Friday, October 25, 2024
Title: Minerals for green energy: how geology dictates the social and environmental impacts of mining
Speaker: Elizabeth Holley, exploration and mining geologist and Associate Professor in the Mining Engineering department at Colorado School of Mines
Talk summary: As global communities work to transition to green energy to address urgent climate concerns, it is clear that these energy sources and the batteries to store it still require natural resources, such as cobalt, lithium and nickel. The demand for these critical minerals is predicted to increase dramatically to meet the net-zero by 2050 emissions targets. The geological environments in which these deposits form, dictate how they are mined and the environmental and social impacts of that mining. Elizabeth Holley will use case studies from her research on lithium and nickel-cobalt to illustrate interconnections among geoscience, engineering, environment, people and policy.
