PINK HYDROGEN

Coalition applies for US hydrogen hub funding

04 May 2023

The Great Lakes Clean Hydrogen Hub (GLCH) coalition has submitted a full application for funding under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to create a nuclear-powered clean hydrogen hub to serve Ohio, Michigan, and parts of Pennsylvania and Indiana.

Industrial gases company Linde is the prime applicant on behalf of GLCH (Image: Linde)

The group's application sets out details of a USD2 billion plan to create a clean hydrogen hub which will use nuclear power from Energy Harbor's Davis-Besse plant in Ohio to produce clean hydrogen at a competitive cost.

The project has a well-defined scope, is commercially feasible, and will use proven production technologies to minimise the time required to achieve full production of more than 100 tonnes of hydrogen per day, the group said. The hydrogen it will supply will help major industries across the Midwest to decarbonise as well as serving the hydrogen needs of a growing mobility market (including trucking, transit buses, rail, aviation, and marine) and will benefit local communities through stakeholder engagement, job creation, and workforce partnerships and investments, particularly in disadvantaged communities.

According to information from the group, it proposes to develop low-carbon hydrogen via electrolysis at Davis-Besse, supplemented, as needed, with clean hydrogen produced through solar energy projects under development in the region. The hydrogen would be distributed across the Great Lakes region by pipeline and road transportation. Total project investment is expected to exceed USD2 billion, with 50% requested from federal infrastructure funding under the US Department of Energy's regional clean hydrogen hub initiative.

GLCH is led by industrial gases and engineering company Linde and includes Energy Harbor, flat-rolled steel producer Cleveland-Cliffs Inc, GE Aerospace, which provides jet engines, components, and systems for commercial and military aircraft, the University of Toledo, and non-profit trade association the Glass Manufacturing Industry Council. The group said its members include companies with "shovel-ready" opportunities to replace fossil fuels with clean hydrogen.

The Department of Energy (DOE) USD8 billion programme to develop regional clean hydrogen hubs - also known as H2Hubs - was launched last year and is an initiative under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It aims to support the development by 2026 of at least four H2Hubs that can be developed into a national clean hydrogen network to facilitate a clean hydrogen economy.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Westinghouse unveils AP300 small modular reactor

04 May 2023

Westinghouse has launched what it calls a "game-changer" AP300 small modular reactor, a scaled-down version of its AP1000 reactor, with a goal for the first one to deliver power to the grid within a decade.

How the AP300 might look (Image: Westinghouse)

The AP300 SMR, based on the licensed and operating AP1000 pressurised light water technology, is described as an "ultra-compact, modular constructed unit that leverages the innovation and operational knowledge of the global AP1000 fleet" and will use identical AP1000 technology including "major equipment, structural components, passive safety, proven fuel and I&C systems".

Westinghouse says it is the first SMR "based on an Nth-of-a-kind operating plant" and it hopes to benefit from the design utilising its Gen III+ technology which already has regulatory approval in the USA, UK and China as well as being in compliance with European Utility Requirements.

President and CEO of Westinghouse Patrick Fragman said: "The launch of the AP300 SMR rounds out the Westinghouse portfolio of reactor technology, allowing us to deliver on the full needs of our customers globally, with a clear line of sight on schedule of delivery, and economics."

"It is using the DNA of the AP1000 in terms of technology", he said, with its passive safety systems "which has unique advantages in terms of robustness of the safety case, simplicity of the design, with huge implications in terms of costs and time to construct and obviously an ease of deployment because, with the AP1000 being already deployed, the AP300 SMR will leverage the existing supply chain, the existing design, the existing licensing pedigree".

"It is no more and no less than an AP1000 with one loop instead of two loops - which means it's effectively reusing a majority of components, systems, equipment. The fuel is identical, the constructability lessons are identical," he said.

Westinghouse was bringing "certainty" to the SMR market in terms of a proven design, existing supply chains and economics, he said. Market soundings over recent months and discussions with potential customers had led the company to believe this was an "inflection point" for the market.

In a press conference following the announcement, Westinghouse also said the footprint of the AP300 would be about 25% of the area of a football (soccer) pitch, with a target cost per unit of USD1 billion.

