The Environmental sustainability of mining in Australia: key mega-trends and looming constraints

Mudd, Gavin Mark

doi:10.1016/j.resourpol.2009.12.001

Cited by 424 publications

(269 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…It is not just the energy mix as such which is important, however, but also the energy efficiency. Another important factor are the environmental impacts of metals supply which will change due to combined effects of technological advances in mining and manufacturing, changes in the portion of secondary to primary materials used, and reduction in ore grade [85][86][87]. Future research may address the effects of such changes through scenario analyses.…”

Section: Aspects Of Scale Temporal Evolutions and Network Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the life cycle environmental impacts of wind power: A review of present knowledge and research needs

Arvesen

Hertwich

2012

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

178

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We critically review present knowledge of the life cycle environmental impacts of wind power.We find that the current body of life cycle assessments (LCA) of wind power provides a fairly good overall understanding of fossil energy use and associated pollution; our survey of results that appear in existing literature give mean values (± standard deviation) of, e.g., 0.060 (±0.058) kWh energy used and 19 (±13) g CO 2 e emitted per kWh electricity, suggesting good environmental performance vis-à-vis fossil-based power. Total emissions of onshore and offshore wind farms are comparable. The bulk of emissions generally occur in the production of components; onshore, the wind turbine dominates, while offshore, the substructure becomes relatively more important. Strong positive effects of scale are present in the lower end of the turbine size spectrum, but there is no clear evidence for such effects for MW-sized units. We identify weaknesses and gaps in knowledge that future research may address. This includes poorly understood impacts in categories of toxicity and resource depletion, lack of empirical basis for assumptions about replacement of parts, and apparent lack of detailed considerations of offshore operations for wind farms in ocean waters. We argue that applications of the avoided burden method to model recycling benefits generally lack transparency and may be inconsistent.Assumed capacity factor values are generally higher than current mean realized values. Finally, we discuss the need for LCA research to move beyond unit-based assessments in order to address temporal aspects and the scale of impacts.

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Section: Aspects Of Scale Temporal Evolutions and Network Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the life cycle environmental impacts of wind power: A review of present knowledge and research needs

Arvesen

Hertwich

2012

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

178

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“…Increased energy use is correlated with increased greenhouse-gas emissions (Mudd, 2007b(Mudd, , 2010. This correlation has raised concerns about greenhouse-gas emissions associated with mining and the carbon footprint of mining in general.…”

Section: Future Trendsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sustainable practices for mining have come to focus on the environmental, economic, and social well-being in areas where mining is proposed or is taking place. The environmental part typically includes aspects of water management, solid-waste management, reagent use and recycling, and greenhouse gas emissions (Mudd, 2008(Mudd, , 2010. This chapter presents an overview of environmental practices related to the permitting and development of active and new mines, and provides a context for the environmental considerations sections of the commodity-focused chapters in this book.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental considerations related to mining of nonfuel minerals

Seal¹,

Piatak²,

Kimball³

et al. 2017

Professional Paper

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“…The decline in the quality of ores has direct implications in terms of land intervention of mining activities, as larger mines (open-pit mining) have to be built and larger quantities of waste rock -especially sensitive in the case of sulphidic material that has the potential to generate acid drainages 2 -are generated Giurco et al, 2010;Mudd, 2010). For instance, recent studies conducted in the gold-mining sector in Australia indicate that, as ore quality decreases, the amount of water and energy used in the mining process increases significantly.…”

Section: Fossil Fuels Construction Minerals Biomassmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rights, Pressures and Conservation in Forest Regions of Mexico

Merino¹

2016

Environmental Governance in Latin America

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Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Contents List of Figures and Tables viiPreface viii List of Contributors xi PrefaceThis book is the result of the collaborative research project Environmental Governance in Latin America (ENGOV) funded by the European Union (EU). For four years, a team of experts from ten Latin American and European academic institutions investigated how environmental governance is currently being shaped in Latin America. In this joint effort, we were driven by our concerns about widespread ecological degradation, poverty and injustice, as well as by our curiosity about the ways in which the emergence of new political regimes and elites, and innovative steps by communities and social organizations, affects governance practices and nature-society relations. To understand the possibilities and obstacles for sustainable and equitable natural resource use, a range of case-studies were carried out in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Mexico. Although some of the research topics and cases are not included in this volume, their findings have contributed to the discussions and theoretical reflections in the overall analysis. The ENGOV project has been simultaneously challenging and inspiring. The theme of environmental governance is a huge academic enterprise because it addresses complex social relations, practices and views influencing how societies perceive nature and use natural resources. Combining methods and theories from different fields of the social sciences is a prerequisite which in practice is fairly demanding. Furthermore, by encompassing political, economic, cultural and environmental changes, formal as well as informal arrangements, and cross-scale connections, the study of environmental governance can easily become a 'mission impossible'. Arguably this is even more the case for contemporary Latin America, with its variety of local and national conditions facing rapid-paced changes. Finally, collaborating in an international research consortium of ten institutional partners and more than 25 researchers from different disciplines, schools of thought and generations has also proved to be both daring and rewarding. The fact that we spoke in different academic languages and idiom accents was not only a hurdle to tackle during our group discussions, but also forced us to learn from each other's approaches and convictions, and the foundations on which these are based. As a typical governance process, next viii Preface ix to misunderstandings, dissonances and unbridgeable differences, the exchange of different insights and perspectives proved to bring ab...

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The Environmental sustainability of mining in Australia: key mega-trends and looming constraints

Cited by 424 publications

References 12 publications

Assessing the life cycle environmental impacts of wind power: A review of present knowledge and research needs

Assessing the life cycle environmental impacts of wind power: A review of present knowledge and research needs

Environmental considerations related to mining of nonfuel minerals

Rights, Pressures and Conservation in Forest Regions of Mexico

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