Mining between a rock and a hard place

With more storms, fires and floods

Hydrogen economy, rock cutting, automation, sharing water…

Plus Rio, Allkem, Bechtel and Newmont leaders

It’s Day 3, Wednesday 28 June at the 26th World Mining Congress, Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre

Media welcome.

Global knowledge inequality threatens ecosystems across the Global South

Images available

Abstract and authors

An international research team has revealed a knowledge gap that threatens our capacity to understand and protect tropical forests and other ecosystems from climate change.

In a paper published in the journal New Phytologist, researchers from the University of Buffalo, Western Sydney University (WSU), Aarhus University and UNSW show a lack of measurement of plant traits across the Global South and call for action to integrate regional and global data to fill the gap.

In the paper, they demonstrate how they more than doubled the information available globally about Australian plants by integrating the AusTraits database, an initiative supported by the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), with the global TRY database.

Research reveals how we could design robots to think like bees

Bees available to film at Macquarie and Sheffield, video overlay and graphics available.

Honey bees have to balance effort, risk and reward, making rapid and accurate assessments of which flowers are mostly likely to offer food for their hive. Research published in the journal eLife today reveals how millions of years of evolution has engineered honey bees to make fast decisions and reduce risk.

The study enhances our understanding of insect brains, how our own brains evolved, and how to design better robots.

The paper presents a model of decision-making in bees and outlines the paths in their brains that enable fast decision-making. The study was led by Professor Andrew Barron from Macquarie University in Sydney, and Dr HaDi MaBouDi, Neville Dearden and Professor James Marshall from the University of Sheffield.

National recognition for astronomers from Perth, Canberra, and Melbourne

• How dark matter behaves in colliding galaxy clusters, explained by UWA/ICRAR student William McDonald
• Why the Universe’s earliest stars are so elusive, by Dr Piyush Sharda of ANU (now working at Leiden Observatory, the Netherlands)
• A sharper focus on when the Universe lit up, by Dr Nichole Barry of Curtin University/ICRAR
• The chemistry of starlight helps explain our galaxy’s evolution, says Dr Sven Buder of ANU
• A mission to study 6 million galaxies in 5 years, by A/Prof. Michelle Cluver of Swinburne University of Technology
• Software that enables ‘impossible’ research, by Dr Manodeep Sinha of Swinburne University of Technology.

The Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) will honour the 6 at its Annual Scientific Meeting at the Macquarie University Wallumattagal Campus in Sydney 3-7 July 2023.

How will more extreme weather events affect mining operations?

ESG Session/Climate change and Mining – 11 am Wed 28 June

One of the unknowns for the mining sector globally is how climate change will affect day to day operations.

“I think most mining companies are totally unaware of this issue,” says leading Australian academic and author, Professor Ian Lowe.

This session discusses global climate change issues that directly impact the more resilient supply of critical minerals and materials for the manufacture of equipment and technologies to deliver net-zero emissions. We’ll hear from experts from Mongolia, Chile, and Austria.

Mining, a heavy industry, is directly responsible for 4% to 7% of greenhouse gas emissions globally.

But the emissions produced by downstream industries such as steel and cement are even more significant.

Decarbonisation at the World Mining Congress, Wed 28 June and Thursday 29 June.

Welcome to the future of mining

The global transition to renewable energy technologies is a hot topic as reality hits about how much more mining will be needed to service the transition.

There’s a very real risk of losing the mining sector’s hard-won advances in delivering environmental sustainability, social performance and good governance.

Introducing the Environmental and Sustainability Stream at the World Mining Congress, Tuesday through Thursday.

Address to the World Mining Congress 27 June 2023.

POLICY AND GOVERNANCE FOR THE NEW ECONOMY

1. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledge Traditional owners and leadership.

Charlie Sartain and the organising committee.

Ministers and other dignities.

Industry colleagues and friends.

And to borrow from my African friends, all other protocols observed.

It is certainly a great honour to be here with you today.  I can only hope the papers presented and the ensuing discussions prompt both honest dialogue and some fresh ideas on how we deal with a fundamentally broken system.

Original text from BHP

Thank you Jillian, and good morning everyone.

Firstly I’d like to echo the thoughts of our hosts in acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet.

I am pleased to be here today.

This is a pivotal time for mining. 

The past few years have seen a marked increase in awareness on the part of policy makers  of the importance of metals and minerals, not only to the functioning of the economy today, but the functioning of the economy of tomorrow and, critically, to the urgent global effort towards decarbonisation.