Chile court orders BHP’s Cerro Colorado mine to stop pumping from aquifer

Reuters | August 19, 2021 | 

Cerro Colorado mine in Chile. (Image by Zwansaurio | Flickr Commons)

A Chilean court ordered BHP’s Cerro Colorado copper mine on Thursday to stop pumping water from an aquifer over environmental concerns, according to filings seen by Reuters.


The same First Environmental Court in July ruled that the relatively small copper mine in Chile’s northern desert must start again from scratch on an environmental plan for a maintenance project.


The court on Thursday called for “precautionary measures” that include ceasing groundwater extraction for 90 days from an aquifer near the mine.

The court said the measures were necessary to prevent adverse effects from pumping from becoming more acute.

Copper miners across Chile, the world’s top producer of the red metal, have been forced in recent years to find alternative means to feed water to their operations as drought and receding aquifers have hampered prior plans. Many have sharply reduced use of continental freshwater or turned to desalination plants.

BHP said in a statement that once the company is officially notified it “will evaluate what course of action to take, based on instruments that the legal framework provides.”

A ruling in January by Chile’s Supreme Court upheld local indigenous communities’ complaint that the environmental review process had failed to consider concerns about the project’s impacts on natural resources, including the regional aquifer.

Cerro Colorado, a small mine in BHP’s Chilean portfolio, produced about 1.2% of Chile’s total copper output in 2020.

(By Fabian Cambero, Erik Lopez and Dave Sherwood; Editing by Grant McCool)

ECOCIDE GENOCIDE MINAMATA DISEASE

Brazil’s Munduruku tribe haunted by mercury’s deadly threat

WATER IS LIFE
Reuters | August 20, 2021 | 

Aerial view of Tapajos River (Credit: Shutterstock)

By the time 38-year-old Irene Munduruku was rushed to a hospital in northern Brazil last year, she could not move her arms and legs. Her husband Jairo Munduruku recalls she was unable to speak or open her eyes.


Doctors told Jairo his wife had tumors in her liver and right lung, but he doubted that cancer was the only cause for her illness.

Recent testing showed Irene’s blood with one of the highest levels of mercury in their village of Sawré Aboy, by the banks of the Tapajós river in the Amazon rainforest. He suspected illegal gold mining had something to do with her illness.

Related Article: Illegal gold represents 17% of Brazil’s exports — study

Wildcat gold mining has expanded fast in Brazil, where the relaxing of environmental controls under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has emboldened thousands of miners to invade constitutionally protected indigenous lands since 2019.

Brazil’s National Mining Agency estimated that year that wildcat gold miners were extracting some 30 tonnes of gold annually from the Tapajós watershed alone, using the toxic heavy metal mercury to separate gold from sediment.

Driven by sprawling mining camps, deforestation in the indigenous reservation that is home to most of the Munduruku has tripled since Bolsonaro took office, according to government satellite data.

“Since 2019, there has been an immense increase in activity in the region with the opening of new gold mines,” said Carol Marçal, a spokesperson for Greenpeace Brazil’s Amazon Campaign. “Preventative efforts exist, but little has been done to get illegal gold miners out of the area.”

IN THE MOST SEVERE CASES, IT CAN CAUSE NEUROLOGICAL DAMAGE IN UNBORN CHILDREN AND LEAD TO PREMATURE DEATH

Bolsonaro has called for more mining and commercial farming on indigenous land, pushing a bill to lift legal restrictions and – critics say – emboldening miners breaking existing law.

The presidential press office did not reply to a request for comment. Federal indigenous agency FUNAI said it was working to protect tribal reservations including the Munduruku’s and referred questions about their illnesses to indigenous health agency SESAI, which did not answer a request for comment.

Munduruku community leaders told Reuters they fear the advance of illegal mining will poison their rivers, robbing them of their traditions and saddling them with chronic illness.

Irene Munduruku returned home in June, but her condition has deteriorated and she is scheduled to return to hospital this month. Jairo tells his wife’s story as a warning of the crisis his community faces.

“Our ancestors never said we had to become rich from destroying the patrimony that we share,” he wrote to Reuters. “The greatest wealth is knowledge, to know how to respect life.”

Shifting diets

Although mercury poisoning has no cure, community leaders and non-profit groups have looked for ways to reduce risks.

This year, Brazilian NGO Saúde e Alegria has collaborated with nine Munduruku villages to develop alternative water systems reducing reliance on the polluted Tapajós. The local Pariri Association aims to cultivate fish in cleaner streams.

