(32bc) Decarbonization Projects in the Mining Industry – Process Safety Perspective and PHA Application

Climate change is the order of the day and major national and international climate disasters are accelerating these discussions intensely. For most scientists, the planet's average temperature is rising because human activities are emitting large quantities of greenhouse gases (GHG) into the atmosphere. In this context, decarbonization has emerged as a solution to curb the effects of global warming.

Decarbonizing means transforming production patterns to stop or reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the lowest possible level, mainly carbon dioxide (CO₂), into the atmosphere as a result of burning fossil fuels or vegetation. This is not just a one-off reduction, but a definitive transition to low or zero emissions. In 2021, oil, coal and natural gas derivatives will still account for more than 80% of the current global energy matrix, and will continue to be the raw material for products we use every day: from asphalt and rubber to medicines and shampoos.

Decarbonization serves as a key process to enable a just energy transition for people and the global economy, which depend on the use of oil, natural gas and coal derivatives. The transition to more sustainable energy sources is crucial to contain global warming to 1.5 °C, which implies increasing the use of renewable energies and reducing the use of fossil fuels.

Decarbonization Projects in the industry are relatively new, and associated process safety risks are not well recognized or known in the Mining Industry. Particularly at Vale, the aggressive strategy to reduce its carbon emissions resulted on an increasing number of decarbonization projects in the last years. Technologies using Ammonia, Hydrogen, Liquefied Biomethane, Lithium Batteries, among others are rapidly emerging. Although some industry knowledge and experience in handling these products safely is available for research, there are considerable challenges in the new applications and processes using these materials as energy sources, and their use is recently new for the mining industry.

These technologies are solutions environmentally cleaner, however containing significant process risks that need to be identified and thoroughly analyzed. Hazard Identification and Risk Analysis tools should be used to adequately identify and manage these risks.

This paper aims to develop and present a Case Study of an application of a Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) for a Decarbonization Project in the Mining Industry. The Study permits to expose the main process hazards and potential impacts related to a Decarbonization Project and the main barriers that should be foreseen or proposed, highlighting the importance of process safety perspective application on these initiatives from early stages of project development.