Salida Steam Plant
Sunday
August 4, 2024
Talk: 7:00pm in the Steam Plant auditorium
Dr. Scott Tinker
Energy, Climate, and the Reality of Trade Offs.
Salida Steam Plant
Wednesday
August 28, 2024
Talk: 7:00pm in the Steam Plant auditorium
Dr. Devin Castendyk
Recovering Critical Minerals for a Carbon-Neutral Future from Mine Waste; Maximizing Opportunities while Minimizing Risks
Food systems contribute roughly a third of global greenhouse gas emissions while also facing immense pressure from climate change. These challenges threaten agricultural livelihoods and global food security. However, the impacts of climate change on agriculture will not only be shaped by changing weather patterns, but also by the resilience and adaptability of our agricultural systems. In this talk, I will explore key mechanisms through which agricultural systems can adapt and mitigate these climate risks on both national and global scales. I will delve into topics like energy usage for irrigation, the sensitivity of crop and milk yields to climate hazards, adaptive migration of crops, and the challenges of managing water resources. By illustrating the interactions between climate change and agriculture, this presentation will reveal strategies for a resilient, sustainable, and productive global food system.
Notable relevant publications :
Driscoll, AW, RT Conant, LT Marston, E Choi, and ND Mueller. 2024. Greenhouse gas emissions from US irrigation pumping and implications for climate-smart irrigation policy. Nature Communications. Choi, E, AJ Rigden, N Tangdamrongsub, MF Jasinski, and ND Mueller. 2023. US crop yield losses from hydroclimatic hazards. Environmental Research Letters. Kabeshita, L, LL Sloat, EV Fischer, S Kampf, S Magzamen, C Schultz, MJ Wilkins, E Kinnebrew, and ND Mueller. 2023. Pathways framework identifies wildfire impacts on agriculture. Nature Food. Gisbert-Queral, M, A Henningsen, B Markussen, MT Niles, E Kebreab, AJ Rigden, and ND Mueller. 2021.Climate impacts and adaptation in US dairy systems 1981–2018. Nature Food. Hong, C, JA Burney, J Pongratz, J Nabel, ND Mueller, RB Jackson, and SJ Davis. 2021. Global and regional drivers of land-use emissions 1961-2017. Nature
Dr. Mueller is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ecosystem Science and Sustainability and the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences at Colorado State University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 2013 and his B.A. from St. Olaf College in 2007. Nathan was an Environmental Fellow at Harvard University from 2013-2015.
A video of Dr. Muller’s talk can be viewed at this link.
The Collegiate Peaks Forum Series, now in its 22nd year, is a free lecture series with presentations in Leadville, Buena Vista, and Salida.
Location: Salida Steam Plant, 220 Sackett Ave. Salida, CO 81201
All forms of energy impact the environment, and all forms have societal benefits. Contrary to some narratives, there are no binary, simple solutions, there are just trade-offs. The challenge facing a world of over 8 billion people, living from extreme poverty to extreme wealth, is how to increase human flourishing while also protecting the environment.
Since 2000, Dr. Tinker has been deeply involved in academic administration, professional society leadership, government policy, program and infrastructure growth, and global outreach. His research efforts are centered on the interface between global energy supply and demand, environmental impacts of energy, and economic drivers and scale of energy.
Dr. Tinker is Director Emeritus of the Bureau of Economic Geology at The University of Texas at Austin and founded the energy education nonprofit Switch Energy Alliance. Tinker co-produced and is featured in the award-winning documentary films Switch and Switch On, which have been screened in over 50 countries. To learn more about Dr. Tinker’s work, go to: https://www.beg.utexas.edu/people/scott-tinker
Unfortunately our video recording of Dr. Tinker’s talk was unsuccessful. However, you can view many of Dr. Tinker’s talks on youtube. Several of these YouTube links are as follows; Link#1, Link #2, Link #3
The Collegiate Peaks Forum Series, now in its 22nd year, is a free lecture series with presentations in Leadville, Buena Vista, and Salida.
Location: Salida Steam Plant, 220 Sackett Ave. Salida, CO 81201
In order to achieve greenhouse gas emissions targets through the electrification of vehicles and homes, human society will need to extract more copper from the Earth over the next 25 years that it has mined from the dawn of the Bronze Age to present day. Other critical minerals required to produce renewable energy and essential components of cell phones, batteries, computers, lights, homes, etc., also require mining. The distribution of the minerals is limited to only a few points on Earth geologically endowed with mineral deposits, which restricts the location of mines to (1) digging new mines in undisturbed areas, (2) expanding the size of existing mines, (3) re-opening former mines, and (4) reprocessing of waste materials stored on historic mine sites. As society’s demand for critical minerals has increased, so too has the demand for the environmental protection of clean water, aeratable land, healthy ecosystems, undisturbed landscapes and safe housing locations. To that end, modern mining requires both the maximization of resource opportunities and the reduction of environmental and social risks, the combination of which yields a “social license” to mine. Thanks to technological advances that have improved the economic recovery of smaller and small quantities of metal from mine materials, the mine waste dumps of yesterday are poised to become the active mines of tomorrow.
This talk will review the stages of the mine life cycle from exploration to operations to closure and back to again, with an emphasis on risk identification and risk management at each stage. We will introduce mining terminology, common components of mines, physical and environmental risks, and modern methods used to recover metals and manage risks. Next, we will explore examples of metal recovery from mine wastes and post-mining land use from mine sites around the world. Through this lens, we will discuss the geology of the world-class Leadville mineral deposit, opportunities to reclaim critical minerals from historic mine wastes, and strategies for community members to develop their own objective assessment of risks and opportunities associated with future mining in the area.
Notable relevant publications :
Dr. Castendyk has published his research on the environmental impacts of mining in numerous Scientific Journals including Mine Water and the Environment, Limnology and Oceanography Letters, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, Mining Engineering, and Applied Geochemistry.
Dr. Castendyk holds a Masters degree in Geology from University of Utah and a Doctoral degree in Environmental Science from University of Auckland in New Zealand, where he lived for five years as a US Fulbright Graduate Student. From 2005 to 2015, he was a faculty member in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the State University of New York at Oneonta.
A video of Dr. Castendyke’s talk can be viewed at this link.
The Collegiate Peaks Forum Series, now in its 22nd year, is a free lecture series with presentations in Leadville, Buena Vista, and Salida.
Location: Salida Steam Plant, 220 Sackett Ave. Salida, CO 81201