Although project leaders are still looking for funding, they plan on raising species suited for fish farming such as pacu and tambaqui, said Anderson Munduruku, of the Pariri Association.

They are urging neighbors to cut catfish, dogfish and piranha from their diets, since their positions higher up the food chain make them far more contaminated with mercury.

Sometimes members of the tribe can see for themselves what miners have done to the rivers, turning them a muddy brown that community leader Deuziano Munduruku compared to chocolate milk.

But often the mercury poisoning is invisible, contaminating the fish that is their main source of protein.

In a 2019 study of three Munduruku villages, researchers from the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) found mercury in the hair samples of all 200 participants.

Most samples showed levels above the safe range – up to nine times the threshold set by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

“It’s incredibly worrying that we are consuming this metal,” said Beka Munduruku, an 18-year-old from Sawré Maybu.

Symptoms of mercury poisoning are far-ranging. Some report weakness, dulled senses and difficulty moving. Others suffer from mood and memory disorders, according to the Fiocruz report.

In the most severe cases, it can cause neurological damage in unborn children and lead to premature death.

Since the Fiocruz study was made public, Munduruku leaders say their people have been plunged into speculation.

Teenagers complain of joint pains. A child is born with crippling disabilities. A local leader dies unexpectedly. Neighbors are left wondering if mercury is to blame.

Mercury poisoning is hard to diagnose because few local clinics test for the metal, according to schoolteacher Honesio Dace Munduruku.

Honesio, who tracks indigenous schools in the Middle Tapajós region, has seen behavioral and physical problems on the rise among students since 2018.

Paulo Basta, one of the principal Fiocruz researchers, said those who performed worse on aptitude tests administered in 2019 had the highest levels of mercury in their hair.

Correlations between mercury levels and tests of memory, verbal fluency and rational thinking were most notable in subjects between the ages of 12 and 20 years, he said, casting a pall over the future of the Munduruku.

(By Jimin Kang; Editing by Brad Haynes and Marguerita Choy)

ECOCIDE  WATER IS LIFE

Angola mine leak causes ‘unprecedented’ pollution in Congo rivers, researchers say

Reuters | August 20, 2021 | 

Congo river viewed from Kintambo. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

A suspected leak of heavy metals from a mine in northern Angola is causing an “unprecedented environmental catastrophe”, affecting some 2 million people in Democratic Republic of Congo, researchers at Kinshasa University said on Friday.


Analysis of satellite imagery and interviews indicate a reservoir used to store mining pollutants was breached on July 15 in a diamond-mining area straddling Lunda Sul and Lunda Norte provinces in Angola, said Raphael Tshimanga, director of The Congo Basin Water Resources Research Centre (CRREBaC).


Two tributaries of the Congo river, the Tshikapa and Kasai rivers, turned red, killing fish and causing diarrhoea amongst communities along their banks, Tshimanga said. There are reports hippopotamuses have also died, he said.

“We have never seen such huge pollution in the Congo river,” Tshimanga said by phone. “It is still increasing, the consequences are beyond what we could imagine. This is a catastrophe. It’s an unprecedented environmental catastrophe.”

The Congolese and Angolan governments have agreed to set up a joint team to investigate the source of the pollution, Congo’s ministry of foreign affairs said.

The discolouration of the waterways appears to have been caused by a toxic substance spill at an industrial diamond mine in Angola, Congo’s environment minister Eve Bazaiba said in a statement on Aug. 9.

Reuters could not independently verify the claim. An Angolan mines ministry official did not respond to a request for comment.

The spill has killed a “significant number of fish and other animal species living in the contaminated waters,” Bazaiba said, adding that pollution was at the “door of Kinshasa”, Congo’s capital and home to some 12 million people.

“We can confidently say that this pollution is from heavy metals that have surged into the river and our worry is that it should get into the food chain,” CRREBaC’s Tshimanga said.

“It could pollute natural reservoirs and aquifers. If this is the case it could take years, decades to resolve this issue.”

(By Hereward Holland, Helen Reid and Stanis Bujakera; Editing by Grant McCool)

Greenhouse gas emissions at gold mines unaffected by lockdowns — report

MINING.com Editor | August 20, 2021 

Stock image.

A new Metal and Mining research report on greenhouse gas emissions in gold mines by S&P Global Market Intelligence reviewed 2020 sustainability reports from more than 90 leading gold mines globally to conduct a year-over-year comparison of greenhouse gas emissions to see the impact of lockdown on emissions.


