The decontamination technique consists of using biological systems that act as digesters to counteract the polluting effects of mining. Credit: Courtesy University of Santiago

By Marianela Jarroud
SANTIAGO, Nov 3 2014 (IPS)

Combating the negative effects of its own production processes is one of the challenges facing the mining industry, one of the pillars of the Chilean economy.

Now, thanks to a novel scientific innovation project, mining, which is highly criticised by environmentalists, could become a sustainable industry, at least in some segments of its production processes.

The phytotechnology project was created by Claudia Ortiz, a doctor in biochemistry from the University of Santiago. Using native plants, she and her team of researchers are working to treat, stabilise and remedy soil and water affected by industrial activities, a process known as “phytoremediation”.

“These technologies can make a significant contribution to the environment because they make it possible to advance towards industrial development in a sustainable manner, while also contributing on the social front by making it possible to confront the undesired effects of production by involving the community,” the Chilean scientist said in an interview with Tierramérica.

“We want to become a global reference point for these kinds of innovative environmental solutions,” she added.

Doctor in biochemistry Claudia Ortiz, coordinator of the phytotechnology project of the University of Santiago, which remedies soil using native plants. Credit: Courtesy University of Santiago

Phytotechnologies are based on the use of native plants and microorganisms, which are selected for their process of acclimatisation in economically exploited areas. In Chile, the plants used include naturalised phragmites australis and species from the baccharis and atriplex genuses.

Ortiz’s research, which began in the early 2000s, initially focused on determining why some species of plant are able to grow in difficult conditions, such as poor quality soil.

“We focused on tolerance of metals, and a line of research emerged that allowed us to determine that some species of plants and microorganisms had certain capacities to tolerate difficult conditions while at the same time improving the substrates or the places that were affected,” she said.

In other words, the project emerged from basic research that in the end became applied research with a concrete use, she added.

“In the tests that we have made on the ground, we determined that there has been an improvement in the amount of organic matter in some substrates that are chemically inert, which don’t intervene in the process of absorption and fixing of nutrients,” Ortiz explained.

In this case, she said, “the improvement goes from zero to five percent, or from zero to one percent, depending on how long the plants have been incorporated in the system.”

“There are improvements in the physical and chemical properties of the places where the plants are installed, and that is thanks to the contribution of the microorganisms and plants that have the capacity to release some compounds that are beneficial to the environment,” she added.

The technology developed by Ortiz also applies to treatment of water, where plants are capable of capturing metals such as copper in the roots.

“The bacteria can reduce by up to 30 percent the sulphate content in a liquid residue that has high concentrations of sulphate,” she said.

So far, the pilot studies carried out by Ortiz and her team have been exclusively applied to tailing substrates. However, in the greenhouse laboratory, experiments have also been conducted in mixes of different kinds of substrates.

“With respect to water, we have worked in clear water, in the tailings dams, but today we are also carrying out experiments on the ground, with leachate of water from garbage dumps,” she said.

The technology developed by Ortiz is already being used in Chile, particularly in some of the processes of the state-run Codelco copper company and National Mining Company.

It is also undergoing validation in Bolivia, Colombia and Canada.

The preliminary results obtained in the pilot studies “are very encouraging,” Sergio Molina, the manager of sustainability and external affairs in Codelco’s Chuquicamata division, told Tierramérica.

“Codelco is especially concerned with permanently incorporating new technologies aimed at minimising the impacts on the environment,” said the official at the Chuquicamata mine, the world’s largest open-pit mine and the country’s biggest producer of copper.

“Based on that we have generated alliances with research institutions such as the University of Santiago to carry out pilot projects along the same lines, with which we have obtained excellent results,” he said.

Lucio Cuenca, an engineer and the director of the Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts, pointed out to Tierramérica that the technology developed by Ortiz addresses only a segment of the extractive process, but does not resolve all of the environmental problems caused by mining.

