Senator Linda Reynolds.
Presentation – The rise and rise of science and innovation.
The minerals industry is facing a productivity and investment crisis. The ‘Millennium Super Cycle’ from 2003-11 was an unprecedented period of growth and investment resulting in increased throughput and development of lower grade resources to meet demand. Close this popup is television bad for https://pro-essay-writer.com creative writers? During the boom quantity became more important than quality with throughput the key metric. This was accompanied by a general trend of decreasing feed grades across all commodities which was offset with higher production volumes. Current industry perception is that feed grade depletion is an unavoidable consequence of ore deposit geology and mass mining technologies for increasingly mature mining operations. In typical crush-grind-float operations value recovery only takes place ~100 micron particle size at 3-4 orders of magnitude size reduction compared to primary feed. For increasingly low grade deposits the cost of energy and capital intensity required to process and reject worthless material at micron scale drives poor productivity. An alternative is to deploy a range of coarse rejection technologies. Grade Engineering® is an integrated approach to coarse rejection that matches a suite of separation technologies to ore specific characteristics and compares the net value of rejecting low value components in current feed streams to existing mine plans. Coarse rejection can be used on size distributions ranging from ROM to SAG discharge. Grade Engineering® is based on five rock based ‘levers’ linked to combinations of screening, sensor-based sorting and heavy media separation. These involve exploitation of preferential grade deportment to specific size fractions during breakage: differential blasting to condition grade by size at bench scale; sensor based sorting at truck and conveyor scale; and differential particle density. Grade Engineering is being developed and implemented by a consortium of over 30 mining companies, equipment suppliers and research organisations. Emerging results from collaborative site activities demonstrate potential for generating significant value which can reverse the trend of declining productivity due to feed grade depletion.
Carmel Johnston – Sandfire Resources NL
Presentation – The solar power renewable energy project at DeGrussa copper-gold mine.
Ms Johnston is an electrical engineer with 15 years of experience in hard metal mining and processing. Prior to joining Sandfire Resources in 2011, Ms Johnston was Lead Electrical Engineer for Xstrata George Fisher Underground Expansion in Mt Isa, Senior Electrical Engineer for Hidden Valley Morobe Mining Joint Venture in PNG, and Senior Electrical Engineer for Xstrata McArthur River Mining in Northern Territory. Be on the lookout in the following this time. Ms Johnston holds a Bachelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the James Cook University and an MBA from Deakin University, as well as being a chartered professional engineer. She is a member of the Institute of Engineers Australia.
Presentation – Automation – there is more to it!
Presentation – Innovation in mining, automated robotics, and material reconciliation technology.
Dr Matthew Cracknell is a postdoctoral Research Fellow in Earth Informatics and a Lecturer at the ARC Industrial Transformation Hub, Transforming the Mining Value Chain (TMVC), Centre of Excellence in Ore Deposits (CODES) and School of Physical Sciences (Earth Sciences), University of Tasmania (UTAS). Matthew received a BSc (Hons) in Geophysics and Spatial Sciences from the University of Tasmania in 2009. He graduated from the University of Tasmania with a PhD in Computational Geophysics in 2014. Matthew’s PhD thesis explored the use of data mining and machine learning techniques to identify and analyse patterns in high-dimensional geological, geophysical and geochemical data. Specific focus was placed on generating useful outputs such as robust measures of uncertainty and the development of methods for interpreting inferred relationships. Prior to his current position as a postdoctoral Research Fellow, Matthew held numerous short-term research and teaching positions at CODES, Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC) and the UTAS School of Humanities. Matthew has been employed as a consultant geoscientist and GIS analyst, completing projects for Forestry Tasmania, Mineral Resources Tasmania (MRT), Blue Wren Consulting and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Matthew’s current role in the TMVC hub is to provide data mining and pattern recognition technical expertise and assistance across all three TMVC themes: Footprints, Geometallurgy and Geoenvironment. Matthew is also key member of the Computational Geophysics and Earth Informatics group, led by Associate Professor Anya Reading, at UTAS. Key aspects of his research include the development of data analytics workflows to identify and extract geological features from digital scans of diamond drill core and exploring data mining and pattern recognition techniques for integrating and analysing multi-dimensional geoscience data. Ultimately, Matthew’s research is providing the mining and resources community with tools to address the significant challenge of finding deeply buried ore deposits in the regolith dominated terrains of Australia. Presentation – Machine learning pyrite geochemistry. A new Targetingtool for exploration. We used machine learning supervised classification, to distinguish several ore deposit categories from pyrite trace element data generated by Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICPMS). These ore deposit categories include gold/magnetite skarn, hydrothermal breccia, iron-oxide copper gold and orogenic gold deposits. For data representing the gold/magnetite skarn, hydrothermal breccia, and iron oxide copper gold ore deposits, we classify two or more proximity to mineralization categories (distal, intermediate and proximal) from the pyrite trace element data. We also define contrasts in pyrite trace elements for the dominant deposit and proximity categories as means to understanding relationships between pyrite chemistry, ore deposits and distance to mineralization. The supervised classification models induced from pyrite trace element data can be used as a predictive modeling tool in greenfields terrains by providing an accurate indication of ore deposit style and proximity to mineralization. This will assist mineral explorers to implement and develop appropriate ore deposit models when prospecting for mineralisation.
Vincent Algar – Australian Vanadium Ltd. AVL is progressing an innovative vertical integration strategy to take advantage of the rapidly expanding energy storage market. While traditionally a mining and exploration company, through the leadership of Vincent Algar the company has gained early mover advantage into the energy storage sector. As demand for renewable energy grows, so too does demand for energy storage solutions and vanadium-based batteries are fast becoming the preferred option for grid-scale storage solutions. AVL has established a subsidiary company, VSUN, which is focusing on the battery storage market specifically while the company continues to progress its high-grade Gabanintha Vanadium Project. Presentation – Vanadium and Redox Flow Batteries. VSUN is the battery focused subsidiary of Australian Vanadium Ltd. It was launched to advance the sales of Vanadium Redox Flow Batteries (VRFB) in Australia. This battery technology, was originally developed at the UNSW in the 1980s. VSUN has developed ties with the world leader in commercial system implementation, GILDEMEISTER Energy Storage GmbH. Batteries using vanadium as the primary element are becoming a preferred option within the energy storage technology market for those seeking high power, multi-hour, very high cycle solutions. VRFB employ vanadium ions in different oxidation states to store chemical potential energy. To make the batteries, vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) as a raw source is processed into an electrolyte (solution). The battery’s storage capacity can be expanded by adding more electrolyte storage tanks, which hold the electrical charge for later use. They can also be left completely discharged for long periods with no ill effects.
