Some partners of the GREENPEG Project Consortium gave support to the media artist Dr Stephen Cornford https://stephencornford.net/ and spent quite some time with him in the field in Tysfjord, Wolfsberg and in Leinster (project demonstration sites) assisting him with questions and guiding him in the field sites. Having visited all three locations, Stephen documented a wide range of the exploration tools and devices used in GREENPEG, recorded some typical scenes of people doing geophysical work and took videos from stills and made sound records such as the internal clicking and beeping of some of the devices. More information will be given in our September issue of GREENPEG Newsletter. See also the video which is now online available for streaming here:
https://avantwhatever.xyz/w/tsSQUPENFwnYfwJTche3jh
Artist Biography
Stephen Cornford is a media artist who works with consumer electronics, critiquing the ideologies they embody and the constitutive role they have come to play in our lives. His current research is concerned with the toxicity of digital media, the complex metallurgy of ubiquitous technologies and relationships between planetary and photographic space.
Much of his recent work has been made in collaboration with scienctific researchers. He has worked alongside commercial geophysicists prospecting for technology metals in Europe and volcanologists studying magma crystallisation with X-rays. His practice often employs laboratory processes or scientific imaging, using geological furnaces to transform electronic waste or optoelectronics facilities to damage cameras.
Sourcing the European energy transition from domestic resources – vision or wishful thinking? This one-day conference questions Europe's raw materials supply security in the context of its economically viable raw material potential and of current geopolitics. It examines the existing and future framework conditions for mining projects and their downstream value chain (regulation, financing, permitting). The question arises, which course do we follow?
The conference also focuses on the work of the European Geological Surveys for the territorial mapping of critical raw materials and highlights the potential for cooperation with Africa. On April 26th, a site visit is offered by United Lithium Corp. to Bergby Lake Lithium exploration project.
Sweden currently holds the EU Council Presidency for the first half of 2023. Sweden is one of the most important mining countries in Europe with great raw material potential for managing the energy and mobility transition and securing the raw material supply for future technologies.
The conference is hosted by the EU HORIZON 2020 project GREENPEG, in cooperation with the Swedish Mining Association SVEMIN and the European Technology Platform on Sustainable Mineral Resources (ETP SMR) and will take place in picturesque city of Uppsala, 20 minutes by train from Stockholm Airport. Participation is free of charge.
Including the world-class spodumene pegmatites at Manono-Kitotolo presented by Prof Anouk Borst, KU Leuven. She will discuss the geology, as well as some socio-economic and political aspects of exploration and mining in DRC, in the context of widespread artisanal mining and conflict. Get familiar with this topic also by DER SPIEGEL International Article “China Battles West for Raw Material of the Future”. Do you wish to join GREENPEG SIMS? Subscribe by contacting us: contact@greenpeg.eu
GREENPEG invited 20 undergraduate and MSc students of energy engineering and social sciences to learn about value chains in the mining and energy industries during a one-week excursion through North-West Spain and Portugal in September 2022. These are students whose training does not normally deal with the topic of securing raw materials.
The aim was to raise awareness of the relevance of raw materials (not only metals but also aggregates and industrial minerals) and the role they play in society, in particular to manage the major challenges of our time such as the energy transition and climate protection as well as the development of advanced technologies. The one-week bus tour included the Mitruku Wave Energy Converter in the Bay of Biscay, Aldeadávila Hydropower Plant in the Province of Salamanca, as well as the Arañuelo solar farm for the energy sector and Saloro´s Barruecopardo tungsten mine and the Gonçalo Li-Pegmatite quarry in the Guarda district in Portugal for the mining sector.
The Iberian Peninsula has rich deposits of raw materials for the energy transition, but their extraction is also the subject of a lively debate among those affected. In order to better understand the positions of both sides, GREENPEG invited several representatives from both sides including associations, research, mining developers and politics to a Round Table at the University of Salamanca. On the agenda were nine questions that dealt with the challenges of sourcing the energy transition, implementing the European GREEN DEAL, but also the socio-economic challenges and user conflicts in this regard. Each question was followed by a poll of all participants for their views. Find out more about the Focus Group Meeting Spain in our December Newsletter Special and on Youtube.
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While on tour with her collegues and 16 students from five European countries as part of the GREENPEG Focus Group Meeting Spain our project manager Carla Pueyo Lloret was interviewed by “Hoy por Hoy Provincial Cáceres of the radion station Cadena SER. Carla explains the aim and objective of the Focus Group Meeting and the special relevance of raw materials that contribute to Spain´s ambitious investments in renewable energies. Listen to Carla on the radio in the following link: Hoy por Hoy Provincial Cáceres