Critical Mineral Keynote
Alan Duffy
Australia has invested significantly in developing world-class technologies for the resources sector. The challenge now is ensuring those innovations move beyond individual projects and become part of how the industry operates at scale.
It was a pleasure to speak at RMIT University's Global Critical Minerals Forum, sharing some of the emerging technologies transforming how we explore for, understand and process critical minerals. My talk "From Underground to Orbit" explored technologies ranging from muon imaging and quantum gravity sensing to satellite-enabled exploration, AI-driven data fusion and even technologies being developed for extracting resources on the Moon. All done by Australian companies with global impact, today.
Fleet Space Technologies is bringing together satellite connectivity, seismic sensing and AI to transform mineral exploration, while Nomad Atomics is taking quantum gravity sensing out of the laboratory and into real-world mining applications. Alongside Terrabit in remote sensing, and our own work at mDetect using cosmic-ray muons to image deep underground, these are all great examples of Australia's growing capability in advanced technologies for mining. But the greatest opportunity isn't in any *one* technology. It's in integrating these capabilities across the entire mining system, combining multiple sources of information to improve decisions from exploration through to extraction and processing.
That requires us to invest not only in developing new technologies, but equally in their deployment and adoption. Australia has already made substantial investments in the research and early-stage innovation underpinning these capabilities. We need to ensure that investment translates into productivity, competitiveness and a stronger domestic critical minerals industry. The next challenge is connecting these innovations, scaling their deployment and ensuring Australia captures the benefits of the technologies it has helped create.
My thanks to Richard Morrow for the opening keynote and a big thanks to Lachlan Doughney in bringing together such a valuable forum at RMIT. Excellent contributions throughout the day, especially Joe Seppelt on critical minerals future (and its fascinating history) here in Victoria and Stacey Golokin on that global view for uranium.
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