Energy, Renewables and Carbon Management (ERCM)

Energy, Renewables and Carbon Management (ERCM)

In partnership with Laurentian University, MIRARCO has invested in a new Chair of Energy in Mining to lead research in this area. The new chair, Dean Millar has established the Energy, Renewables and Carbon Management team.

It's What We Do:

• Whole and life cycle, power, heat and fuel audits and demand profiling.
• Appraisal and concept development of energy consumption reduction technologies (including energy efficiency) for the minerals sector.
• Integration of renewable energy technologies into the mining sector.
• Renewable heat technology application development including heat recovery and utilization of geothermal energy.
• Investigation of revenue enhancement opportunities via carbon trading and the clean development mechanism.
• Greenhouse gas mitigation and avoidance, development of innovations in carbon capture technology.

Current Projects

• Geometry of Heat Exchange in Broken Rock

  • Researcher: Sidney Schafrik. This project aims to upgrade heat exchange models applied to heat transfer problems in broken / caved ground. The research generates fractal solid models, ELFEN and particle flow code renderings of broken rock piles that are used with an advanced computational fluid dynamics code as well as a network flow solver to enable for improved design of mine heating and cooling applications as well as enhanced geothermal energy recovery.

• Floating Photovoltaics

  • Researcher: Kim Trapani. MIRARCO Research has indicated that as an offshore renewable energy technology, photovoltaic installations, upwards of 10MW installed capacity, can produce electricity at a lower cost than offshore wind farms - up to latitudes up to 50°N which includes all of the Canadian Great Lakes. The research is motivated by two key factors: i) the food-versus-fuel debate: land based photovoltaic installations preclude the simultaneous use of the land for agricultural activities (unlike wind energy) and ii) the need for large scale, off grid technologies for mining operations in remote environments. This research focuses on yield, reliability, station keeping, and durability of PV installations offshore in comparison to land based installations, and consequently the economics and other benefits relative to other offshore technologies, which include wind power, wave energy and tidal power. This project involves collaborations with the Photovoltaics Applications Research Group at the University of Loughborough, UK and the Peninsula Research Institute for Marine Renewable Energy at the University of Exeter, UK.

• Demand Side Energy Conservation

  • Researcher: Michelle Levesque. Huge (100s of MW scale) volumes of wasted heat are discharged to atmosphere within the mining industry, all with economic and carbon emissions implications. These include, (in approximate order of heat grade) solidifying refining slag, furnace off-gas, static internal combustion engines, static compressed air plant, upcast ventilating air and pumped mine waters. Substantial, but poorly characterized, quantities of thermal energy that are by-products of other heating, drying and cooling processes in smelter / benefication plants are also currently simply discharged to the atmosphere or biosphere while representing potentially economic thermal energy sources for other parts of the same mineral production operations. Opportunities to exploit these currently wasted opportunities are being investigated as well as mechanisms and facilities to store or buffer the heat to permit the supply-demand system to be balanced off.

• CryoVent: Low or Zero Carbon Cryogenic Ventilation for Deep Mines

  • There is a great need for efficient ventilation and air cooling technologies within the underground mining industry. Such technologies are required to decrease the overall carbon footprint and operating costs of underground mining operations. This project will attempt to outline the feasibility of using wind powered liquefaction plants to produce liquid air, which will be used to cool underground workings and supplement auxiliary ventilation systems. This research project will focus on the potential yield of such a plant as well as the performance of liquefaction cycles in the face of a transient work input. This project has the potential to incorporate a low cost and renewable technology into the mining industry, resulting in lower overall operating costs as well as a cleaner operation and better overall public appearance.

• OMSES: Optimal Mine Site Energy Supply

  • Researcher: Dr. Monica Carvalho. Polygeneration technologies have socio-economic and environmental benefits that relate to their efficient use of energy resources. Polygeneration systems also typically result in the reduction of operation costs and in environmental benefits (reduced carbon emissions). The primary motivation for this research is to help ensure that Canadian mineral producers will realise reduced production costs through improvements in the efficiency with which they consume energy resources (electricity, natural gas / LPG, biomass, solar, wind).
    
    The main objectives of this research are to develop methodologies and procedures for the synthesis and design of polygeneration systems in mines, and study the technical, economic, and environmental feasibility of these systems. Through extension of proven methodologies established for tested level demand studies, the "most adequate" configurations of energy supply equipment that satisfice (as coined by Herbert Simon, 1956) the energy requirements of mine sites and remote communities in different scenarios and conditions of constraint for the optimization process will be identified.
    
    The work will: i) consider the intermittency and variability of various renewable energy resources in the problem formulation; ii) consider mines that are/are not connected to energy supply infrastructure; iii) consider aggregated demand curves from remote communities, both those connected to distribution networks and those that are not; iv) investigate the resilience of optimal mine configuration and operation to varying tariffs; v) consider storage systems as utilities on the supply side and as dispatchable loads on the demand side.
    
    The optimal configuration of a polygeneration system for the specific cases of mine sites has not been explored, due to the wide variety of technology options for the provision of energy services, the temporal variations in energy prices, institutional inertia, and conservatism in design for mines. This project will innovate by introducing renewable energies as available utilities in the synthesis, design and operation of energy systems, and consider carbon emissions as decision elements.

Researchers

• Dr. Monica Carvalho, Researcher. Research interests include polygeneration systems, renewable energy, energy efficiency, thermoeconomics, and Life Cycle Assessment. Currently working on the Optimal Mine Site Energy Supply project. Resume


• Sidney Schafrik, PhD Student, area of study in the disciplines of surveying, chemistry, AutoCAD design, ventilation, structural engineering, finance, explosives, and implementation of automation in industrial environments. Resume
  
  • PhD Thesis Proposal: The Geometry of Heat Exchange in Broken and Fragmented Rock - pdf.
  • Engineering Project: Due Diligence in Mine Feasibility Studies for Assessment of Social Risk - pdf.
  • Publication: Due Diligence in Mine Feasibility Studies for Assessment of Social Risk - link.


• Kim Trapani, PhD Student, focused on renewable energy source, sustainable developments and energy management. Resume
  
  • PhD Thesis Proposal: Performance Testing of Lacustrine and Marine Deployment Environments for Large Scale Photovoltaic Arrays - pdf. ppt.
  • Dissertation: Novel Design of a Portable Heat Energy Storage Device Adopting a Phase Change Material for CHP and Solar Energy Applications - pdf. ppt.
  • Heat Device Assembly Animation


• Michelle Levesque, M.A.Sc Student, main interests in energy and carbon management. Resume
  • M.A.Sc. Thesis Summary: Understanding Mine Heat - pdf.

The ERCM Group invites enquiries from individuals and organizations wishing to collaborate with MIRARCO researchers on the following research proposal topics:

• (DROPIT) Quantifying methane content of continuous permafrost
• (CRYOVENT) Production of cryogenic fluids using wind turbines for mine ventilation
• (LOWCARB) Low carbon mine site energy initiatives

For more information, contact:

Dean Millar
MIRARCO Research Chair, Energy in Mining
Tel: (705)675-1151 Ext. 5071
Email: dmillar@mirarco.org