Fragman said that the timeline was aiming to get licensing approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission by 2027 "given the existing maturity of the design and reuse of the building blocks of licensing", followed by three years to get site-specific permissions and a further three years for construction "which means that in 10 years from now the first AP300 SMR will effectively deliver its first power to the grid".

The company believes that the customer base for the SMR will be broader than existing utility customers, and will include uses such as hydrogen production, district heating, water desalination and providing power for data centres.

David Durham, President Energy Systems at Westinghouse, said that the initial licensing focus was on design certification from the NRC: "That's typically the kind of stamp of approval around the world - we will be pursuing, though, licensing in other countries over the coming next couple of years".

Westinghouse has named Rita Baranwal, currently Chief Technology Officer, to lead the team developing the AP300 SMR. Baranwal is a former Assistant Secretary of Nuclear Energy at the US Department of Energy, and a previous director of the Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear initiative at Idaho National Lab.

The AP300 SMR will sit between the AP1000 and the eVinci microreactor, a range of products which, the company said, together with other developments, meant Westinghouse was providing "the technology to create a sustainable future and enhance energy security around the globe and eventually in outer space".

There are upwards of 50 different SMRs at various stages of development, with predictions of huge demand to come around the world, with a number of different firms discussing or pencilling orders for them in countries ranging from Poland to the Philippines.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Will Ecuador’s illegal mining crackdown protect Indigenous people?

Reuters | May 3, 2023 | 

River Napo in the Amazon area of Equador (Stock Image)

Kayaking down the Napo River in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest, environmentalist Matthew Terry bemoaned how the once-lush riverbanks are now barren and full of dredges, excavating machines and bulldozers as illegal gold mining spreads across the region.


In certain areas, miners have completely rerouted the river channel, while some smaller tributaries of the Napo and other rivers have been obliterated, threatening biodiversity and water sources for local communities, according to Terry.

“(Illegal mining) used to happen in isolated sites,” said the executive director of the Ecuadorian Rivers Institute (ERI), a non-profit that monitors the country’s whitewater rivers.

“Now we’re starting to see … mining activity throughout (entire rivers),” Terry added.

Ecuador’s illegal gold mining problem stretches far beyond the northern Napo region – the government has identified illegal mining camps in 21 of the country’s 24 provinces since 2000.

But it has recently become a major worry for conservative President Guillermo Lasso. His administration in January declared illegal mining a national security threat, and said it has links to money laundering, and drug and arms trafficking.

The government is seeking to build its mining sector and reduce its financial dependence on crude oil exports – and security secretary Diego Ordonez has said Ecuador will back international companies that have legal mining concessions, and fight illegal mining.

Mining exports rose 32.6% to $2.76 billion in 2022, and the government has said it expects at least $4 billion by 2025. The increase is driving increasing competition for land – and new threats to forests, biodiversity and Indigenous people.

While Ecuador is just starting to tackle illegal mining, illegal gold prospecting is a longstanding and growing concern across Latin America as the price of the precious metal rises and its limited traceability embolden miners.

That is endangering forests and Indigenous communities in nations such as Brazil, Colombia and Peru, analysts and activists warn.

Ecuador’s authorities carried out about 350 operations against “irregular mining activities” in 2022 – including a major raid in February 2022 where some 900 security forces expelled hundreds of illegal miners from two rivers in Napo.

But Patricio Meza, leader of the CONAIE national Indigenous organization, criticized Ecuador’s crackdown as ineffective and intended solely to protect the legitimate mining sector, which he said also threatens local communities and the environment.

Neither the Ministry of Energy and Mines nor the Government Ministry, which oversees Ordóñez’s office, responded to numerous requests for an interview about the issue.

Ecuador’s former vice minister of mining, Fernando Benalcazar, said illegal mining used to be a problem in certain pockets of the country but has become “almost uncontrollable”.

Benalcazar blamed this on a lack of state resources for enforcement, which he said has given illegal miners a level of impunity, as well as on corrupt officials who he said benefit from the trade through money laundering and bribes.

