Adam Gangemi on a mine site in his role as Managing Director of Super Smart Energy.
Author | Resourc.ly
Adam Gangemi reckons there is a simple measure when it comes to the increasing focus on decarbonisation in mining operations, and how it relates to the institutions that invest in mining companies.
鈥淚t鈥檚 funny, but if you and I had a beer at the pub five years ago, and we were talking about our superannuation funds, I think we would only have been comparing their rate of return,鈥� Adam explained.
鈥淢ine might have been making 10 per cent and yours might have been making 12 per cent. So, we would have thought that yours was better. Whereas now it might be that mine is making 10 per cent but it is green, while yours is still making 12 per cent. The pub test now is that mine is actually better because it鈥檚 green and doing the right thing by the environment.
鈥淭he train has now left that [super funds] can鈥檛 just talk about being 鈥榞reener鈥�. Now they need to be showing that there is a plan in place for where their money is invested.鈥�
Adam is in quite a unique position to appreciate the transition to a cleaner Australian mining and resources sector. A little more than five years ago, he was working as a geophysicist, the career he originally qualified for by completing his honours in Geophysics and Seismology at 麻豆直播.
But for the past four-plus years he has been employed in energy efficiency consulting to mining operations, including close to three years as founder and Managing Director of .
“You could hear the rumblings about renewables, particularly solar power – you had friends and family putting it on their roofs at home for the past 10 years,” Adam recounted.
鈥淭hen I started to do a bit more research and heard that Norway鈥檚 big sovereign fund was putting pressure on mining companies to get out of coal. That was in 2013-2014. And I thought 鈥榳ell if these guys made all their money from oil and gas and they are doing that, there鈥檚 a shift about to happen.鈥�
Opencast mining quarry. Photo sourced from Shutterstock.
鈥淚 knew there were going to be some hard yards at first because it [decarbonisation] was a new space, but once things did turn 鈥� which is where we鈥檙e at now 鈥� I wanted to be there to help guide and educate the industry.
鈥淚 went and did an MBA at the University of Western Australia and funnily enough my very first case study was on the Norwegian Sovereign Fund putting pressure on mining companies to get out of coal. At that point I sort of thought that I was going down the right direction.鈥�
From a day-to-day perspective, Super Smart Energy 鈥� which has now grown to a team of five 鈥� provides practical advice to mining operators and service companies on how they can decarbonise their existing assets and create a roadmap to net zero emissions.
That could be as 鈥渟imple鈥� as strategy planning, or a full decarbonisation plan involving detailed assessments of generators, 鈥渓ow hanging fruit鈥� relating to equipment used, advice on first steps into renewable energy solutions (such as powering water bores or parts of mine camps), or even platforms that companies can use to track how well they are doing over a number of years.
Adam notes the increasing number of major projects incorporating large-scale wind and solar power as evidence of where the sector is headed.
Gold Fields鈥� Agnew mine in WA鈥檚 Eastern Goldfields has Australia鈥檚 biggest hybrid renewable energy microgrid, while the likes of Rio Tinto, BHP Nickel West and FMG have also announced significant investments in renewables.
A solar farm. Photo sourced from Shutterstock.
鈥淚 do think whatever that large storage battery turns out to be, will be a game-changer,鈥� Adam said. 鈥淚s it hydrogen? Is it a vanadium-redox battery? Is it zinc-air hybrid flow battery? I heard about a graphene-aluminium ion battery the other day that can recharge 60 times faster than a lithium battery.
鈥淭he other thing is that we are moving into a data space, where software from a story or communications point of view, internally and externally, will play a big part. What I mean by that is that [a mining company] might have a log-in for shareholders, or a publicly available display, which shows their decarbonisation journey.
鈥淚t might say 鈥榯his is our decarbonisation plan, we鈥檝e committed to net zero by 2050, and at the moment we鈥檝e reduced our emissions by four or five per cent鈥� and it will allow investors to track their initiatives as they develop. At the moment we are more at a point of consultants looking at spreadsheets, extracting the data, and putting it into something that鈥檚 manageable for management to use, like a report. I can see that becoming more automated, and your C-suite executives and employees and maybe shareholders being able to log in and see if the company has hit its targets or not.鈥�
Adam says the process of creating cleaner mining ecosystems involves adjusting mindsets, from the tops of companies down to workers on the ground.
鈥淚鈥檝e been having a conversation with a company that is using solar to create potable water,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey use the sun to run a pump, but they are actually pulling water out of the air. With newer mine sites that are going up, that could be very cost effective. And if you鈥檙e talking 鈥榞reen and clean鈥� that can also offset the amount of plastic waste that you are going to have on a mine site.
“The biggest challenge that mining and oil and gas is facing now is, ‘how do we implement change?’
鈥�’From job functions and outcomes, to how we get people to just go to the tap and fill up a reusable water bottle, instead of taking 10 bottles to bed with them at night?鈥�
鈥淐hanging mentalities is the hardest part and internal stakeholders have to manage that. But they are getting there.鈥�
This article was originally published by Resourc.ly on 5 November 2021, and has been republished with permission from Resourc.ly.
Author | Resourc.ly
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