The report looks at the year-over year comparison of emissions. Mining grades declined in 2020, but despite some fluctuations in actual emissions, that drop in grade led to a drop in gold output, which caused a drop in per-ounce emissions intensity, says S&P.

In 2020, gold output was down 5% globally compared with 2019, largely due to lockdowns imposed to curb the covid-19 pandemic. The combined output from primary gold mines that accounted for around 35% of global supply in 2020 fell just over 1% from 2019 production, the report reads.

Throughput from these mines also fell around 1%, from 847 million tonnes of ore processed in 2019 to 840 Mt in 2020, S&P reports. Meanwhile, emissions from these operations increased less than 1%, from 27.7 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, or tCO2e, in 2019 to 27.6 MtCO2e in 2020.

Emissions intensity averaged 0.697 tCO2e per ounce of gold produced, the report reads, a negligible decrease year over year. On a per tonne of throughput basis, emissions intensity increased incrementally, up less than 1% to 28.7 tCO2e per thousand tonnes of ore processed.


Negligible change in emissions, divided by less gold gives a bigger value in tCO2e/oz. Supporting that somewhat more-stable nature of open pits, grade didn’t change by much at open pit mines. Underground mines’ per-ounce intensity increased by 13% but declined at open pits, the report finds. Generally, per-tonne emissions intensity remained stable overall.

Lockdowns did occur in a number of regions in 2020 but overall they didn’t cause much change in terms of emissions intensity of a project.

“A period of lockdown might have caused a drop in output, but the emissions are coming from operating the mines. During the lockdown, the equipment and the mills were shut down, therefore the emissions would decline anyway. A drop in emissions divided by a lower output (or throughput for that matter) can just as easily yield the same emissions intensity,” says S&P.

Analysis of 2019 data from 96 gold mines highlighted clear differences in the emissions intensity across mine types, the report finds, with open pit mines exhibiting a higher intensity on a per ounce of gold produced but a lower intensity on a per tonne of ore processed basis.

Resource nationalism sweeps Latin America’s top mining countries

Cecilia Jamasmie | August 19, 2021 | 

Newmont walked away from the $5bn Conga copper-gold project in Peru in 2016, due to relentless community opposition. (Image: Screenshot via YouTube.)

A move towards resource expropriation, tax and royalty increases, as well as demands for local participation in companies’ ownership, all resource nationalism components, continue to increase, with Latin America taking centre stage, a new study shows.


According to the latest report from risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, there is a clear four-year trend in minerals-rich nations to seek greater control over the revenues generated by their natural resources, which is expected to increase over the next two years.

The consultancy identified 66 countries out of the 198 included in the resource nationalism index (RNI), or 33% of them, that have tightened the grip on their riches since 2017.

LATIN AMERICA IS THE JURISDICTION WHERE RISKS OF EXPROPRIATION AND TAXES HIKES HAVE INCREASED THE MOST IN THE PAST FOUR YEARS

Latin America is the jurisdiction where risks of expropriation and taxes hikes have increased the most, the study says. Mexico stands out as seeing the nation where the risks have climbed the most, driven by López Obrador administration’s nationalist agenda that wields community and environmental arguments as justification for greater state involvement in the extractive sector, Verisk Maplecroft says.

Mexico’s situation is indicative of a wider regional trend affecting miners and energy firms in the region. South America’s three largest economies, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia are also experiencing substantial negative shifts in the index, while the once stable mining destinations of Chile and Peru are in the midst of political changes that threaten to alter the operating environment for the industry.

Courtesy of Verisk Maplecroft. (Click to enlarge)

Copper prices have soared to record highs this year, handing unions in the two largest producers of the metal — Chile and Peru — additional leverage. The price rally has also ratcheted up tensions in labour negotiations and put pressure on global supply of the red metal.

Verisk Maplecroft’s RNI tracks incidents of direct expropriation and nationalization. The highest scores go to cases where there hasn’t been adequate compensation, no compensation, or in which a government hasn’t paid an award to a company following arbitration.

The ten highest risk countries in the latest edition of the index are Venezuela, Tanzania, Mexico, PNG, Zambia, Russia, North Korea, Kazakhstan, DRC and Zimbabwe.