In trying to police illegal mining, “there is no structure, there are no special units that have the right capacities, there are no basic resources for the regulation and control agency to be effective,” he said in an interview in the capital Quito.

“All this is lacking,” added Benalcazar, who is now a mining and energy consultant working in the private sector.

Spiking illegal mining

Recent studies say illegal mining has spiked across Ecuador.

For example, the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP) has used satellite images to measure tree loss due to mining in five key areas of the country’s Amazon region.

In February, MAAP said more than 4,000 acres (1,620 hectares) – the equivalent of about 2,325 football fields – of rainforest had been destroyed due to mining – both legal and illegal – just in those areas since 2018.

An Organization of American States (OAS) report in 2021 also found illegal gold mining and the marketing of the gold had increased significantly in Ecuador in recent years.

Meza of CONAIE said illegal mining has put the lives of Indigenous peoples at risk by contaminating rivers and forests.

A recent health study published in the journal Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management found that exposure to toxic metals in some areas in the Napo basin was 352 times above permissible limits, increasing cancer risk for local people, especially children.

While Indigenous communities mainly oppose illegal mining, Meza said some had resorted to joining the trade to get by because Ecuador’s development model – focused on oil and mineral extraction – has upended traditional land rights and ways of life.

The CONAIE leader highlighted that evictions of illegal miners have tended to occur in areas where mining concessions have been sold, which he said was an example of the state’s interest in protecting the industry over local communities.

Maria Eulalia Silva, president of the Ecuadorian Chamber of Mining, said illegal mining could put the legal mining industry at risk, deterring investors due to security concerns.

The chamber has been working with the government to develop a plan to improve security in mining regions, she added.

“It is no secret that the Ecuadorian state does not have sufficient capacity to deal with this (illegal mining in general),” said Silva.

Separately, the legal mining sector’s guild last month said opposition from Indigenous communities was holding up about $1 billion of investment for the construction of three mining projects in Ecuador.

CONAIE asked Ecuador’s top court in March to annul a decree that sets parameters for community consultations on mining proposals. It instead wants earlier input on approvals for mining projects.

Concerns over illegal mining crackdown

Ecuador’s illegal mining crackdown echoes similar raids in Brazil, where President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has declared illegal gold mining in Indigenous Yanomami territory a humanitarian crisis and in February launched evictions.

In Ecuador’s case, Gaston Schulmeister of the OAS said labeling illegal mining as a national security threat was “very important, especially … (for) the allocation of resources”.

“It’s one more tool to give (the problem) visibility, awareness,” said the director of the Department Against Transnational Organized Crime at the OAS.

Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Guyana and Surinam are part of an OAS project to tackle illegal mining regionally. It provides cash and expertise, and aims to create a cross-border taskforce.

Benalcazar, the ex-official, said Ecuador needed a taskforce of its own, backed with international support and adequate technology, to properly monitor illegal mining in the country.

But Terry of the ERI said he was skeptical of the state’s ability to tackle the trade through force, saying that illegal miners in Napo had ultimately been undeterred by recent raids.

The government must do more to monitor and regulate illegal and legal mining, he said, calling for better environmental controls – particularly around rivers – and stronger regulations on the sale of gold to track illicit activity.

“I don’t see anyone complying with any of the laws and regulations” Terry added.

(By Kimberley Brown; Editing by Kieran Guilbert and Laurie Goering)

Freeport Indonesia must divest additional 10% stake to govt, says minister

Reuters | May 3, 2023 |

Freeport’s iconic Grasberg mine. (Image from archives.)

Indonesia’s investment minister said on Wednesday that copper miner Freeport Indonesia must agree to sell an additional 10% stake to the government, as negotiations get underway for the US company to extend its permit to operate in the country.


Bahlil Lahadalia said the government will seek the cheapest pricing possible to increase its stake from 51% to 61% in Freeport-McMoRan’s Indonesian unit, which controls one of the world’s largest copper mines.


“We ask for Freeport’s 10% divestment through a state company for as cheap as possible. I’m not asking to see the valuation,” he said in an interview, adding that Freeport must agree to this requirement to be able to extend its mining permit which currently runs to 2041.

