{"id":9003,"date":"2023-10-10T10:51:50","date_gmt":"2023-10-10T14:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/?p=9003"},"modified":"2023-10-10T10:51:50","modified_gmt":"2023-10-10T14:51:50","slug":"monitoring-african-copper-and-cobalt-mining-emissions-from-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/?p=9003","title":{"rendered":"Monitoring African Copper and Cobalt Mining Emissions from Space"},"content":{"rendered":"
Average nitrogen dioxide detected by the TROPOMI instrument onboard the S-5P satellite over the Democratic Republic of Congo. The image shows the significant increase in nitrogen dioxide over a copper\/cobalt mine (circled in yellow) compared to the city of Kolwezi (circled in yellow). Image courtesy: Pepijn Veefkind, KNMI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Emissions associated with mining operations in Africa\u2019s Copperbelt can be quantified from space, according to new research<\/a> led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).<\/p>\n

Mining for copper and cobalt in Africa has rapidly increased, the latter in response to growing global demand for electric vehicles, laptops, smartphones, and other devices that rely on lithium-ion batteries, the vast majority of which contain cobalt. <\/p>\n

The new study is published in Geophysical Research Letters<\/em>, a journal of the American Geophysical Union, and shows for the first time that satellite monitoring can provide valuable information on the impact of the mining boom on air quality in nearby towns and villages. The research also opens the door to the possibility of remotely monitoring increases and decreases in mining activities in a region of the world where surface monitoring is scarce and reporting by mine operators can be inconsistent or altogether absent. <\/p>\n

\u201cMining operations can have a significant impact on quality of life for the people living nearby,\u201d said Pieternel Levelt, director of NCAR\u2019s Atmospheric Chemistry Observations and Modeling Lab and senior author of the paper. \u201cThis research can help us better understand how severe and widespread those impacts may be in mining areas like the Copperbelt while also giving us a tool for estimating the growth of mining activities in remote regions that are driving those impacts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, which is NCAR\u2019s sponsor, as well as by the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI). The list of co-authors includes researchers from KNMI and the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands, the Royal Belgium Institute for Space Astronomy, the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as well as the National Centre for Scientific Research (CRNS) and the Observatoire Midi-Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es, both in France.  <\/p>\n

An immense increase in production<\/strong><\/p>\n

Africa\u2019s Copperbelt straddles Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which produced 73% of the world\u2019s supply of cobalt in 2022, according to the Cobalt Institute. Cobalt production in the Copperbelt increased about 600% between 1990 and 2021, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Mines and the U.S. Geological Survey.<\/p>\n

The vast majority of cobalt is produced as a byproduct of copper mining, though some copper mines do not produce any cobalt. Most of the energy consumed in copper and cobalt mining \u2014 including the operation of large machinery and electricity production \u2014 is generated by burning diesel fuel, which in turn produces nitrogen oxides, a key ingredient in smog.<\/p>\n

To quantify the emissions, the research team turned to data from the TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) onboard the European Space Agency\u2019s Copernicus Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite (S-5P). TROPOMI can monitor a number of trace gases important for air quality, including nitrogen dioxide.<\/p>\n

While biomass burning, urban activity, and other industrial operations beyond mining also produce nitrogen dioxide \u2014 as do some natural processes \u2014  the researchers found that they could distinguish the emissions from copper and cobalt mines in the data. They also found that the annual emissions from each mine strongly correlated with their annual metal production. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought that these copper and cobalt mining operations could affect local air quality; we just didn\u2019t know how much given the lack of ground monitoring in the region,\u201d said NCAR scientist Sara Mart\u00ednez-Alonso, who is the study\u2019s lead author. \u201cUnderstanding this is particularly important when mining-related activities proliferate in close proximity to  \u2014 or even inside of \u2014 population centers, as is the case in the Copperbelt. With satellite observations we were able to quantify emissions from individual mines and put those emissions into perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

The S-5P satellite that carries TROPOMI is polar-orbiting and passes over any given location on the Earth\u2019s surface once a day, limiting the number of observations over the Copperbelt. A geostationary satellite over the continent could provide a much more in-depth picture of emissions in the region, providing hourly instead of daily observations, according to Levelt. Currently, there are no geostationary satellites over Africa or anywhere in the global South.<\/p>\n

\u201cA geostationary satellite over Africa could provide the data needed to create accurate air quality forecasts for populations that are at increased risk,\u201d Levelt said. \u201cHourly observations over urban areas could show the daily evolution of pollution levels and sources, and the information could inform local regulatory agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emissions associated with mining operations in Africa\u2019s Copperbelt can be quantified from space, according to new research led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Mining for copper and cobalt in Africa has rapidly increased, the latter in response to growing global demand for electric vehicles, laptops, smartphones, and other devices that rely on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":9005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/news.ucar.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/inline-images\/Screen%20Shot%202023-10-09%20at%202.22.50%20PM.png","fifu_image_alt":"Monitoring African Copper and Cobalt Mining Emissions from Space","footnotes":""},"categories":[213],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-impact"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9003"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9004,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9003\/revisions\/9004"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}