Explosives Engineering Commons^™

Evaluation Of The Extractive Gold Process: Open-Pit Mining Through Exergy Analysis, Hector I. Velasquez, Carlos Andres Orozco Loaiza, Christian Hasenstab, Natalia A. Cano

Journal of Sustainable Mining

The Colombian mining sector is characterized by the production of coal, nickel, emeralds, gold, and construction materials. It is considered by the National Development Plan of Colombia 2018-2022 as an economic agent that boosts development in the region and one that requires the strengthening of its policies and environmental liability. Therefore, this paper aims to show the importance of implementing methodologies based on the logic of nature (exergy) that objectively indicate the environmental impact of an extractive gold activity, such as open-pit gold mining. The extractive activity or process to be studied consists of the following stages: topsoil removal by …