Dr Grant Ballantyne is presented with the 2020 CEEC Medal for Technical Research he won for the paper ‘Quantifying the Additional Energy Consumed by Ancillary Equipment and Embodied in Grinding Media in Comminution Circuits’.
Industry leaders assembled to be a part of the prestigious 2020 CEEC Medal presentation to Dr Grant Ballantyne. Hear what they had to say about this innovative work.
Dr Zeljka Pokrajcic introduced what the CEEC Medal is about, noting that 2020 Medal nominations reflected some key industry trends – to install renewables, tackle embodied energy and emissions, and actions to embrace emerging technologies such as preconcentration, ore sorting and coarse particle flotation. She said the two winning papers were standout contributions with potential to really improve ESG.
CEEC CEO Alison Keogh acknowledged First Nations people and talked about what the Medal allows us to do as an industry to help sites and companies reduce their environmental footprint and decarbonize.
Joe Pease introduced the winning work and highlighted how it brings important insights to help miners make informed decisions about the energy consumption of comminution circuits.
Dr Grant Ballantyne thanked CEEC, the JKMRC at the University of Queensland and Ausenco which enabled the work and publication of the winning work, as well as key collaborators including Chris Greet from Magotteaux, Malcolm Powell and Greg Lane who provided data on grinding media, overview and insights.
Fellow CEEC Directors Joe Pease and Greg Lane and Professor Neville Plint of UQ SMI and Zimi Mika of Ausenco congratulated Dr Ballantyne and shared their views on the presentation of the Medal.
Joe Pease talked about how Dr Ballantyne’s work instigated the Energy Curves and how his work was an important contribution to build on the tools. Professor Neville Plint acknowledged First Nations, and thanked CEEC and Ausenco for long-term contributions to eco-efficient comminution.
Ausenco MD and CEO Zimi Meka acknowledged the great work of CEEC, and congratulated Dr Grant Ballantyne on his winning work and his ongoing valued ideas as a part of Ausenco’s team, including Greg Lane.
CEEC CEO Alison Keogh said it is an honour to be involved in the CEEC initiative and Medal process, which shines a spotlight on the exciting work done by many people across the world to reduce mining’s footprint. She made a special mention to all of CEEC’s sponsors which enables its role and the award to be presented each year, and ensure industry can share outstanding and best practice advances. She said this helps industry communicate, collaborate and celebrate demonstrated advances and innovative research with a focus on comminution and processing.
Ms Keogh highlighted that sharing new thinking helps industry reduce its energy, water and emissions footprint – because when we share best practice and advances and tools, we learn from each other and also forge new collaborations to act faster. She said this can make a real difference on the ground to ESG actions, and invited everyone to share their ideas, articles and Medal nominations via CEEC, as well as new CEEC sponsors to support CEEC’s continued work.
In closing, she thanked company leaders for supporting their people to publish, to benefit all of industry and accelerate their efforts to reduce footprint.