CAPE TOWN (miningweekly.com) – Enormous global demand is building up for copper, platinum and zinc, driven by new technology, mitigation of health risks in hospitals and agricultural augmentation, Ivanhoe Mines executive chairperson Robert Friedland said on Wednesday.
In a comprehensive address to the Investing in African Mining Indaba, Friedland used statistics from credible global institutions and well-recorded technological advances to highlight major looming copper shortages, strong upcoming platinum demand for hydrogen fuel cells and the practice of adding zinc to soils to grow food, which promotes good health and renders the metal nonrecyclable.
He flashed on to a big screen graphics of platinum-catalysed fuel cell vehicles needed to do the main job of stopping tiny particles in the air of major urban cities from entering lungs, getting into the blood stream and then going permanently beyond the blood brain barrier.
“In fact, the closer you live to a major urban road, the higher the chances of dementia and air pollution particles are definitely linked to higher cancer and death risk,” Friedland told the Investing in African Mining Indaba, attended by Creamer Media’s Mining Weekly Online.
He outlined how ten times more platinum a vehicle will be used in the move from catalytic converters to the fuel cell vehicle and showed a picture of a Honda Clarity fuel cell car engine that uses one ounce of platinum per car.
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