The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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You won't find many miners on TIME and Statista's inaugural list of 250 companies reducing environmental impact, but one green mining tech company has arrived. Sailing in alongside several hydrogen producers as one of America's top green-tech companies of 2024, deep-sea mining firm Impossible Metals is one of the rare few resource-related organizations to be granted the honor. This year, TIME launched its inaugural list of America's Top GreenTech Companies from an intensive...
Startup Clairity raises $6.75 million to scale carbon removal system, bringing active carbon capture closer to cheaper, universally adoptable solutions California-based climate tech startup Clairity Technology announced that it has raised $6.75 million to scale its energy-efficient and cost-effective direct air capture (DAC) solution for removing dilute CO2. DAC technology is a key carbon removal option in the transition to a net-zero energy system that works by extracting...
Invests in Nouveau Monde Graphite and locks up 85% of the zero-carbon lithium-ion battery anode material to be made in Canada by NMG. General Motors and Panasonic Energy have entered into a deal with Canada-based Nouveau Monde Graphite (NMG) for a supply of low-carbon graphite anode material produced in North America for the lithium-ion batteries powering their electric vehicles. As part of a larger deal that spurred a total of $87.5 million in new investment and sent NMG...
Massive geothermal lithium reserves give U.S. leverage while superpowers employ protectionist measures around supply chains. There's a new international race, not into space or to establish military superiority, but to secure critical minerals in a worldwide resource grab for the feedstocks that will fuel a global green energy transition. While we're all on the same side – or, in this case, the same planet – the superpowers have been at odds with how to achieve net-zero car...
Clean tech startup advances method to turn CO2 into rock for geological timescale storage. As mining companies around the world endeavor to meet the rocketing demand for minerals needed to build the clean energy infrastructure to slow global warming, CO2 Lock Corp. is racing to put minerals back into the ground for the same purpose. CO2 Lock was formed by FPX Nickel Corp. in 2022 as a clean technology startup focused on carrying forward research into transforming atmospheric...
Metal Tech News Q&A with Oliver Gunasekara, CEO Impossible Metals. As an entrepreneur and business development executive, Oliver Gunasekara has left his mark on the tech world over the past 30-plus years. His latest project, Impossible Metals, is poised to be a real game-changer in the quest of deep sea mining for minerals critical to clean energy – which can and should maintain equal ESG standards to land-based mining. Rather than dredging the seafloor for precious p...
With no Plan(et) B, Wabtec is pushing ahead with tech to electrify trains and trucks for net-zero emissions mines. From electric trains delivering Western Australia iron ore to the next generation of zero-emissions mining trucks, Wabtec Corp. is committed to providing the decarbonizing electrification solutions that will allow the mining industry to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. "What we are working on today is making sure that all of our solutions are geared towards...
Critical minerals can be recycled from decades of e-waste The necessity of reclaiming waste as a means to curb the seemingly impossible material requirements of a renewable future is fostering a different kind of industry – urban mining. "When you're in the renewable energy space, you've got to think through the whole lifecycle – where will EV and lithium-ion batteries go when they are no longer useful? It can't be to a landfill. That's not responsible," said Graphite One Pres...
As the cracks in the wall continue to chill the bones of an ill-prepared American clean-energy economy, attention has been paid to nearly every facet imaginable to obtain the minerals critical to fuel a zero-carbon future; however, all has seemingly been quiet on the unconventional front. Repeated time and time again during the ongoing transition, U.S. policymakers are becoming increasingly concerned about the overreliance on China for the minerals and metals essential to...
As researchers around the world race to develop more efficient ways to remove carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere, several recent breakthroughs hold promise for slowing the pace of global climate change. The pressing need to combat the ongoing climate crisis and reduce CO2 emissions has driven researchers to explore carbon capture and utilization since the late 20th century. As the challenge of carbon capture looms, various attempts to store excess carbon dioxide...
Rio Tinto and Sumitomo Corp. have teamed up to build a demonstration plant aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the production of aluminum. The A$111.1 million (US$73.9 million) pilot project, the first of its kind deployment of hydrogen calcination in the world, will be built in Australia at the Yarwun Alumina Refinery in Gladstone, Queensland. The project, co-sponsored by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), which contributed A$32.1 million (US$21.3 mil...
In an effort to curb global warming, Purdue University researchers developed a cool solution – paint. But not just any paint, with what they believe to be the closest opposite of the blackest black, this ultra-white paint can not only repel heat but cool down the interior of the surface it is painted on. In September 2021, the Purdue team created an ultra-white paint that earned the Guinness World Record for an unintended side effect to reducing global warming, creating the w...
