Analysis of Environmental Costs’ Effect in Green Mining Strategy Using a System Dynamics Approach: A Case Study

Abstract

Nowadays, one of the most significant problems in mining activities is the significance of analyzing environmental issues along with mining, concentration, and mineral processing operations to achieve the goals of sustainable development. Nevertheless, mine owners refuse to include environmental costs (EC) and consider them unprofitable. Due to the ever-increasing importance of environmental and social topics in recent years, there is a vital need for assessing the EC and its impact on total mining costs and implementing green strategies by the mining managers and engineers. The current study tries to model the mining cost structure by considering the causal relationships between different factors affecting open-pit mining costs to highlight the EC’s role. Furthermore, this research evaluates the effectiveness of implementing each possible mining green strategy in a large-scale copper mine using the System Dynamics (SD) approach. In this regard, seven scenarios and a combination of different environmental strategies, including mine reclamation, an environmental strategy for a condensation and processing plant, and environmental mining operations, have been considered for the SD-based economic analysis. The simultaneous use of the green mining strategies for the concentration and processing plant (Scenario 4) shows a high impact on cost reduction in the mining operation.

Kinetic model derivation for design, building and operation of solid waste treatment unit based on system dynamics and computer simulation

“…Furthermore, this kinetic model can also be extended to comprehend the dynamic mechanisms of physiochemical and ecological processes occurring in terrestrial (Jafarpour & Khatami, 2021) and riverine ecosystems (Koley, 2021) via appropriate model calibrations. Based on calibrated models and tunable parameters, relevant policies of environmental management and technologies of ecological engineering could be developed to promote sustainable development of the regional economy, society and environment.…”

Tarim İşletmelerinde Sistem Dinamiğinin Stratejik Yönetim Muhasebesi Araci Olarak Kullanimi: Türkiye’de Badem Üretiminin İncelenmesi

“…In their study, Jafarpour and Khatami (2021), have modelled the cost structure of mining to emphasize the role of environmental costs by taking into account the causality relationship between the different factors affecting the costs of open cast mining via system dynamics. In the study, for the economic analysis based on system dynamics, a combination of different environmental strategies was taken into account including 7 scenarios and mine reclamation, a condensation and environmental strategy for the processing facility and environmental mining operations.…”

Identification and analysis of influencing factors of green mining construction based on DPSIR model and Fuzzy-DEMATEL approach

“…The research of GMC-related technologies mainly includes two directions: ecological protection and resource conservation. Ecological protection, in particular, focuses on air, soil, and water resource pollution control (Li et al, 2022), disaster prevention and early warning monitoring technology (Dales et al, 2017;Li et al, 2019), and land reclamation and vegetation restoration technology (Jafarpour and Khatami, 2021). Resource conservation includes technologies such as no-waste or low-waste mining and comprehensive utilization of resources (Wang et al, 2019).…”