The Future of Mining
Image credit: CL Drilling - Cornish Lithium
Rowan Halkes from the University of Exeter looks at the future of Mining, its importance to the economy and the issues currently facing the industry.
Mining is fundamental for modern life and has a central role to play in helping meet 21st-century challenges, especially climate change. To keep within +1.5oC of warming the world is turning to green technologies such as solar panels, electric vehicles and battery storage. These resource-intense technologies are dependent on raw materials provided from mining.
No industry is perfect but mining arguably has more problems than most. It is associated, not unfairly, with environmental destruction and viewed as a ‘dinosaur’ or dirty industry. Mining is now transforming itself so we can get the materials needed in a sustainable and responsible way. It is also seeking to address the negative images of the industry, which are hampering its transformation.
A young workforce, who have the necessary skills and values will be needed to help bring about this transformation. However, while we need raw materials more than ever to decarbonise, it is possible mining has never been less attractive to younger people. Fewer people are interested in studying and having a career in both geoscience and mining, with a Europe-wide downturn in undergraduate geology admissions.
I discovered geology purely by chance. While discussing my subject choices for sixth form, the teacher suggested I’d be good at geology and enjoy studying it. I did the classic ‘isn’t that just rocks?’ but it quickly became my favourite subject. I was lucky, my class was the first to run for 2 years and was also the last as the teacher, who loved to teach geology, retired at the end of our final year.
After school I went to the Camborne School of Mines to study geology but not looking to seek a career in mining, if anything the opposite. It was only once I started to learn about the importance of mining and the challenges it faces that I began to reconsider.
As well as being unappealing to young people and despite their global nature, geoscience and mining also suffer from a lack of diversity and poor gender equality. Geoscience is one of the least diverse scientific communities and the number of women employed by mining companies (~15.7%), has only risen 1% in the last five years.
Building a young, diverse and gender-balanced workforce at all levels will help move towards equality but also benefit the industry, helping it be equipped to face challenges and transform itself for the better. Outreach and education are great ways to help improve awareness and attract people to mining but the industry will also need to ‘walk the walk’ rather than just ‘talk the talk’. The industry has talked about needing to change for a long time. However, incidents still plague the mining industry and erode progress, like the loss of life in 2019 resulting from the tailings dam collapse at Brumadinho in Brazil, and the destruction of caves sacred to Indigenous peoples in the Juukan Gorge, Australia in 2020. I hope a new generation of young people entering the industry will help the on-going transformation of mining to the responsible industry needed for a sustainable and successful future.
Links to initiatives, organisations and resources relating to improving diversity, gender equality in the industry and raising awareness in about geosciences and mining at University and as a career are provided below.
If you have any questions or would like to suggest further resources, please don’t hesitate to get in touch at R.T.Halkes@exeter.ac.uk.
Rowan Halkes has written an article on the UK's 'green future' and mining in the south west which can be found in the 16+ section of this website, or read as a pdf here.
About the author: Rowan Halkes graduated with a BSc Applied Geology from Camborne School of Mines, University of Exeter in 2018 and has since worked in mineral exploration and environmental geoscience. He currently works as a Graduate Research Assistant at the Camborne School of Mines, University of Exeter on the MIREU project. His work on the MIREU project is focussed on connecting the mining regions of Europe as well as communities & societies relationship with mining and how to improve this.
Empowering Girls to Study Geosciences and Engineering (ENGIE) Project
Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in Geoscience (EDIG)
Geology for Global Development (GFGD)
Geoscience and Decarbonisation Infographics by the Geological Society of London
Geoscience For The Future by Natasha Dowey and Hazel Beaumont
Geoscience For The Future Poster by The Geological Society of London, University Geoscience UK, GfGD and the ENGIE Project
Mapping Mining to the SDGs: An Atlas by the United Nations Development Programme, the World Economic Forum, the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investments and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network
Minerals In A Smartphone Poster by the Geological Society of London
Tackling the geoscience racial diversity crisis in the Global North – a UK perspective by Natasha Joanne Dowey, Jenni Barclay, Benjamin Fernando, Sam Giles, Jacqueline Houghton, Christopher A-L Jackson, Keely Mills, Alicia Newton, Steven L. Rogers, Rebecca Williams
(A Lack of) Diversity in the Geosciences by Romesh Palamakumbura
Why The Mining Industry Needs More Women by Linda Doku