Carbon and climate change advisory company Promethium Carbon, in partner-ship with gold major Harmony Gold, has developed and launched a toolkit to facilitate the development of sustainable and bankable projects on mining-impacted land.

The initiative also has a strong socioeconomic upliftment focus.

The toolkit will focus on generating renewable energy, rehabilitating mining-impacted land and creating jobs. It was launched at the Chamber of Mines (CoM) of South Africa, in Johannesburg, Gauteng, last month.

According to the CoM, the toolkit can offer an alternative post-mine-life economic and land-use scenario that can provide sustainable economic activity for communities in the vicinity of exhausted mines.

“Mining has traditionally impacted heavily on land . . . within the boundaries of the mining operation and in surrounding areas. This has left South Africa with large tracts of unrehabilitated mining land. Current thinking shows that there is a sustainable way to approach mining-land rehabilitation which is cost and environment conscious,” Promethium Carbon director Robbie Louw pointed out at the launch.

The toolkit is designed according to conventional project phases and covers a concept phase and a prefeasibility phase. It also focuses on providing guidance in identifying viable project opportunities and assisting in addressing the key aspects to formulate a bankable feasibility study for funding purposes. Ultimately, the toolkit will assist in compiling all the necessary information for project implementation.

While the toolkit does not aim to suggest a specific project outcome in terms of technology selection, it enables the user to identify opportunities for development, test their viability and, ultimately, maximise available resources, according to Promethium Carbon’s research report on the toolkit.

“The toolkit provides guidance on rehabilitating mining-impacted land for renewable-energy generation using mine rehabilitation and renewable energy for socioeconomic upliftment of local communities, and integrating renewable energy with the needs of the mining sector to alleviate grid pressure,” Louw explained.

The toolkit is the outcome of a British High Commission-funded project. The community-based renewable-energy project effectively integrated renewable- energy generation, restoration and rehabilitation of mining-impacted land and economic development into local communities to create sustainable value, Louw said.

CoM CEO Roger Baxter stressed that the project was “aligned with the chamber’s objective of creating value [and] . . . vital initiatives that best serve mining communities.”

Further, the outcomes of the project highlight that post-mine-life sustainability of communities and land rehabilitation can be effectively achieved.

Harmony Gold environmental executive Melanie Naidoo-Vermaak noted that the mining group maintained that mining and sustainability can coexist, as had been demonstrated by this initiative.

The project incorporated case studies at two sites: one in the Ratlou Local Municipality, in the North West, and another in Mogale City Local Municipality, in Gauteng. Harmony Gold’s Free State bioenergy project was also included in the referencing material.

The case studies considered the land impacted on by mining activity and the social context of the sites in terms of development needs and local capacity. Owing to the nature of the sites, the case studies identified bioenergy generation as the most suitable renewable-energy alternative. In this regard, the sites were evaluated in terms of potential biomass generation which can be used in renewable-energy production and power generation, Louw said.

Land rehabilitation, rangeland and forage (grass and legume) specialist Dr Wayne Truter advised Promethium Carbon on the types of soil substrates and the use of different plant species for land rehabilitation concepts. At the launch, Truter discussed the application of phytoremediation for the in situ removal of contaminants from soils.
Truter, affiliated with Grass SA and the University of Pretoria, explained that grass bioenergy production, as an example of phyto-remediation, is a cost-effective, environment-friendly energy supply with high rural economic development potential and a positive impact on greenhouse-gas production and soil conservation.

Louw concluded that this practical toolkit would assist rehabilitation practitioners and project developers to optimise synergies between impacted land, the need for energy and local economic development. “The long-term objective of this study is to support and facilitate the development of projects, which will build on a 150 years’ mining legacy to ensure post-mine-life sustainability and a greener future.”