“What it does is replace some chemical substances like sulphuric acid, but it doesn’t resolve, for example, the high quantities of water extracted in the mining process,” he said.

A real-life example: In just six months the sulphate levels in waste water from mining were reduced 30 percent. Courtesy University of Santiago

Copper mining uses more than 12,000 litres of water per second. International institutions have found a considerable drop in the availability of surface water in this South American country.

Mining is essential to Chile’s economy. In 2013, the industry accounted for just over 11 percent of GDP and generated nearly one million direct or indirect jobs in this country of 17.5 million, while exports totaled 45 billion dollars.

Chile is the world’s leading producer and exporter of copper and also mines molybdenum, and gold, silver and iron on a smaller scale.

The research of Ortiz and her team is also focusing on the desalination of seawater using biofilters, an encouraging alternative for the mining industry.

“In this first stage we are treating water with high levels of chloride which are associated with other elements like ions, also associated with saline water.

“We are working with halophyte plant species, which are very tolerant of high levels of salinity and are very good at capturing and absorbing those salts, which they store in their tissues,” Ortiz explained.

“We have been experimenting and we have quite good results, for applying the technique specifically to leachate from landfills,” she added.

Simultaneously, the research team is developing two projects sponsored by Chile’s state economic development agency, Corfo, involving algae and nanotechnology, to eliminate the particularly saline elements found in seawater or water with high concentration of salt.

“Our aim is for this technology to make it possible to use seawater in mining production,” she said. “We have found that under certain conditions, where saltwater is diluted, we could work with techniques that are much less costly than the ones used today in desalination.”

“These projects are still being developed, with very promising results, and they will be completed next year, which means we will be able to offer new technologies,” Ortiz said.

* This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

Edited by Estrella Gutiérrez/Translated by Stephanie Wildes

Aerial view of the Mejillones Liquefied Natural Gas (GNLM) regasification terminal in northern Chile, the biggest of its kind in Latin America and one of the biggest in the world. Credit: Courtesy of GNLM

By Marianela Jarroud
MEJILLONES, Chile , Jun 16 2014 (IPS)

In April 2004, Argentina began to steadily cut natural gas exports to neighbouring Chile, triggering a major energy crisis and revealing structural problems in this vital sector.

Ten years later, a regasification plant which converts liquefied natural gas (LNG) back to natural gas in the port of Mejillones, 1,400 km north of Santiago, apparently goes a long way towards solving the energy problems in the north of the country, where water is scarce and where the mining industry is concentrated.

President Michelle Bachelet has expressed confidence that, along with renewable energies, natural gas will contribute to the diversification of Chile’s energy mix, and emphasised that “what we do or fail to do now will have consequences in the future.”

On May 14, Bachelet inaugurated an onshore storage tank at the Mejillones Liquefied Natural Gas (GNLM) regasification terminal, the biggest in Latin America and one of the biggest in the world.

French-Belgian power company GDF Suez holds a 63 percent share in the terminal and the rest is owned by the state-owned Corporación del Cobre de Chile (Codelco).

It was Bachelet , during her first term (2006-2010), who laid the first stone for the plant. And in February 2010 she was present to welcome the arrival of the first methane tanker.

Bachelet now inaugurated the huge storage tank with a gross capacity of 187,000 m3. It is a full containment tank with a nickel steel inner tank inside a pre-stressed concrete outer tank.

The CEO of GDF Suez, Gerard Mestrallet, said it was built to the highest safety standards, to withstand seismic activity and tsunamis.

The tank’s 501 elastomeric isolators enable it to withstand the stresses caused by a major earthquake, as well as sophisticated seismic monitoring and protection systems.

The expansion of GNLM involved an additional 200 million dollars, on top of the initial investment of 550 million dollars.

For four years, in the first stage of the project, the BW GDF Suez Brussels was moored on one side of the jetty in the bay and used as a floating storage unit when gas shipments came in.