“If we are not thinking about this now, in 2041 there will be job losses and Papua’s economy will be impacted,” Bahlil said, referring to the region where Freeport’s flagship Grasberg mine is located.

He added Freeport will also be required to build a smelter in Papua in addition to the $3 billion project it is building in East Java. Partnership with Papuan businesses and meeting environmental standards would also be part of negotiations, Bahlil added.

The $3.85 billion that Indonesia invested in the miner in 2018 via a state company has proven beneficial for the country, and the government expects to break even on that deal next year, he said.

Although details of the new deal are still being discussed, he said, it is crucial for both parties to finalise Freeport’s permit extension as early as possible to avoid a dip in output.

Freeport Indonesia said it produced 3 million tonnes of copper concentrate in 2022, an annual record. The miner has in recent year transitioned into underground mining at Grasberg.

(By Fransiska Nangoy and Stefanno Sulaiman; Editing by Kanupriya Kapoor)

Gentle method allows for eco-friendly recycling of solar cells

By using a new method, precious metals can be efficiently recovered from thin-film solar cells. This is shown by new research from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. The method is also more environmentally friendly than previous methods of recycling and paves the way for more flexible and highly efficient solar cells.

Today there are two mainstream types of solar cells. The most common is silicon-based and accounts for 90 percent of the market. The other type is called thin-film solar cells which in turn uses three main sub-technologies, one of which is known as CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Selenide), and consists of a layer of different metals, including indium and silver. Thin-film solar cells are by far the most effective of today's commercially available technologies. They can also be made bendable and adaptable, which means that they can be used in many different areas. The problem is that the demand for indium and silver is high, and increased production is accompanied by a growing amount of production waste, which contains a mixture of valuable metals and hazardous substances. Being able to separate attractive metals from other substances, therefore, becomes extremely valuable, both economically and environmentally, as they can be reused in new products.

“It is crucial to remove any contamination and recycle, so that the material becomes as clean as possible again. Until now, high heat and a large amount of chemicals have been used to succeed, which is an expensive process that is also not environmentally friendly”, says Ioanna Teknetzi, PhD student at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, who together with Burcak Ebin and Stellan Holgersson published the new results in the journal Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells.

Now their research shows that a more environmentally friendly recycling process can have the same outcome.

“We took into account both purity and environmentally friendly recycling conditions and studied how to separate the metals in the thin-film solar cells in acidic solutions through a much ‘kinder’ way of using a method called leaching. We also have to use chemicals, but nowhere near as much as with previous leaching methods. To check the purity of the recovered indium and silver, we also measured the concentrations of possible impurities and saw that optimisation can reduce these”, says Ioanna Teknetzi.

The researchers showed that it is possible to recover 100 percent of the silver and about 85 percent of the indium. The process takes place at room temperature without adding heat.

“It takes one day, which is slightly longer than traditional methods, but with our method, it becomes more cost-effective and better for the environment. Our hopes are that our research can be used as a reference to optimise the recycling process and pave the way for using the method on a larger scale in the future”, says Burcak Ebin.

The method

1. The film from the solar cell is analysed with respect to material, chemical composition, particle size and thickness. The solar cell is placed in a container with an acid solution at the desired temperature. Agitation is used to facilitate dissolution of metals in the acid solution. This process is called leaching.

2. Leaching effectiveness and chemical reactions are assessed by analysing samples taken at specific times during the leaching process. The different metals are leached at different times. This means that the process can be stopped before all the metals begin to dissolve, which in turn contributes to achieving higher purity.

3. When the leaching is complete, the desired metals are in the solution in the form of ions and can be easily purified to be reused in the manufacture of new solar cells.

More about the study

Valuable metal recycling from thin film CIGS solar cells by leaching under mild conditions has been published in Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells. The authors are Ioanna Teknetzi, Burcak Ebin and Stellan Holgersson at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology. The study has been carried out at Chalmers Material Analysis Laboratory, CMAL, and the research has received funding from the Swedish Energy Agency.

For more information, please contact

Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, conducts research and education in technology and natural sciences at a high international level. The university has 3100 employees and 10,000 students, and offers education in engineering, science, shipping and architecture.

