1009 REIMAGINING TAILINGS: RISK OR OPPORTUNITY? *S. Rao1, G. Caffery2 1Managing Director, Clareo (*Presenting author: srao@clareo.com) 2Director – Australia, Clareo ABSTRACT The global demand for critical minerals presents a fundamental paradox: the world needs exponentially more copper, lithium, and nickel to enable future energy demands, yet the mining industry's ability to supply these minerals is constrained by its own waste. Copper mining alone generates approximately 10-12 billion tons of tailings annually, representing 46% of the estimated 8,500 global tailings sites worldwide. As ore grades decline and production volumes increase to meet demand, the volume of tailings storage grows proportionally, creating escalating environmental risks and operational constraints that threaten the industry's social license to operate. This paper examines how mining companies can address this constraint through a systematic approach to tailings elimination. The work synthesizes emerging technologies and operational innovations into five distinct strategies that form a continuum from incremental improvement to fundamental process transformation. Each approach addresses different aspects of the challenge. No single technology provides a complete solution, and implementation feasibility varies by commodity, geology, and operational context. However, mining companies can develop portfolios of initiatives across this continuum, balancing near-term value creation with long-term risk mitigation. Successfully reimagining tailings requires industry collaboration on cost sharing, data exchange, and technology derisking. The path to delivering critical minerals in a faster, smarter, and more responsible fashion depends on transforming tailings from an inevitable byproduct and a risk for organisation into a source of opportunity and value: essentially reimagining tailings as an engineering challenge with addressable solutions. KEYWORDS Tailings, tailings management, water use, transformation, recovery, processing 1. TAILINGS AS A RISK AND CONSTRAINT TO MEETING MINERALS DEMAND The IEA has reported that critical minerals experienced strong growth in recent years, and that the combined market value of key energy transition minerals – copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and rare earth elements – is expected more than double to reach USD$770 billion by 2040 in their net zero scenario (IEA, 2024). However, the extraction of these minerals comes at a price: copper, in particular, represents 46% of the estimated 8,500 global tailings sites worldwide, with an annual global total of 10-12 billion tons of tailings produced each year (Global Tailings Review, 2020). Water use and tailings management, which are inextricably linked, represent risk and constraints as the mining sector looks to meet this increased demand. Societal and environmental concerns related to water and tailings have escalated globally as water supply and quality are threatened, and the volume of tailings expands significantly due to lower ore grades. Water use and tailings-related challenges have surfaced as water supply and quality are often stressed in many mining jurisdictions. Lower ore grades processed with conventional approaches result in a
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