Latest news with #Mamadou
News18
8 hours ago
- Sport
- News18
Transfer News: Chelsea Sign 19-Year-Old Defender From Sister Club Strasbourg
Last Updated: French defender Mamadou Sarr signed an eight-year contract with Chelsea from their sister club Strasbourg. French defender Mamadou Sarr has signed an eight-year contract with Chelsea, joining from Ligue 1 team Strasbourg, the Premier League club announced on Monday. While financial details were undisclosed, British media reported the deal is valued at around 14 million euros ($16 million). The 19-year-old centre-back, son of former Senegal international Pape Sarr, made 28 appearances for Strasbourg after transferring from Olympique Lyonnais in August. He has represented France at the Under-19 level. Strasbourg and Chelsea are part of the same multi-club ownership structure, with Strasbourg being acquired by Todd Boehly's consortium, BlueCo, in 2023. Chelsea will begin its Club World Cup campaign against Club Leon on 16 June. Chelsea won the Conference League last season and qualified for the Champions League by finishing fourth in the Premier League. Who is Mamadou Sarr? The 19-year-old Sarr is a France Under-20 international who was a regular last season as Strasbourg finished seventh, securing a place in the Conference League play-offs. He previously played for Lens and Lyon. Mamadou initially showcased his potential at RC Lens' academy before moving to Lyon. After progressing through the youth ranks, he made his senior debut in the penultimate game of the 2022/23 season. The defender made two more senior appearances the following season before a five-month loan spell at Belgian club RWD Molenbeek. A France Under-20 international, Mamadou joined Strasbourg last August and quickly became a regular starter in defence. He made 27 starts in Ligue 1, helping Strasbourg finish seventh. His talent has been recognised internationally, having been capped at various youth levels, most recently for France's Under-20 team. First Published:
The Hindu
01-05-2025
- Science
- The Hindu
Is natural hydrogen the fuel of the future?
The story so far: Hydrogen is seen as the fuel of the future — one that would decarbonise world economy and stop global warming. If harvested in a sustainable manner, natural hydrogen may provide a clean and potentially low-cost fuel to satisfy the world's increasing energy needs with a considerable reduction in carbon emissions as well. And it's most likely abundant in India, too. How is natural hydrogen extracted? Right now, hydrogen is manufactured mostly from natural gas through an energy-intensive and polluting process. Green hydrogen made with renewable electricity, on the other hand, is still prohibitively expensive and would require vast amounts of wind and solar power to work out at scale. Natural hydrogen occurs as a free gas in geology, produced by processes such as serpentinisation (the interaction of water and iron-containing rocks), radiolysis of water by radioactive rocks, and from organic matter at depth. What is the history of its extraction? In the summer of 1987, drillers arrived at Mamadou's village of Bourakébougou, Mali, to bore for water. After drilling 108m at one site, with no water to be found, one of the crew lit a cigarette — and a jet of flame shot into his face. The flame turned into a huge fire that shone crystal blue during the daytime with no sign of smoke around it. At night, it shone a glowing gold that lit its surroundings. It took weeks for the crew to extinguish the blaze and cap the well. This unexpected event led the villagers to avoid the site until 2007 when Aliou Diallo, a successful Malian businessperson, politician, and chairperson of Petroma, an oil and gas firm, purchased the rights to prospect in the area around Bourakébougou. In 2012, he hired Chapman Petroleum to figure out what was emanating from the borehole. Protected from the 50°C sun in a mobile laboratory, a team of engineers found that the gas was 98% hydrogen. Hydrogen is rarely recovered in oil operations and was not thought to exist in large reserves within the earth's crust, until then. While the presence of naturally occurring hydrogen has been known for decades, with the discovery of its presence in gas seeps, volcanic outgassing, and even mine workings being well documented decades ago, for many years, it was viewed as a geological curiosity. Majority of the scientific opinion at the time proposed that hydrogen's small size and extreme reactivity would hinder the formation of substantial underground deposits. Now, geological environments favourable to natural hydrogen generation and accumulation are being recognised worldwide. Active mountain ranges with tectonic activity, such as the Pyrenees, Alps, and Himalayas, are also being considered as areas for geological hydrogen production. The fact that helium co-exists with hydrogen in a few reserves points towards some geological processes, such as radiolysis, playing a role in its generation. The presence of hydrogen in coal mines points towards generation from underlying organic matter. What was previously a specialist field of geological study has therefore become a growing field with enormous implications for the future of energy. What about current reserves? Although the total size of worldwide natural hydrogen reserves is still poorly known because of a lack of concentrated exploration, recent discoveries and current research indicate considerable potential. In contrast to conventional hydrocarbon exploration, dedicated frameworks for natural hydrogen exploration are still evolving. In the Indian context, natural hydrogen potential is mostly untapped but found to be