With scientific excellence as a basis, Chalmers promotes knowledge and technical solutions for a sustainable world. Through global commitment and entrepreneurship, we foster an innovative spirit, in close collaboration with wider society.The EU’s biggest research initiative – the Graphene Flagship – is coordinated by Chalmers. We are also leading the development of a Swedish quantum computer.

Chalmers was founded in 1829 and has the same motto today as it did then: Avancez – forward.

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Army gives glimmer of hope for Pebble copper-gold project in Alaska 

Field surveying at the Northern Dynasty Minerals Pebble project in Alaska. Credit: Northern Dynasty

POSTED BY: COLIN MCCLELLAND MAY 1, 2023

The United States Army is improving the slim odds for the Northern Dynasty Minerals (TSX: NDM; NYSE: NAK) Pebble project in southwest Alaska which has already been blocked by environmental authorities.  

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which has its own approvals process for what would be North America’s largest mine with a 600-metre-deep pit, said Apr. 25 it will take another look at its refusal in 2020 to approve the project after Northern Dynasty successfully appealed the decision. The corps has to report back in 45 days.  

“We have been saying that the record of decision process was not fairly conducted since 2020 and are pleased to see that the review officer has raised similar concerns,” Ron Thiessen, president and CEO of Northern Dynasty, said in a news release on Monday. “This remand decision is a strong win for the project because it brings these issues to light and directs the district to address them, potentially setting the stage for a much different outcome.” 

BMO Capital Markets agreed on Monday in a note about items Northern Dynasty appealed when the corps ruled against the gold, copper and molybdenum project 380 km southwest of Anchorage. 

“These include possible inconsistencies in the evaluation of a compensatory mitigation plan and possible inconsistencies in weighing the benefits vs. detriments of developing Pebble,” mining analyst Andrew Mikitchook wrote. “Correcting the remanded issues could have a meaningful impact on the overall permitting decision.” 

At issue this time in the decades-long struggle to develop the project forecast to generate US$1.7 billion in annual revenue is whether Northern Dynasty was allowed to adjust its comprehensive mitigation plan with public feedback, and if the corps ruled wrongly on the project’s tailings storage.  

Thiessen argues the company wasn’t given proper instruction, feedback or time to change its mitigation plan to meet requirements, which in turn could potentially prompt the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s to reverse its decision to reject the project. That refusal was based on concerns the project would breach the Clean Water Act and hurt the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery at Bristol Bay.  

He also noted the corps’ review said it had been wrong to consider potential catastrophic impacts of a tailings storage facility failure as a reason for its permit denial after the Final Environmental Impact Study (FEIS) had found the tailings storage design didn’t present any reasonably foreseeable failure risks. 

Zigzags

Northern Dynasty says it is considering how to challenge the EPA’s ruling in court. The Army Engineers review could give it ammunition. It marks another zigzag in the project that began as a discovery in the late 1980s by what now is Teck Resources (TSX: TECK; NYSE: TECK).  

There have been a series of studies, permits, refusals and appeals for the project since Northern Dynasty took control in 2001. The company even appealed successfully against the EPA more than a decade ago. This year’s EPA ruling barred the project from depositing waste material within the local watershed, effectively cancelling it. But if the tailings storage design is indeed sound, that could undermine the EPA’s stance.  

“The EPA in its final determination specifically refers to the risk of tailings failure to justify its decision, despite the FEIS saying that this is not reasonably foreseeable,” Thiessen said. “This contradiction will need to be explained.”  

However, President Joe Biden has called Bristol Bay, which is home to a US$2.2-billion-a-year salmon fishery, “no place for a mine.” His administration has blocked other mines, such as the Antofagasta (LSE: ANTO) Twin Metals project in Minnesota, despite the loud cry for more critical minerals projects to challenge Chinese dominance and promote the country’s transformation to green energy to fight climate change.  

Pebble has measured and indicated resources of 6.5 billion tonnes grading 0.4% copper, 0.34 gram gold per tonne, 240 parts per million (ppm) molybdenum, 1.7 grams silver per tonne and 0.41 ppm rhenium, for 57 billion lb. of copper, 70.6 million oz. gold, 3.4 billion lb. molybdenum and 345 million oz. of silver.  

