22
... COMES AROUND
‘Bad reputation’: Mining engineering and mining justice at UBC Words by Riya Talitha Illustration by Kristine Ho
A
ccording to the 2019 Times Higher Education list, UBC ranks number one globally for “taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.” With its various sustainability initiatives, it certainly appears as though there’s a lot going on with UBC as an administrative institution with relation to the climate crisis. On the research and academic side, UBC is home to the Norman B. Keevil (NBK) Institute of Mining Engineering, a tight-knit Faculty of Applied Sciences department. Considered a leader in the field, it attracts innovative researchers and talented students every year. But as an extractive industry run by huge multi-national corporations, the mining industry is a contributor to the ongoing climate crisis — something that UBC experts undertand. Dr. Scott Dunbar, the department head of the NBK Institute and founder of UBC’s Integrated Engineering program, is quick to agree that the “[mining] industry has a very poor image and it hasn’t done itself any favours.” In turn, Dunbar aims to answer two questions through his research: What will a mine look like 50 to 100 years from now and what innovations are needed to make it happen?
‘KNEE-JERK REACTION’ According to Dunbar, the aim of making the mining industry have a lower carbon footprint is highly effective in the struggle against the climate crisis — something he believes the industry itself is aiming to do. On the other hand, he personally sees the practice of divestment as a “knee-jerk reaction [that] seems to be optics.” “The university should be at the forefront of this debate,” Dunbar said of the transition from fossil fuels to one of renewable energy — a “technical issue” that he sees as the future of the mining industry. Noting that the older generation is not doing enough to decarbonize the economy, he added that the NBK Institute focuses on teaching mineral and metal extraction over fossil fuel extraction. “In fact, I’ll put this out there: Greta Thunberg was right, absolutely right,” said Dunbar. “What we’re mainly focused on in this department is called green or cleaner techniques for doing mining.” Dr. Ali G. Madiseh, assistant professor and Canada Research Chair in advanced mine energy system, agrees.
Just last March, Madiseh delivered a “Mining with Clean Energy” research seminar at UBC which stressed that “ultra-efficient” technologies were the only way to ensure long-term sustainability and combat the Canadian mining industry’s “heavy reliance on fossil fuels.” He also believes that complete fossil fuel divestment is impractical, especially for developing countries which he thinks should not be held to the same ecological standards. But Madiseh does not deny the urgency of the climate crisis. Born and raised in Iran, he sees how much redder — and drier — the soil of his home village is becoming every time he visits. He believes that innovative mining engineering skills are a necessity for any sustainable future, while stressing the importance of precise terminology. “There’s no such thing as green,” he said, explaining that mining technologies and mines can only accurately be called sustainable, low or zero carbon. Adrian Heisis, a recent UBC mining engineer graduate, has a similar viewpoint. For Heisis, mining engineering — especially at UBC — is a forward-thinking technical discipline whose research and graduates are necessary for the development of sustain-
