disruptions underscore the challenges of running mines in one of the world’s driest deserts. Copper mines have been pumping water out from aquifers under the soil for decades, often to the detriment of local communities.
The issue has risen to prominence recently as the desert expands south amid a decade-long drought, potentially exacerbated by global warming. The industry has responded by stepping up efforts to switch to seawater, which is expected to account for almost half of its total water consumption by 2031.
Chile is now drafting a new constitution in the wake of mass protests against social injustices, with lawmakers pushing for reforms to a water system that has relied heavily on private enterprise and market forces to allocate rights and deliver services.
In that context, an environmental court took the surprising step of blocking, albeit temporarily, Cerro Colorado’s use of water from the Lagunillas aquifer starting on Oct. 1 as it hears a lawsuit that accuses the operation of environmental damage.
The company said it would “evaluate the courses of action based on instruments that the legal framework provides and will take operational actions to comply with the measures that are available.”]
Read More: Drought-Stressed Chile Is Reining In Its Privatized Water Model
The smallest of BHP’s three copper mines in Chile has faced opposition from local communities over its use of underground water. Last year, it announced plans to scale back operations, effectively bringing forward a programmed downsizing ahead of the 2023 expiry of its permits. At the time, the company said it would continue to explore options to extend mining beyond 2023 by using seawater.
Antofagasta now expects to produce 710,000 tons to 740,000 tons of copper this year, down from its previous forecast of 730,000 tons to 760,000 tons. The Santiago-based company is building a desalination plant, but that won’t come into operation until the second half of 2022, putting at risk another 50,000 tons of copper production next year.
“This year has been the driest of a 12-year drought in Chile,” Antofagasta said in a statement Thursday. “Given the traditional rainy season runs from June to September, it is looking increasingly likely that the low levels of precipitation will continue until at least the Southern Hemisphere winter next year.”
