The Mining Association of Canada | The Canadian Mining Story: Economic Impacts and Drivers for the Global Energy Transition 2023 59 that substantial and meaningful engagement with stakeholders of all kinds, and consultation with Indigenous communities and self-governments, is necessary to establish greater confidence in this technology. Hydrogen Hydrogen fuel cells do not produce emissions, only electrical power, water, and heat. The most recent application in mining in Canada was at Glencore’s Raglan mine in northern Quebec, in partnership with TUGLIQ Energy and the federal and provincial governments, where a hydrogen fuel cell was co-deployed with a wind turbine to minimize the loss of wind energy over longer periods of time and to reduce intermittency. Released in December 2020, MAC was pleased to see that the first of our two recommendations to NRCan was accepted into Canada’s national hydrogen strategy: that NRCan should develop and make available a flexible technical scoping tool designed to assess the feasibility of hydrogen technologies in their various applications to mining companies. This model should be updated periodically as technologies improve and potential uptake becomes more realistic. The second of our recommendations was to create a heavy industry specific fund, eligible for renewal, to make pilot and demonstration project funding available to mining operators where the most promising opportunities are identified from the modelling being developed. As is often the case with new technologies, there are learning and cost curves that need to be flattened to increase the uptake potential. Delivering on the above recommendations would help on both fronts, increasing awareness of the improving efficiency of hydrogen technologies over time, their applicability to mining operations, and the periodic assessment of the improved economic viability of deployment. To support the coordination of activities, MAC co-chairs a CanmetMINING hosted committee on mining and hydrogen use in the mining sector. Recycling and the Circular Economy Conventional economic consumption and disposal of resources is increasingly putting pressure on our climate, communities, and in some cases, public health. Transitioning to a cleaner economy starts with modifying practices and technologies to create economic opportunities out of the materials that might otherwise be thrown away. The circular economy is the concept that we should extract as much value as possible from resources by recycling, repairing, reusing, repurposing, or refurbishing products and materials—eliminating waste and emissions at the design stage. While minerals and metals are already recycled in Canada, there is an opportunity to do more. One expanding waste stream that could be more optimally managed is that of electronics. E-waste is one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the world and includes items such as mobile devices, computers, monitors, televisions and DVD players, among other electronic equipment. A record 53.6 million metric tonnes of electronic waste was
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