Description

Contact: gsn@gsnv.org

GSN Regular Membership Meeting in Reno – Friday, November 17, 2023

Drinks @ 6 pm, Dinner @ 6:30 pm, Talk begins @7:30 pm

SPEAKER: DR. SIMON JOWITT, Director of the Ralph J. Roberts Center for Research in Economic Geology and the Arthur Brant Chair of Exploration Geology at the NBMG

TITLE:  “Metal Supply and Demand, Critical Metals and Nevada: Opportunities and Challenges”  Abstract can be found below.

 Sponsor:  TonaTec Exploration, LLC

 TIME: Drinks @ 6:00 pm, Dinner @ 6:30 pm, Talk @ 7:30 pm

WHERE:  Atlantis Hotel & Casino, 3800 S. Virginia St., Reno

 DINNER COST: $60.00 (GSN Student Members eat free as long as you RSVP)

Please Register or RSVP online by 5 PM on Monday, November 13th

(If you click on the SUBMIT button, you are placed on the guest list at that moment. Please contact me to cancel if you can’t make it!)

If you have any questions please contact GSN President, Tony Gesualdo at anthony.gesualdo@gmail.com

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Abstract:

Humanity mines more metals and minerals than at any other point in our history, and mining is vital to modern life, maintaining expected standards of living, providing the raw materials required by a range of industries such as manufacturing and farming, and much more. However, despite these record rates of production the overall demand trends for mined metals and minerals continue to generally increase even coincident with increasing amounts of recycling of some metals. This increasing demand is being further impacted by the energy transition to low- and zero-CO2 energy generation, energy storage, and transport, which is already accelerating demand for a variety of different metals and minerals. These metal and mineral demands are being driven by moves toward effective climate change mitigation as well as consumer demands and investment. All of this indicates that the next few decades will require more mining than already current record levels of production, especially of a range of metals and minerals that are considered critical by governments and associated bodies, governmental departments and individual organizations. There is also significant potential for supply and demand imbalances for a range of these critical metals, reflecting the low volumes of production of some of these commodities as well as uncertainties over future supply and demand. The fact that a range of critical metals and minerals are produced as byproducts of other metals also reduces their security of supply and makes increasing production of these byproduct critical commodities difficult. In addition, the low recycling rates of a significant number of critical metals also means that achieving circular economies when sufficient amounts of these metals are present in the economy as in-use stocks and thus are available for recycling remains problematic. This presentation will provide an overview of the importance of mining to modern society, explain what we mean by critical metals and minerals, outline the metal and mineral supply challenges presented by climate change mitigation, and discuss how we can balance the need for climate change mitigation and the demand for technologies such as electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines and upgraded electrical grid systems with the challenges associated with supplying the metals and minerals that these needs require. Additional discussion will focus on the likely impact of the energy transition on metal demand and mining, the increasing impact of environmental, social and governance/governmental (ESG) factors on mining, and the challenges and opportunities for the minerals industry globally and in Nevada.

Bio: Simon Jowitt is currently the tenured Director of the Ralph J. Roberts Center for Research in Economic Geology and the Arthur Brant Chair of Exploration Geology at the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology, University of Nevada Reno, Reno, Nevada, USA. He has a BSc (Hons) degree in Geology from the University of Edinburgh, an MSc in Mining Geology from the Camborne School of Mines, and a PhD from the University of Leicester, all in the UK. Simon spent eight years at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, initially as a three-year postdoctoral research fellow working with Anglo American before moving to spend seven years as an Assistant and then tenured Associate Professor of Economic Geology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His research focuses on the use of geochemistry to unravel geological processes in a variety of settings with direct application to understanding not only mineralizing systems but also igneous petrology, mineral exploration, global tectonics and the links between magmatism and metallogeny. He has also undertaken extensive research on mineral economics, global metal resources and the security of supply of the critical elements, and the “economic” side of economic geology, as demonstrated by a number of recent publications on global base, precious, and critical metal and mineral resources and the impact of the energy transition and COVID-19 on the global minerals industry. Simon also studies the environmental impact of mining and the potential uses of mining and other wastes for base and critical metal production and CO2 sequestration. He has published more than 110 scientific papers and peer-reviewed book chapters since 2010, is currently the Vice-President for Student Affairs for the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG) and was awarded the SEG’s Waldemar Lindgren Award in 2014.