Presenting the Lundin-Snider Seminar Series on Mineral Resources
The recent Climate Bill creates incentives to develop new strategies to fight global warming and accelerate the transition to a decarbonized economy. However, the mitigation of global warming and the global energy transition cannot be achieved without mining new mineral resources and creative ways for carbon sequestration. What are the challenges associated with new acquisitions of mineral resources to satisfy this transition?
The University of Arizona is featuring a new seminar series on Mineral Resources and Their Implications for Our Society to discuss some of these challenges and potential solutions. The Lundin-Snider Lecture series aims to gather citizens, scientists, and industry players in the same room to raise awareness and fuel discussion around the topic of mineral resources and mining. These monthly talks feature a wide range of topics and speakers including “Climate change mitigation and the energy transition; current and future drivers of the minerals industry”, “Carbfix – turning CO2 into rock”, “Let’s reimagine our legacy of mining” among others.
What inspired this series? Hervé Rezeau, University of Arizona Lundin Chair in Economic Geology, says “We often hear binary debates, where our society wants to adopt carbon-neutral technologies to mitigate global warming while blaming the mining industry for environmental disruption. We like it or not, the increasing demand of metals is primarily driven by human being’s lifestyle, and a continuous supply of metals to our society can only be achieved by mining more mineral resources. As a result, we need to communicate more about mineral resources to understand what is at stake and design a holistic approach for responsible mining.”
Rezeau designed the series featuring seven experts who will present various aspects of the mineral resources lifecycle including geoscientists, mining and geological engineers, environmental scientists, and public policy experts. A recording of the first talk entitled “Critical metals resources required to achieve carbon neutrality: Where will they come from and are there enough?” by Prof. Adam Simon from the University of Michigan is now available. The Lundin-Snider seminar series will continue monthly throughout the end of the year and into Spring 2023. Mark your calendars!