The motive behind direct expropriation could be short-term political gain or a genuine attempt to save a vital but ailing industry to support the national interest. “The adequacy of compensation is the key factor from a business perspective,” the consultancy says.
Politics and community pressure

In Latin America, the push to gain greater benefit from natural resources generally hinges on two factors. In Mexico and Argentina, the main driving force is ideology, while in Colombia and Chile pressure comes from communities — both those hosting mining projects and civil society.

“While the traditional bastions of stability for Latin America’s mining investors are not yet crumbling, they appear to be joining their regional peers on the path of greater resource nationalism,” the report reads. “Only time will tell how far each one goes down this road.”

In Africa, motivations are much more diverse. The interventionism seen in Liberia and Mauritania is driven by structural governance shortcomings, not nationalist sentiment, Verisk Maplecroft points out.

The line between resource nationalism and legitimate national interest isn’t always easy to draw, and this can exacerbate tensions.

What is key for miners, according to the report, is to detect the signals early on, so that companies can adapt their investment strategies and exploration portfolios to mitigate future exposure to nationalism trends.

By doing so, the consultancy concludes, companies can also prioritize investment in jurisdictions where they can be part of the solution. They can work with local stakeholders to find a balance between community needs and industry profitability to secure long-term social license to operate.

Mexico leads LatAm push for more control of resource revenue

Reuters | August 18, 2021 

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. (Image by ProtoplasmaKid, Wikimedia Commons)

Latin American governments have increasingly sought more control of their mining and energy revenue over the past few years, with Mexico leading the pack according to the latest Resource Nationalism Index rankings published by Verisk Maplecroft on Wednesday.


The report said environmental concerns as well as those from local communities increasingly play a bigger role in influencing policy shifts.

Over the past four years, Mexico has risen the most in the ranking, which is currently led by Venezuela. Argentina was placed in the top 20 for the first time after coming in at No. 81 out of 198 countries in the third quarter of 2018.

The rankings represent the level of risk to business from governments taking greater control of economic activity and revenue generated in extractive industries, Verisk Maplecroft said.

The measurements take in to account state drivers, participation in extraction and expropriation outcomes. The higher a country’s ranking, the greater the perceived risk.


THE RISK INCREASE COMES AS COMMODITY PRICES MEASURED BY THE REFINITIV/CORECOMMODITY CRB INDEX THIS QUARTER HIT THE HIGHEST LEVEL SINCE 2015

Mexico’s rise from 101 in 2018’s third quarter to No. 3 at present is driven by President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s “nationalist agenda,” according to the analysis.

“A legislative proposal (now stalled) to nationalize lithium indicates AMLO’s interventionism is all but certain to expand beyond oil and gas in the second half of his term,” the report noted, using an abbreviation for Lopez Obrador.

Mexico’s president has argued that his push to bolster state companies aims to balance a market that has been skewed in favor of the private sector.

In the case of Argentina, Verisk Maplecroft said President Alberto Fernandez’s intervention in multiple sectors is the source of the increased risk.

“Because intervention has largely ideological and political motivations, we expect it to intensify as the government heads into the second half of its term, regardless of the outcome of the November midterms.”

The report notes, however, that Brazil and Colombia, which are led by center-right governments as opposed to the left-leaning Mexico and Argentina, are also seeing an increase in risk for investors in resource sectors.

“The once stable mining destinations of Peru and Chile are on the cusp of political changes that will alter the operating environment for the industry,” said the report.

Peru’s president, Pedro Castillo, sworn in late last month, campaigned partly on the promise of keeping for the country a larger chunk of the revenue derived from mining. Legislation along the same lines is being discussed in Chile, the world’s largest copper producer.

Ecuador, bucking the regional trend, dropped from No. 3 in 2017 to a current rank of 74.

A third of the countries assessed show increasing risks for business over the past four years as governments aim to take more control of revenue associated with extracting industries. About a fourth showed a decrease in such risks.

The risk increase comes as commodity prices measured by the Refinitiv/CoreCommodity CRB index this quarter hit the highest level since 2015. The index last year hit its lowest level in records dating back to 1994.

The MSCI Global Metals and Mining Producers ETF in May hit its highest price since early 2012, while the MSCI Global Energy Producers ETF has nearly doubled in price from depths hit in March 2020.

(By Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

Court rules Intrepid Potash has no water rights in New Mexico

Cecilia Jamasmie | August 20, 2021 | 

Intrepid Potash wanted to temporarily lease 5,700-acre feet of water from the Pecos River (pictured) to oil and gas operators in the area to use in extraction. 

