Evaluating Resource Efficiency at Major Copper Mines

摘要

Resource efficiency is a policy concept that aims to maximize the supply of resource materials that can be drawn from a mineral resource with minimum waste production. It has become one of the mayor policy concepts to enable responsible development in mining. While common proxies for resource efficiency use weight-based measures of a system's materials consumption, such proxies are not directly applicable to mining operations. This study introduces a new method for multi-criteria evaluation of resource efficiency in mining operations and measures that consider intensities in land, water, energy and mineral deposit consumption (i.e. specific resource consumption to produce one unit of output). In this work, resource intensities have been assessed for over twenty major copper mines. Results allow a ranking of mines in terms of resource efficiency as well as an identification and selection of resource efficient technologies. This study also demonstrates that deposit properties and geographic location impact on resource efficiency and that political measures, needed to promote resource efficiency in mining, should focus on region-specific natural resources and deposit properties.