Can You Dig It? Should You Dig It? All About Mining

Mining underpins nearly everything in our modern lives.
Essentially, if we didn't grow it, we mined it. Dr. Richard
Herrington, an academic geologist and Head of Earth Sciences at
the Natural History Museum in London, digs deep on the topic of
mining. Yet in terms of public visibility, mining is perhaps even
more hidden from view than agriculture in rich nations. Dr.
Herrington offers a brief history of materials use, from a time
when we used only a few minerals to the present, where we
regularly use many dozens of different elements in a single
product due to their varied and unique properties. We discuss the
environmental and human impacts of mining as well as important
processing stages, which often have hard-to-avoid impacts, such
as the inherent formation of carbon dioxide in concrete making
and iron smelting. Among Dr. Herrington's research interests are
more environmentally-benign industrial processes, such as using
lower temperatures or microbes. We move onto geological topics
relevant to the energy transition, touching briefly on Deep
Geological Repository for used nuclear fuel before discussing
Cobalt, Lithium, and the utter certainty that renewable
technologies will lead to increases in mining and mineral
requirements. Other topics include why much of the mining and
processing for rare earth metals and electric motors takes place
in China and, finally, prospects for deep sea mining.