(Image courtesy of Clinton Steeds |Flickr Commons.)

Shares in Intrepid Potash (NYSE: IPI) have lost almost 20% of their value in two days, as the company announced it was “reviewing its options” following a court ruling that determined the miner no longer has water rights for commercial use from the Pecos River in New Mexico.


Intrepid’s use of the Pecos River water gained controversy after the company disclosed it planned to pump water from the river for sale to the oil and gas industry.

The Denver, Colorado-based miner said the river was too saline for its water to be used in agriculture but noted it could be utilized in lieu of potable freshwater in activities such as drilling.

INTREPID’S USE OF THE PECOS RIVER WATER BECAME CONTROVERSIAL AFTER THE COMPANY DISCLOSED IT PLANNED TO PUMP WATER FROM THE RIVER FOR SALE TO THE OIL AND GAS INDUSTRY

Intrepid, which held water rights to 19,000 acre-feet per year at Pecos River, has not diverted its water since 2016, when it shut down its money-losing West facility in Carlsbad, New Mexico.

In 2017 and 2018, Intrepid submitted eight applications for temporary changes to its water rights to accommodate plans to sell water. The company received preliminary approval from the Office of the State Engineer (OSE) to sell or lease 5,700-acre feet per year.

Opponents argued the company’s water rights were forfeited years ago for non-use, adding that selling water rather than using it for potash refining would require public hearings and approval.

Friday’s verdict confirms that almost all the company’s Pecos River water rights had been either forfeited or abandoned before 2017.

Among top three US juniors

Intrepid Potash reported earlier this month better than expected earnings and revenues for the second quarter of the year.

The company, which belongs to the Zacks Fertilizers industry, posted revenues of $57.77 million for the quarter ended June 2021, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 18.87%. This compares to revenue of $37.72 million in the same period last year.

Intrepid, which has topped consensus revenue estimates three times over the last four quarters, is one of the top ten US-based mid-tiers to junior miners.

The company has risen from its fifth position last year to the number three spot in 2021.

Intrepid is the only US producer of muriate of potash, which is used in several industrial applications and as an ingredient in animal feed. It currently supplies about 3.5% of the country’s annual consumption of muriate of potash.

Shares in the company have fallen from a high of $35.5 a piece on August 18 to $28.32 in early afternoon on Friday, leaving it with a market value of about $381 million.

Hydrogen power

Carbon from UK’s blue hydrogen bid still to equal 1m petrol cars

Government’s plan to use ‘blue’ fossil-fuel hydrogen alongside green version raises concern, say campaigners

A hydrogen-hybrid power plant in Germany. The UK plans to use hydrogen technology to replace fossil gas use in factories, refineries and heating. 

Photograph: Bernd Settnik/EPA


Jillian Ambrose Energy correspondent
Sun 22 Aug 2021 17.27 BST

Opting for hydrogen that is made using fossil fuels rather than renewable electricity could create up to 8m tonnes of carbon emissions every year by 2050, according to an analysis of government data.

The figures show that the use of fossil-fuel hydrogen, or “blue hydrogen”, would create the same carbon emissions each year that more than a million petrol cars would produce, compared with using zero-carbon “green hydrogen”.

Ministers plan to use both blue and green hydrogen to replace fossil gas in factories, refineries and heating, but new figures show that an over-reliance on blue hydrogen would still lead to millions of tonnes of carbon emissions entering the atmosphere every year.

Blue hydrogen is extracted from fossil gas in a process that requires carbon capture technology to trap emissions – but this method still fails to capture between 5% and 15% of the CO2. Carbon emissions are also released when the fossil gas is extracted from oil and gas fields.

Using blue hydrogen exclusively to replace fossil gas would result in between 6m and 8m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year from the late 2020s, or the equivalent of running an average of 1.5m more fossil-fuel cars on the road every year by 2050.

If the government used zero-carbon green hydrogen to meet a third of the UK’s forecast hydrogen demand, blue hydrogen would create the same emissions as around 1m cars running on the UK’s roads each year.

The analysis, undertaken on behalf of the Guardian by Friends of the Earth Scotland, was based on government data published last week in a long-awaited report on the future of the UK’s hydrogen economy.

The strategy sets out a “twin track” approach to supporting hydrogen production, but it failed to suggest a balance between blue and green hydrogen. This has raised concerns among climate groups that an over-reliance on blue hydrogen could lock the UK into decades of North Sea gas production, fossil-fuel imports and millions of tonnes of carbon emissions.

