De Beers, the world’s biggest diamond producer by value, says it could operate a carbon-neutral mine within half a decade. The Anglo American unit plans to store carbon-dioxide in kimberlite rock — a type of ore best known for containing diamonds, but which also naturally reacts with carbon to remove it from the atmosphere. By accelerating that process and using readily available waste rock, De Beers could offset the emissions from its mines, said Evelyn Mervine, who is leading the research project for the company. While mineral carbonation was not a new idea, kimberlite offered ideal properties for storing very large volumes of carbon, Mervine said. De Beers has vast amounts of previously mined waste rock stored in so-called tailings dams above ground at its mines. Depending on how the research progresses, De Beers could eventually offset more emissions than it produced, she said. "There will be key learnings from this that can be used in larger bodies of rock that can be found thr...
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