John Lee Pettimore: Mine Tailings--There's Nothing "Green" about "Green Energy"

Plus Heap Leach Pads & Waste Solar Panels

Mining tailing ponds are among the largest and most dangerous structures engineered by humanity. #GreenEnergy is expected to increase the demand for certain minerals 30- to 800-fold, which means a lot more toxic tailings ponds worldwide. 🧵

The world’s 29,000-35,000 existing active, inactive and abandoned tailings storage facilities contain approximately 223 billion tonnes (534 billion cubic meters) of tailings waste.

Every one million tonnes of mined mineral product generated requires physical and economic provision to also manage 4.9 million tonnes of waste ore, waste rock and tailings.

When the tailings dam in Brumadinho Brazil’s Minas Gerais province failed it spilled over 12 million cubic metres of water and waste, submerging everything within seven kilometres, trees, homes and animals. Killing approx. 270-320 people.

This is only one of many. The collapse of tailing ponds killed at least 2900 people in the last century. The environmental damage, due primarily to the extensive contamination of the soil and water, has already lasted generations.

You cannot discuss #GreenEnergy without discussing tailing ponds. It is all part and parcel in what's required to mine the minerals necessary for the transition. Tailings reforms alone will not lower risk and consequence of catastrophic tailings failures.

In fact it is expected to increase. The increasing frequency and severity of significant failures is dramatically higher 2010-2019 than 2000-2009.

Over the next 5 yrs 40-50 billion tons of tailings is expected to be generated. So when they tell you that EV, wind turbine and solar panel is "green" don't forget the price the environment and the people pay.

There is nothing green about mining and nothing green about #GreenEnergy.

Heap Leach Pads & Waste Solar Panels

Heap Leach Mining (HL) avoids milling and tailings generation because ore is placed on a pad and the minerals are leached, usually through sulfuric acid and other solutions, such as cyanide. From mining.com:

Generally, the HL process involves the following steps:

1. Mine the ore

2. Crush the ore (if necessary)

3. Agglomerate the ore (if necessary)

4. Place the ore on a lined pad

5. Irrigate the ore with the appropriate lixiviant to dissolve the metals (leachate)

6. Collect the leachate in a pond or tank (pregnant or value bearing solution)

7. Process the pregnant solution to recover the metals

8. Recycle the barren solution (with additional lixiviant) back to the heap.

HL ultimately results in an ore pad that is reclaimed in the same way as tailings ponds. The pads present the same kinds of “forever wastes” as tailings, except sometimes posing more risks due to low pH, mobilized elements, and solutions containing high levels of arsenic.

The biggest issues with tailings and heap leach pad wastes are (i) volume; (ii) particle size; and (iii) elements. The volumes are massive. The fine particle size means huge surface area (leaching). Third, the wastes mobilize elements that don't degrade.

These elements will be a mobilized waste forever--even longer than radioactive waste is radioactive. What about the waste?

In 2015, EPA contractors accidentally released more than 3 million gallons of acidic mine fluid from the Gold King Mine in Colorado—right into the Animas River and then into the Colorado River.

It was a serious disaster that resulted in significant liabilities for EPA.

The same issues and exposure pathways of tailings and heap leach pads—low mineralization spread out over huge surface areas, resulting in high leaching potential—apply to waste solar panels. Except in California, where laws are magic.

Waste Solar Panels: Toxic Goo or Paydirt? Part 1

Waste solar panels will be a source of mobilized elements forever. Elements don’t degrade. This is a “forever” waste that will never go away. This waste will last longer than radioactive waste is radioactive. Rad waste decays. Elements don’t.

“What about the waste” they say in response to nuclear power. Right back at you.