Richard Dixon, the director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said the government’s support for the major oil companies behind plans for blue hydrogen projects, including BP and the Norwegian state oil giant Equinor, would allow them to “prolong fossil-fuel production indefinitely”.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, which reviewed the analysis, said investing in both green and blue hydrogen would “allow us to kickstart an entire industry from scratch that creates tens of thousands of jobs and unlocks billions of pounds worth of private investment”.

Quick Guide
What are the hydrogen options?


Hydrogen impact

Hydrogen is considered a crucial tool in the UK government’s plan to cut the country’s emissions to net zero' by 2050. The clean-burning gas could be used to replace fossil gas in factories and refineries, or as a fuel for heavy transport such as shipping, without emitting greenhouse gases.

Although hydrogen itself is a clean fuel, the process of producing hydrogen can be extremely polluting. Most of the world’s hydrogen is produced from fossil gas, and releases millions of tons of carbon emissions every year. There are three main types of hydrogen:

Grey hydrogen
About 98% of the hydrogen used today is known as "grey hydrogen". It is extracted from the methane found in fossil gas, using a process known as steam methane reforming, and releases carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere where it contributes to global heating. It is extremely damaging to the environment.

Blue hydrogen
This “low carbon” alternative to grey hydrogen uses carbon capture technology to trap between 85% to 95% of the harmful emissions created by hydrogen production, which could then be transported in pipelines to underground storage facilities such as disused subsea gas caverns under the North Sea. Blue hydrogen is not a net zero fuel because it requires fossil fuel production, which causes emissions and releases up to 15% of the emissions as grey hydrogen.

Green hydrogen
Green hydrogen is made by splitting water molecules using an electrolyser powered by renewable electricity. The only byproduct is oxygen which can be safely released into the air. Renewable energy developers believe giant offshore wind farms could be used to power green hydrogen production, particularly overnight when electricity demand is low.

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“Achieving the scale we need would be more challenging if we just used green hydrogen,” the spokesperson added.

The government’s official climate advisers at the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) have backed the idea of a “blue hydrogen bridge” through the 2030s for areas of the UK economy which would struggle to run on electricity, while the UK uses its renewable electricity to meet the growing demand for electric vehicles and heating.

But David Joffe, the head of carbon budgets at the CCC, warned that the government must begin to rein in the proportion of hydrogen produced from fossil fuels in favour of green hydrogen by the late 2030s to meet its legally binding climate targets.

“Blue hydrogen is not an amazing solution, and we don’t embrace it unreservedly,” he told the Guardian.

How a simple crystal could help pave the way to full-scale quantum computing

New research tackles a core problem for quantum computers: scaling

STORY BY
The Conversation



Vaccine and drug development, artificial intelligence, transport and logistics, climate science — these are all areas that stand to be transformed by the development of a full-scale quantum computer. And there has been explosive growth in quantum computing investment over the past decade.

Yet current quantum processors are relatively small in scale, with fewer than 100 qubits — the basic building blocks of a quantum computer. Bits are the smallest unit of information in computing, and the term qubits stems from “quantum bits”.


While early quantum processors have been crucial for demonstrating the potential of quantum computing, realizing globally significant applications will likely require processors with upwards of a million qubit

Our new research tackles a core problem at the heart of scaling up quantum computers: how do we go from controlling just a few qubits, to controlling millions? In research published today in Science Advances, we reveal a new technology that may offer a solution.

What exactly is a quantum computer?

Quantum computers use qubits to hold and process quantum information. Unlike the bits of information in classical computers, qubits make use of the quantum properties of nature, known as “superposition” and “entanglement”, to perform some calculations much faster than their classical counterparts.

Unlike a classical bit, which is represented by either 0 or 1, a qubit can exist in two states (that is, 0 and 1) at the same time. This is what we refer to as a superposition state.

Demonstrations by Google and others have shown even current, early-stage quantum computers can outperform the most powerful supercomputers on the planet for a highly specialized (albeit not particularly useful) task — reaching a milestone we call quantum supremacy.

Google’s quantum computer, built from superconducting electrical circuits, had just 53 qubits and was cooled to a temperature close to -273℃ in a high-tech refrigerator. This extreme temperature is needed to remove heat, which can introduce errors to the fragile qubits. While such demonstrations are important, the challenge now is to build quantum processors with many more qubits.

