New Research: Turning Waste into a USD$100 Billion Annual Decarbonisation Opportunity for Mining

Arca rover and measurement equipment

New research explores how carbon mineralisation can transform mine waste into a large-scale climate solution.

Arca, a leader in mineral carbonation technology, today released a new white paper, Beyond Extraction: Transforming Mine Waste Into a Net Zero, Multibillion-Dollar Opportunity. The report reveals a potential USD$100 billion annual revenue stream for the mining industry through carbon mineralisation, transforming mine waste into a valuable climate solution.

“Carbon removal is going to have to be operating at the scale the oil and gas industry operates today. It represents transformative business opportunities as well as new sources of revenue for mining,” said Greg Dipple, Head of Science and Co-founder at Arca.

The global mining sector generates 3 billion tonnes of mafic and ultramafic mine waste annually, presenting a substantial, yet largely untapped, opportunity for large-scale carbon sequestration. With long-term carbon credit price forecasts indicating a potential annual revenue of USD $100 billion, and an additional USD $870 billion one-off revenue opportunity from inactive mines, mining companies now have a practical roadmap to capitalise on this emerging market.

Co-authored by Arca and The Climate Agency, a nonprofit consultancy, the white paper examines the geological potential, technical innovations, commercial pathways, public incentives, and sustainability benefits for communities. It outlines how tailings storage facilities containing mafic and ultramafic rock can remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at scale, representing one of the great untapped resources for a low-carbon economy.

About Arca

Arca is the carbon mineralization company committed to stabilizing the climate by capturing carbon dioxide from the air and transforming it into rock. Founded by Dr. Greg Dipple and fellow geoscientists from the University of British Columbia, Arca has developed cutting-edge technologies that accelerate the natural process of carbon mineralization. The company is developing strategic partnerships with global producers of critical materials. We leverage historical mine waste to remove atmospheric CO2 safely and permanently. Arca’s pathway has gigaton-scale potential with no new demands on land or precious water resources.

The company’s innovative approach has garnered support from significant funding partners: Lower Carbon Capital, The Grantham Foundation, InBC, Side Stage Ventures, Saniel Ventures, WovenEarth Ventures, The Sitka Foundation, the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Programme (NRC IRAP), Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), the Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and the BC Centre for Innovation and Clean Energy (CICE).

The latest climate science indicates that decarbonisation alone will not be sufficient to meet the requirement to keep temperature rising below 1.5 degrees C by 2050, which would prevent the worst impacts of climate change. We must do more by actively removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and Arca’s technology offers an effective step forward in decarbonization.

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