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Carbon Tax Mining

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Submitted By jamesraine1
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Faculty of Science and Engineering Department of Mining and Engineering and Mine Surveying Western Australia School of Mines

12585 - Mine Planning 532 Research Paper 1 – Mine Planning Process and the Carbon Tax Due Date : Friday 19-8-2011 Word Count: 2470

Abstract

On 15 December 2008, the Federal Government launched its 2020 target for greenhouse gas emissions and its White Paper on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) as the start of the policy and legislation process. The mining sector in Australia has been cited as being a major contributor to greenhouse gases. The introduction of the CPRS means carbon emissions of a mining project should be considered from the initial stages of mine planning. The traditional approach to mine planning involves consideration of technical and economic data as inputs to the process. This paper considers the effect of the CPRS on various technical and economic factors related to the mine planning process. The results of this paper imply that the introduction of the CPRS makes it is imperative for mining companies to assess the impact of carbon emissions on a mining project during mine planning.

Introduction Climate change has become an increasingly topical issue in recent times. Mounting scientific evidence suggests that human activities are causing a buildup of greenhouse gases and that this in turn is causing changes to the world’s climate (Gregorczu, 1999). Further complicating the issue, there are economic costs, scientific uncertainty, political difficulties, and equity questions between developed and developing nations in any attempt to reduce emissions. On 15 December, 2008 the Australian Government released its White Paper Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme: Australia’s Low Pollution Future in which it sets out the design of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) that was intended to take effect

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