Major efforts are underway at UNSW Sydney to make quantum computers from the same material used in everyday computer chips: silicon. A conventional silicon chip is thumbnail-sized and packs in several billion bits, so the prospect of using this technology to build a quantum computer is compelling.
The control problem

In silicon quantum processors, information is stored in individual electrons, which are trapped beneath small electrodes at the chip’s surface. Specifically, the qubit is coded into the electron’s spin. It can be pictured as a small compass inside the electron. The needle of the compass can point north or south, which represents the 0 and 1 states.

To set a qubit in a superposition state (both 0 and 1), an operation that occurs in all quantum computations, a control signal must be directed to the desired qubit. For qubits in silicon, this control signal is in the form of a microwave field, much like the ones used to carry phone calls over a 5G network. The microwaves interact with the electron and cause its spin (compass needle) to rotate.

Currently, each qubit requires its own microwave control field. It is delivered to the quantum chip through a cable running from room temperature down to the bottom of the refrigerator at close to -273℃. Each cable brings heat with it, which must be removed before it reaches the quantum processor.

At around 50 qubits, which is state-of-the-art today, this is difficult but manageable. Current refrigerator technology can cope with the cable heat load. However, it represents a huge hurdle if we’re to use systems with a million qubits or more.

The solution is ‘global’ control

An elegant solution to the challenge of how to deliver control signals to millions of spin qubits was proposed in the late 1990s. The idea of “global control” was simple: broadcast a single microwave control field across the entire quantum processor.

Voltage pulses can be applied locally to qubit electrodes to make the individual qubits interact with the global field (and produce superposition states).

It’s much easier to generate such voltage pulses on-chip than it is to generate multiple microwave fields. The solution requires only a single control cable and removes obtrusive on-chip microwave control circuitry.

For more than two decades global control in quantum computers remained an idea. Researchers could not devise a suitable technology that could be integrated with a quantum chip and generate microwave fields at suitably low powers.

In our work, we show that a component known as a dielectric resonator could finally allow this. The dielectric resonator is a small, transparent crystal which traps microwaves for a short period of time.

The trapping of microwaves, a phenomenon known as resonance, allows them to interact with the spin qubits longer and greatly reduces the power of microwaves needed to generate the control field. This was vital to operating the technology inside the refrigerator.

In our experiment, we used the dielectric resonator to generate a control field over an area that could contain up to four million qubits. The quantum chip used in this demonstration was a device with two qubits. We were able to show the microwaves produced by the crystal could flip the spin state of each one.
The path to a full-scale quantum computer

There is still work to be done before this technology is up to the task of controlling a million qubits. For our study, we managed to flip the state of the qubits, but not yet produce arbitrary superposition states.

Experiments are ongoing to demonstrate this critical capability. We’ll also need to further study the impact of the dielectric resonator on other aspects of the quantum processor.

That said, we believe these engineering challenges will ultimately be surmountable — clearing one of the greatest hurdles to realizing a large-scale spin-based quantum computer.

This article by Jarryd Pla, Senior Lecturer in Quantum Engineering, UNSW, and Andrew Dzurak, Scientia Professor in Quantum Engineering, UNSW is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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IT'S NOT AN ELECTION ITS AN APPOINTMENT

Fort McMurray board 'appalled' Laila Goodridge appointed to run for Conservatives in federal election

Goodridge resigned as UCP MLA for Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche earlier this month so she could run federally.

 Yurdiga won the 2019 election with 79.9 per cent of the vote.

Author of the article: Ashley Joannou
Publishing date: Aug 20, 2021 • 

Laila Goodridge. File photo

The board of the Fort McMurray-Cold Lake Electoral District Association says it does not support or recognize the appointment of Laila Goodridge to run for the Conservatives in that riding this federal election.

In a statement posted online Friday, the association’s board says it was “blindsided” by the decision by the Conservative Party of Canada to appoint Goodridge as its candidate without running a nomination contest.

Goodridge replaced former MP David Yurdiga who is not seeking re-election due to private medical issues. Yurdiga told party Leader Erin O’Toole his decision on Aug. 14, one day before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared a snap election for Sept. 20.

The statement, which is not signed by individual board members, says the board had multiple “outstanding and credible candidates” interested in seeking the nomination within hours of being told about Yurdiga’s resignation and was preparing to hold a contest in as little as one week.

The board says it was “appalled” and “blindsided” to find out that someone had been appointed by the party.