Shares in Northern Dynasty gained 3.5% on Monday to 30¢ each, within a 52-week range of 28¢ to 46¢, valuing the company at $158.6 million. 

TERBIUM

Rare Earth Metal Detected at One of The Galaxy's Most Extreme Worlds
SPACE

03 May 2023
BY MICHELLE STARR

An artist's impression of KELT-9b and its host star. (NASA/JPL-Caltech)

One of the wildest exoplanets ever found in the Milky Way has just gotten even more interesting.

In the atmosphere of KELT-9b, astronomers have detected the rare earth metal terbium swirling around in clouds of vaporized metal, the first time this extremely rare element has been found on a distant world.

The team also made new detections of vanadium, barium, strontium, nickel, and other elements, confirming previous detections and suggesting that whatever is going on with KELT-9b is very strange indeed.

"We have developed a new method that makes it possible to obtain more detailed information. Using this, we have discovered seven elements, including the rare substance terbium, which has never before been found in any exoplanet's atmosphere," says astrophysicist Nicholas Borsato of Lund University in Sweden.

"Finding terbium in an exoplanet's atmosphere is very surprising."

KELT-9b is located some 670 light-years away and is truly one of the most extreme exoplanets out there. It's known as a hot Jupiter, a gas giant locked into such a close orbit with its host star that it's heated to scorching temperatures.

On top of that, KELT-9b orbits a blue supergiant star – that's one of the hottest there is – on an extremely tight orbit of just 1.48 days.

This proximity is pretty much vaporizing the exoplanet: On its day side, KELT-9b is heated to temperatures in excess of 4,600 Kelvin (4,327 degrees Celsius, or 7,820 degrees Fahrenheit). That's the hottest temperature we've ever seen in an exoplanet. It's hotter than at least 80 percent of all known stars.

Luckily for us, KELT-9b orbits in such a way that it passes between us and the star. This means that scientists have been able to peer into its atmosphere.

When the starlight passes through the atmosphere of KELT-9b, some wavelengths of light are absorbed and re-emitted by atoms in the gas. The signal is tiny, but by stacking orbits, astronomers can amplify the signal to see brighter and darker parts on the spectrum of the star's light when the planet is transiting, compared to observations of the star on its own.

It takes a bit of analysis, but scientists can look at the signature of these dark and light parts and determine which elements are causing the changes in the light.

With this data, KELT-9b became the first exoplanet in whose atmosphere vaporized iron and titanium were detected in 2018. Then, a year later, scientists announced that they had also found sodium, magnesium, chromium, and rare earth metals scandium and yttrium.

Now, Borsato and his colleagues have refined the analysis techniques to make even more detailed breakdowns of the elements found in the spectrum of KELT-9b and its host star. Their results confirmed previous detections of hydrogen, sodium, magnesium, calcium, chromium, and iron and detected several metals that hadn't been spotted in the exoplanet's atmosphere.

Terbium, with the atomic number 65, was the true surprise. Here on Earth, the heavy element is extremely rare, usually found in trace amounts combined with other elements. We have to date identified no natural terbium-dominant mineral; its estimated abundance in Earth's crust is around 0.00012 percent.

Finding it on another world is interesting because heavy elements like terbium can only be forged in the most violent of circumstances, such as a supernova explosion or a collision between two neutron stars.

This is true for all elements heavier than iron, but the detection of terbium in an exoplanet atmosphere was not at all expected, and it could tell us something about the history of KELT-9b and its star.

We know both are relatively young, as far as these things go: around just 300 million years. (The Sun, for context, is about 4.6 billion years old.) To contain heavy elements like those detected in KELT-9b's atmosphere, they must have formed from materials that included ejecta from one of these violent events.

Since such events occur at the end of a star's lifetime, the quantity of heavy elements in the Universe increases over time.

The older a star or exoplanet is, the less heavy element material it will have. Conversely, younger stars and exoplanets will have more heavy elements and likely a greater variety.