The land tank’s capacity is equivalent to approximately 110 million m3 of standard natural gas after the regasification process. This is transported to clients, mainly mining companies, through the Nor Andino and GasAtacama pipelines.

It is the company’s clients that pay for importing the gas. The corporations that have signed contracts so far are the Anglo-Australian multinational BHP Billiton, Codelco and Generadora E-CL, a Chilean power company controlled by GDF Suez.

The natural gas storage tank inaugurated by President Michelle Bachelet May 14, to complete the natural gas terminal at Mejillones. Credit: Marianela Jarroud/IPS

On May 15, Bachelet – who took office in March – presented her government’s energy agenda, which focuses heavily on clean energy sources as well as the use of LNG to replace diesel fuel and for industrial and household use as well.

The agenda proposes short-term measures to maximise the use of the country’s current electric power generation infrastructure and LNG terminals.

It also includes medium to long-term initiatives aimed at boosting LNG capacity and installing new combined cycle plants fueled with natural gas, “as far as possible with new actors.”

Besides Mejillones, Chile has another LNG terminal, in Quintero bay 154 km north of Santiago, which is owned by London-based BG Group PLC and Chile’s state oil and gas company Empresa Nacional del Petroleo (ENAP).

But the head of the Latin American Observatory on Environmental Conflicts (OLCA), Lucia Cuenca, said the government’s proposal should be looked at with a critical eye.

The country is making the mistake, she told Tierramérica, of not thinking about the high quality natural gas that Bolivia or Argentina could provide, but only about unconventional sources of natural gas. She was referring, for example, to shale gas, which is extracted from underground rocks by hydraulic fracturing or fracking.

“ Chile is preparing to incorporate this kind of gas and that has to be evaluated in a much broader manner,” Cuenca said.

Chile currently imports gas mainly from Trinidad and Tobago and Qatar. But the government will reportedly negotiate supplies of shale gas from the United States.

Cuenca added that, even though LNG emits fewer greenhouse gas emissions, “it’s still a fossil fuel, which means it does produce emissions.”

“LNG is considered a transitional fuel; in other words, it is a little better than coal, but it is not exactly the best option from the standpoint of clean energy,” he added.

In Chile, thermoelectric plants are run on three kinds of fuel: diesel, the most expensive and dirtiest; coal, which is also highly polluting, but abundant and cheap; and gas, which is the least polluting, but costs around 30 percent more than coal.

In 1991, a year after this country returned to democracy after the 1973-1990 military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, the governments of Argentina and Chile signed an economic agreement that established the foundations for gas interconnection between the two countries.

But the late Néstor Kirchner, when he took office as president of Argentina in 2003, prioritised domestic supplies in the face of internal shortages of natural gas, which at the time only covered national demand.

The cuts in exports had a tremendous economic impact on Chile, because power companies were forced to use oil instead, whose international market price had soared.

At the time Argentina cut its gas exports, nearly 90 percent of industries in Santiago were using natural gas from Argentina, which also supplied much of the country’s natural gas pipeline network that serves households.

“The decision reached by Kirchner (2003-2007) was in line with Argentina’s political approach, which will always favour national interests; regardless of who is governing, they are prepared to assume the costs from the standpoint of the international cooperation agenda,” political scientist Francisca Quiroga told Tierramérica.

She said that after Argentina reduced its gas exports to Chile, a debate broke out in which many argued that Chile should not trust Argentina because it was a country that did not live up to its promises. But the political dividends Kirchner reaped outweighed any criticism from abroad, she added.

Quiroga said the question of energy “is a very touchy ideological and strategic issue and is important in debates on domestic policy.”

And in the current regional context, she added, “is it one of the most important issues on the multilateral agenda to address in terms of the challenges of the 21st century.”

In the meantime, Chile is planning the construction of a third LNG terminal in the south-central part of the country, with the participation of the state energy company ENAP.

Cuenca said it is a strategy that serves the large mining corporations that need cheap, abundant energy, because the aim is to offer lower prices on the domestic market.