06 September 2007
Rio Tinto joins United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP)
Rio Tinto, a major mining company with operations and markets worldwide, [NYSE: RTP] announced today that it has joined the United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP). The organization represents an alliance of major businesses and environmental groups encouraging federal policy to address climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Climate change is a critical issue for our business. Not only do we produce energy resources, such as coal, but our mining and mineral processing operations use large quantities of energy. Combating climate change means finding new and better ways of producing, using and conserving energy,” said Tom Albanese, Rio Tinto’s chief executive. “USCAP provides an important forum to advance comprehensive policy that includes both market approaches and technology options.”
The purpose of USCAP is to provide a forum for members to seek policies that account for the global dimensions of climate change; create incentives for technology innovation; are environmentally effective; create economic opportunity and advantage; are fair to sectors that are disproportionately impacted, and; reward early action. These overarching principles adopted by USCAP are aligned with the Rio Tinto climate change position adopted in 2005.
“The challenge for this century is to reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuels such as coal,” said Preston Chiaro, chief executive of Rio Tinto’s Energy division. “In the past we have effectively applied technology to reduce emissions from coal burning, but the key to unlocking an environmentally friendly future for all fossil fuels is carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS). The ultimate success of CCS will depend on its widespread application, public acceptance and rapid commercialization of the technology.
“USCAP recognizes that government and industry cooperation to advance CCS technology is a critical path toward slowing, stopping, and reducing the growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” said Chiaro. “Market-based approaches can provide long-term incentives for low carbon power generation, but government support will also be required to help overcome the high initial cost of first-of-a-kind technology development and deployment.”
Rio Tinto has pursued advances in low-carbon technology by partnering in projects to develop low-emission coal power sources with carbon capture and storage, such as the FutureGen Alliance in the United States and clean-coal power projects in Australia. Earlier this year, BP and Rio Tinto formed a jointly-owned company, Hydrogen Energy, to develop decarbonised energy projects around the world. Rio Tinto also has been working for a number of years on the HIsmelt® energy efficient iron-making technology. Additionally, throughout the Rio Tinto Group there is an ongoing focus on energy management, improving efficiency and reducing emissions, while also aiming to have our products contribute to solutions for climate change.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Rio Tinto’s Efforts to Address Cleaner Energy Production and Use
Rio Tinto is actively working on a number of technology solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiencies. Some of these initiatives include:
- Founding member of the FutureGen Alliance – A public-private partnership to design, build, and operate in the US, the world's first coal-fueled, near-zero emissions power plant. The commercial-scale plant will prove the technical and economic feasibility of producing low-cost electricity and hydrogen from coal while nearly eliminating emissions. It will also support testing and commercialization of technologies focused on generating clean power, capturing and permanently storing carbon dioxide, and producing hydrogen.
- CO2 Cooperative Research Center for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) – The Australian based CO2CRC is one of the world's leading collaborative research organizations focused on carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and geological storage (geosequestration).
- COAL21 – A major initiative of the Australian Coal Association that involves a coalition of coal producers, electricity generators and the federal and state governments in developing a strategy to reduce emissions from coal fired power generation. The strategy promotes and facilitates the demonstration, commercialization and early uptake of advanced coal technologies in Australia. Rio Tinto sits on the board and provides broad technical support to the group – see:
- COAL21 Fund – The Australian black coal mining industry, of which Rio Tinto is a member, has committed to provide up to $AUD 1bn over the next 10 years to work with the electricity generation industry to demonstrate promising technologies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power stations
- Hydrogen Energy – A joint venture between Rio Tinto and BP to develop decarbonized energy projects around the world. The venture is initially focused on hydrogen-fueled power generation, using fossil fuels and carbon capture and storage technology to produce new large-scale supplies of clean electricity.
- HIsmelt® Corporation – An iron-making subsidiary testing a patented technology, projected to achieve a 15-20 percent improvement in energy efficient and GHG reductions. The company also is investigating the use of Circofer® technology, which involves pre-heating and pre-reducing the iron ore and coal feeds in the HIsmelt® plant can improve the overall energy efficiency and greenhouse gas intensity of the process.
- Minding the Carbon Store (MTCS) Project – In Queensland, Australia, Rio Tinto Aluminium (RTA) partnered with The Carbon Pool Pty Ltd. in the “Minding the Carbon Store (MTCS)” project to abate approximately 1 million tonnes of CO2e emissions through avoided deforestation. The project, verified and approved under the Australian government’s Greenhouse Gas Friendly initiative, provided payments to landowners to forego permits to clear native vegetation, avoiding the release of greenhouse gas emissions over a period of 120 years from land clearing of 12,000 hectares of native vegetation. The project has contributed valuable knowledge and capacity around validating carbon credits from biosequestration as a legitimate and viable greenhouse gas emissions offset opportunity.
Additional details on other initiatives within the Rio Tinto group can be found here.
About Rio Tinto
Rio Tinto is a leading international mining group headquartered in the UK, combining Rio Tinto plc, a London listed company, and Rio Tinto Limited, which is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.
Rio Tinto’s business is finding, mining, and processing mineral resources. Major products are aluminum, copper, diamonds, energy (coal and uranium), gold, industrial minerals (borax, titanium dioxide, salt, talc) and iron ore. Activities span the world but are strongly represented in Australia and North America with significant businesses in South America, Asia, Europe and southern Africa.
The Group’s objective is to maximize the overall long term return to shareholders through a strategy of investing in large, cost competitive mines, driven by the quality of each opportunity, not the choice of commodity.
Wherever Rio Tinto operates, the health and safety of its employees is the first priority. The Group seeks to contribute to sustainable development. It works as closely as possible with host countries and communities, respecting their laws and customs and ensuring a fair share of benefits and opportunities.
About The United States Climate Action Partnership
United States Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) is a group of businesses and leading environmental organizations that have come together to call on the federal government to quickly enact strong national legislation to require significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions. USCAP has issued landmark set of principles and recommendations to underscore the urgent need for a policy framework on climate change. This unique alliance, formed in January 2007, believes that swift legislative action on the USCAP solutions-based proposal, entitled A Call for Action, would encourage innovation, enhance America's energy security, foster economic growth, improve our balance of trade and provide critically needed U.S. leadership on this vital global challenge.
For further information, please contact:
Louie Cononelos
Chief Adviser Government and Corporate Relations
Rio Tinto Communications and External Relations – Americas
Louie.Cononelos@riotinto.com
+1 801 685 4537