"Learning more about the heavier elements helps us, among other things, to determine the age of the exoplanets and how they were formed," Borsato says.

The team's work also advances the techniques used for analyzing exoplanet atmospheres. The science is still fairly new, but it's growing in leaps and bounds; a new generation of telescopes will expand it exponentially.

This isn't just for studying the extreme outliers, like KELT-9b. Scientists believe that our first detection of life outside the Solar System will be through the detection of biological material in the atmosphere of an alien world.

"Detecting heavy elements in the atmospheres of ultra-hot exoplanets is another step towards learning how the atmospheres of planets work," Borsato says. "The better we get to know these planets, the greater chance we have of finding Earth 2.0 in the future."

The research has been accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics, and is available on arXiv.

Terbium - Element information, properties and uses | 

Terbium was first isolated in 1843 by the Swedish chemist Carl Mosander at Stockholm. He had already investigated cerium oxide and separated a new element from it, lanthanum, and now he focussed his attention on yttrium, discovered in 1794, because he thought this too might harbour another element. In fact Mosander was able to obtain two other metal oxides from it: terbium oxide (yellow) and erbium oxide (rose pink) and these he announced in 1843. This was not the end of the story, however, because later that century these too yielded other rare earth elements (aka lanthanoids). Today these elements are easily separated by a process known as liquid-liquid extraction.

Brazil's Lula recognises six new indigenous reserves

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IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERS

Image caption,

Lula (left) signed the demarcation decree at a gathering of Brazil's indigenous people in the capital Brasília

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has decreed six new indigenous reserves, banning mining and restricting commercial farming there.

The lands - including a vast area of Amazon rainforest - cover about 620,000 hectares (1.5m acres).

Indigenous leaders welcomed the move, but said more areas needed protection.

Lula, who took office in January, has pledged to reverse policies of his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, who promoted mining in indigenous lands.

Lula, who previously served as president in 2003-2010, signed the demarcation decree on Friday - the final day of a gathering of indigenous people from around the country in the capital Brasília.

"We are going to legalise indigenous lands. It is a process that takes a little while, because it has to go through many hands," the 77-year-old leader told the crowds.

"I don't want any indigenous territory to be left without demarcation during my government. That is the commitment I made to you."

And in a tweet, Lula described the decision as "an important step".

Recent years have seen an alarming rise in deforestation of the Amazon rainforest, a crucial buffer in the global fight against climate change.

The new reserves are in central Brazil, as well as the country's north-east and south.

The presidential decree grants indigenous people exclusive use of natural resources on the reserves. All mining is banned, and there are tighter rules for commercial farming and logging.

While hailing Lula's decision, some indigenous leaders pointed out that his government had vowed to recognise 14 new territories.

During his time in office, Mr Bolsonaro made it his mission to push economic development in the Amazon.

He repeatedly argued that by mining in indigenous territories, Brazil - which relies heavily on imported fertilisers - could build more of its own potassium reserves. That argument has been questioned by some experts.

BBC

Separating Mining Explosions from Earthquakes in South Korea

Published on 20 April 2023 

20 April 2023–South Korea is a relatively quiet country, seismically speaking, but a recent study identified more than 182,000 small seismic events–135,000 of which were related to mining explosions, according to a presentation at the Seismological Society of America (SSA)’s 2023 Annual Meeting.

After using machine learning techniques to detect tiny earthquakes in seven years’ worth of data collected by 421 seismic stations in the country, Jeong-Ung Woo of Stanford University and colleagues found distinct patterns in event times and locations that allowed them to identify which microseismic events were associated with mining operations. (Microseismicity usually refers to earthquakes of magnitude 2.0 and smaller.)

With relatively few natural earthquakes in South Korea, which is located in the middle of a tectonic plate, seismicity between 2016 and 2022 “was mostly occurring in the daytime, because the mining operations are usually occurring in the daytime,” Woo said.

Seismicity patterns also varied between summer and winter, due to how different sunrise and sunset times affected mining operations, Woo noted. The records showed a distinct drop off in seismic events on Sundays, when the mines are traditionally closed, and “even a little bit on Saturdays,” he added.