The Conservative Party of Canada’s rules and procedures for candidate nominations allow national officials to alter or suspend the rules in the event a general election is called. Any such decision is final.

The local board says there was no consultation from the party with the board on any level.

“The federal party has failed to not only consult its conservative membership and the board, but has also grossly failed its conservative values and principles,” the statement says.

“It has been made abundantly clear that your voice does not matter despite the party continually promoting itself as a grassroots organization.”

Neither Goodridge, the association, nor a spokesperson for the Conservative Party of Canada responded to requests for comment by deadline.

Goodridge resigned as UCP MLA for Fort McMurray-Lac La Biche earlier this month so she could run federally. In a Facebook message on Thursday she thanked “the hundreds of residents of Fort McMurray-Cold Lake” who signed the paperwork required to get her name on the federal ballot.

The federal riding of Fort McMurray-Cold Lake was created in 2012 from portions of existing ridings. Yurdiga won the 2019 election with 79.9 per cent of the vote.

Josephine Baker to be first Black woman in France's Pantheon


Issued on: 22/08/2021 - 

US-born Josephine Baker poses in Paris in the 1920s: she went on to fight against the Nazis and later against racism AFP


Paris (AFP)

Josephine Baker, the famed French-American dancer, singer and actress who fought in the French resistance during WWII and later battled racism, will become the first Black woman to enter France's Pantheon mausoleum.

The remains of American-born Baker will be laid to rest in the hallowed Parisian monument on November 30, an aide to President Emmanuel Macron told AFP on Sunday, confirming a report in the Le Parisien newspaper.

"Pantheonisation is built over a long period of time," the aide said.

Baker will become just the sixth woman to join the around 80 great national figures of French history in the Pantheon after Simone Veil, a former French minister who survived the Holocaust and fought for abortion rights, entered in 2018.

Jennifer Guesdon, part of a group campaigning for Baker's induction that includes one of the dancer's sons, said they met with Macron on July 21.

"When the president said yes, (it was a) great joy," she said.

"It's a yes!" Macron said after the July meeting, Le Parisien reported.

The Baker family have been requesting her induction since 2013, with a petition gathering about 38,000 signatures.

Baker, who was born in Missouri in 1906 and buried in Monaco in 1975, pictured in Paris in 1949 - AFP/File

"She was an artist, the first Black international star, a muse of the cubists, a resistance fighter during WWII in the French army, active alongside Martin Luther King in the civil rights fight," the petition says.

Guesdon said the campaign has "made people discover the undertakings of Josephine Baker, who was only known to some as an international star, a great artist," Guesdon said.

But "she belongs in the Pantheon because she was a resistance fighter," she added.

- From Missouri to Paris -

Baker, who was born in Missouri in 1906 and buried in Monaco in 1975, came from a poor background and was married twice by the age of 15. She then ran away from home to join a vaudeville troupe.

She quickly caught the eye of a producer, who sent her to Paris where at the age of 19 she became the star of the hugely popular "La Revue Negre", which helped popularise jazz and African-American culture in France.

Baker salutes after receiving the Legion d'honneur in 1961 - AFP/File

She became the highest-paid performer in the Paris music hall scene during the roaring twenties.

On November 30, 1937, she married Jean Lion, allowing her to get French nationality. She would go on to divorce him and remarry twice more, adopting 12 children along the way.

In 1939, she joined the French resistance movement, passing on information written on her musical scores.

She later went on a mission to Morocco and toured the resistance movement, being appointed a lieutenant in the French air force's female auxillary corps.

She was awarded the Croix de Guerre, a Resistance medal, and was named a Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur.

"I only had one thing in mind... to help France," she told Ina archives.

Another member of the campaign group, Pascal Bruckner, said Baker "is a symbol of a France that is not racist, contrary to what some media groups say".

French US-born dancer and singer Josephine Baker and French conductor Jo Bouillon sit at their wedding mass in 1947 in the chapel of the Milandes Castle in Castelnaud-la-Chapelle, Dordogne, France. - AFP

"Josephine Baker is a true anti-racist, a true anti-fascist," Bruckner told AFP.

Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot tweeted that Baker was "a valiant and generous woman", adding that "we owe her this honour".

The Pantheon is a memorial complex for the legendary national figures in France's history from the worlds of politics, culture and science.

Only the president can decide on moving personalities to the former church, whose grand columns and domed roof were inspired by the Pantheon in Rome.

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© 2021 AFP