Post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Max Hesse, an experimentalist at UBC, operating the Alpha Transcritical CO2 Pulverization prototype. Courtesy of Cliff Edwards

When it comes to the mining industry’s quest to lower its carbon emissions, there may be no better place to focus on than processing methods. A recent report from the Coalition for Eco-Efficient Comminution found that comminution accounted for 25 per cent of energy consumption at an average mine site, and extended across all hard-rock mining, made up one per cent of total energy consumption worldwide.