Natural seismicity doesn’t follow such regular timing, so microseismicity could be used as “very strong evidence to discriminate earthquakes and explosions without many physical techniques,” Woo said.

The researchers also compared their data with satellite images of mining locations, confirming that the seismic events identified as coming from mining blasts overlapped the location of operations.

Local time of current earthquakes, mining blasts and mine-related events. Earthquakes occur at all times of the day, while mining blasts most commonly occur over noon or at the end of the workday. Mine-related events occur during daylight hours. | Jeong-Ung Woo

There were unusual clusters of seismicity at the mining locations, between sunset and sunrise, that didn’t fit the timing of mining operations. “These could be considered mining-related events, or we need to figure out what else could be happening,” Woo said, such as whether mining blasts might be triggering natural seismicity in the area.

The microseismicity data could help seismologists pinpoint previously unidentified active faults or look more closely at earthquake aftershock sequences, he added.

Woo’s study of microseismicity in South Korea was inspired by a paper in the SSA open-access journal The Seismic Record, which showed how machine learning techniques could be used to identify hundreds of thousands of small earthquakes in Oklahoma and Kansas. Yongsoo Park, a former Ph.D. student at Stanford and now at Los Alamos National Laboratory, is a co-author of both studies.

South Korea experienced the largest earthquakes in its instrumental history in the past seven years: the magnitude 5.8 Gyeongju earthquake in 2016 and the magnitude 5.4 Pohang earthquake in 2017. The Pohang earthquake may have been triggered by water injected in rock layers at a geothermal plant. In the wake of the development of earthquake early-warning systems for these damaging and unexpected earthquakes, the country increased its number of seismic stations, creating the dense network that Woo and colleagues used in their study.

With the new microseismicity data, “it reveals previously unreported seismic swarms and activated faults in South Korea as well as capturing characteristic mining activities,” he said.

Pilot case study applies natural capital accounting to mining

Tess Macallan May 5, 2023 


A new pilot case study published by BHP signifies the first attempt at trialling natural capital accounting principles in the mining sector.

The Natural Capital Accounting for the Mining Sector: Beenup Site Pilot Case Study (Beenup Case Study) is based on a case study at BHP’s closed and rehabilitated Beenup Mineral Sands site in southern Western Australia.

Natural capital accounts are a way to measure the amount, condition and value of environmental assets, helping to describe changes in ecosystems and how they could impact wellbeing and economies.

BHP selected the closed and rehabilitated Beenup site for the pilot case study as it enabled retrospective tracking of different land use scenarios over a period of time, was supported by a rich knowledge bank and the rehabilitation planning had nature-positive outcomes as an early intent.

BHP Chief Legal, Governance and External Affairs Officer, Caroline Cox, said BHP’s aspiration is to contribute to “nature positive” outcomes, with the goal of having at least 30 per cent of the land and water it stewards, approximately two million hectares, under conservation, restoration or regenerative practices by 2030.

“We know that objectively measuring our progress and understanding the impacts of our efforts will only be possible using tools such as natural capital accounts. Our Beenup Case Study provides important insights, so we’re pleased to share it and engage with others on the development of natural capital accounting within the industry.”

BHP Vice President Environment, Anne Dekker, said tools like natural capital accounting would enable better decision making for sectors of society who are working to halt and reverse current trends in nature loss by 2030.

“When we look at the case study’s findings we see some expected outcomes from mine rehabilitation activities, such as increases in species and habitat, but also a couple of outcomes that were not part of the original rehabilitation design, such as a net gain in carbon storage and significant improvement in quality of water that flows through the site from local pastoral operations to environmental receptors and communities downstream.

“So, the case study has really given us a foundation for considering how we can evolve natural capital accounting concepts for mine sites and sets us up to take the next steps, such as applying them at our operational sites and working with others to apply them within the industry more broadly.”

The Beenup Case Study was prepared by Syrinx Environmental for BHP and is a collaboration between BHP, CRC TiME, CSIRO, Curtin University, Syrinx Environmental, The University of Western Australia and the Western Australian Biodiversity Science Institute.

The full case study can be viewed here.