Inspired by the wide variety of brilliant colors adorning the wings of butterflies, University of Central Florida researcher Debashis Chanda has created the world's lightest paint using two materials that do not have any color of their own – aluminum and aluminum oxide. The plasmonic paint developed by Chanda is so lightweight it would only take about three pounds to coat an entire Boeing 747 aircraft, which is orders of magnitude less than the 1,000 lb of traditional p...
Carbon neutrality goals worldwide are being propelled by new government initiatives, improved regulatory frameworks, and heightened customer awareness and scrutiny. Several countries now leading the green revolution have also announced grants and aid for businesses and end users that promote the development of low- and zero-carbon technologies and their rapid adoption. Affected industries – with mining being no exception – are in a mad dash to make use of developing tec...
Following the current trend of carbon emission mitigation, researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are endeavoring to subvert gaseous carbon dioxide by turning it into stone that cannot enter the atmosphere and warm our planet more. "As global temperatures increase, so does the urgency to find ways to store carbon," said Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Lab Fellow Kevin Rosso, who co-authored a scientific article on converting CO2 to carbon minerals. "By...
Coal is the most polluting of all fossil fuels. When burnt, it emits greenhouse gasses, causes acid rain, and pollutes the environment. With all the talk about hydropower, nuclear energy, as well as biofuels, one might be forgiven for assuming that filthy coal is on its way out. But that is not the fact in reality. What comes into the entire scenario here is the huge amounts of carbon emissions. With the increasing carbon emissions, particularly from industrial activities, the...
In a move that demonstrates automakers need all the battery materials that can possibly be produced by the global mining sector, Stellantis has entered into a preliminary agreement to buy battery-grade nickel and cobalt from a future mine developed at GME Resources Ltd.'s NiWest project in Western Australia. NiWest is an advanced stage nickel-cobalt project that lies less than 20 miles away of Glencore's Murrin Murrin operation, the largest nickel-cobalt mine and refinery in...
After several months of waiting, RecycLiCo Battery Materials (previously American Manganese) has announced the results of a life cycle assessment for its lithium-ion battery recycling-upcycling RecycLiCo process. Conducted by London-based and globally recognized sustainability consultancy Minviro Ltd., the life cycle assessment is a standardized, scientific method for quantifying the direct and embodied environmental impacts associated with the RecycLiCo process. By...
The carbon dioxide emissions of electric vehicles are not measured by exhaust from the tailpipes, but from the greenhouse gasses associated with building and charging these zero-emission vehicles. Understanding this, Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. has gone to great lengths to minimize the CO2 footprint of the battery-grade graphite anode material it will produce in Quebec. An independent life cycle assessment verifies that the Canadian company's production of coated spherical...
To further secure supplies of sustainably produced lithium for the batteries powering the electric vehicles manufactured by Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Maserati, Opel, Peugeot, and its other European brands, Stellantis has expanded and extended its partnership with Vulcan Energy Resources Ltd., which is advancing the Zero Carbon Lithium project in Germany's Rhine River Valley. To produce the zero-carbon lithium promised by the project's name, Vulcan will draw lithium-enriched...
What if the very carbon dioxide being blamed for global warming was the secret ingredient of massive batteries for the storage of renewable energy meant to prevent additional CO2 from entering the atmosphere in the first place? Italy-based startup Energy Dome has created such a battery that could help fully utilize low-carbon energy while also helping to stabilize electrical grids. The primary problem with renewable energy sources like wind and solar is the electricity they...
Another major automaker has gotten in line to purchase future supplies of low-carbon lithium that Controlled Thermal Resources Ltd. will be cooking up from geothermal brines at its Hell's Kitchen project in the Salton Sea area of Southern California. On June 2, Stellantis signed a binding offtake agreement with CTR for up to 25,000 metric tons of battery-grade lithium hydroxide per year for the batteries going into Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, and other electric vehicles it wil...
American Manganese Inc. reported that it has received the preliminary life cycle assessment results for its RecycLiCo lithium-ion battery recycling process and is awaiting the final external review by an ISO-compliant third party before releasing the results. The complete "gate-to-gate" life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed by Minviro Ltd., a UK-based and globally recognized sustainability and LCA consultancy, to quantify the environmental performance of producing...
Although the weather is warming as spring arrives to the Northern Hemisphere, fans of winter sports can look forward to the latest addition to electrification with Taiga Motors Inc. announcing the launch of a battery-electric snowmobile, a first for the company and world. Hoping to electrify snowmobiles since its inception in 2015, Canada-based Taiga has long been ahead of the curve and has been determined to transform motorsports with the adoption of electrification. Yet, it...
When most people think about the metals driving the alternative energy revolution, lithium, vanadium, cobalt and rare earths spring to mind. As recently reported by EE Times Europe, "Copper is an important raw material for the electronics industry, being the most widely used conductor for PCB, wiring, and connector manufacturing. The average person, however, might not realize this, thinking that copper is some kind of old metal on which there is no progress to be made." There...