promising because of the existence of favourable geological structures like hard rock formations of diverse ultramafic/mafic and basaltic assemblages, Andaman and Himalayan ophiolite complexes, greenstone volcanic-sedimentary sequences in cratons (Dharwar, Singhbhum), sedimentary basis (for example, in Vindhyan, Cuddapah, Gondwana and Chhattisgarh), basement rocks with fractures, and areas where active hydrothermal systems as represented by hot springs exist. Recent finds elsewhere in the world indicate the scale of these resources. Hundreds of hydrogen seeps have been catalogued globally in various countries, including Australia (Eyre Peninsula and Kangaroo Island), the United States (Kansas, Nebraska), Spain, France, Albania, Colombia, South Korea, and Canada. There could be sufficient natural hydrogen to supply the growing world demand for thousands of years, based on a model run by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) that was unveiled in October 2022 at a Geological Society of America meeting. Close on the heels of the USGS model, scientists, venturing into abandoned mines in France's Lorraine region chanced upon naturally occurring hydrogen in May 2023. Further excavation in March 2025 in the adjacent Moselle region yielded more reserves. Together, the deposits are estimated to be about 92 million tonnes —worth about $92 billion and about half of the current global hydrogen production. While it's difficult to project with certainty just how much hydrogen is available in geologic stores, the best estimate is on the order of tens of trillions of metric tonnes. If even just 2% of these reserves are commercially exploitable, they would provide about twice as much energy as all the earth's provable natural gas reserves —enough to meet projected hydrogen demand (500 million tonnes per year) for around two hundred years. However, experts note that it is still unclear how much of that potential can be tapped economically, especially if deposits are too scattered. How has industry reacted? The promise of so much renewable fuel sitting undiscovered beneath the surface has sparked a veritable gold rush. By the end of 2023, 40 companies, including start-ups, were searching for deposits of natural hydrogen around the world, up from just 10 in 2020, according to research firm Rystad Energy. They're hunting for natural hydrogen in countries such as Australia, the U.S., Spain, France, Albania, Colombia, South Korea and Canada. Producers claim they can extract the fuel for about $1/kg, or even less — much lower than the production cost for green or even natural gas-based hydrogen. The American Association of Petroleum Geologists have formed its first natural hydrogen committee, and USGS began its first effort to identify promising hydrogen production zones in the United States. In the U.S., a start-up called Koloma raised $245 million of venture funding last year to search for and extract geologic hydrogen, attracting investors including Amazon's climate fund and Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which is also investing in other natural hydrogen companies, such as Mantle 8 in Europe. Even conventional energy and mining companies are in on the rush — both BP and Rio Tinto recently invested in U.K.-based start-up Snowfox Discovery. Kalyan Mangalapalli is an expert in Energy and Emerging Technologies and serves as a member of the International Advisory Board of the Indian Institute of Petroleum Energy, Visakhapatnam. This is the first of a two part series on naturally occurring hydrogen reserves.
Yahoo
15-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Rare earths hopeful in eye of Greenland political storm
An Australian mining company with a stalled rare earths project in Greenland warns the territory risks damaging its reputation with foreign investors the longer a legal dispute drags on. Greenlanders go to the polls on March 11 in a web of geopolitical tensions, including a Western desire to break China's rare earths monopoly and new US tariffs on several nations and imports of steel and aluminium. The autonomous Danish territory of 57,000 people was thrust into the international spotlight in January after US President Donald Trump reiterated his desire to take control of the mineral-rich island. Greenland responded to Trump: "We are open for business, but we're not for sale". But Australian miner Energy Transition Minerals disputes that business-friendly claim, saying: "At the moment there is a closed door." Since 2007 the company has sought to develop the Kvanefjeld mine project in southern Greenland, one of the world's largest rare earth mineral deposits that also has uranium in the mix. The Perth junior miner has accused the present Greenland government of "moving the goalposts" and effectively halting the project after the 2021 election, by passing a law banning the mining of uranium - including as a by-product. "Open for business means something different, it means being able to find compromise. It means being able to find solutions together," Energy Transition Minerals managing director Daniel Mamadou told AAP. "After significant investment ... we are now being told to simply pack up and go. That is not acceptable." Mr Mamadou characterised the moratorium as "uniquely designed to stop our project" with a retroactive impact, adding this behaviour "essentially damages investor confidence". Venture capitalists are funding the company's legal case that is now before a tribunal in Copenhagen and Greenland courts. Mr Mamadou recently travelled to Greenland on an attempted charm offensive, saying he wants to start a "new dialogue" and seek a negotiated outcome. The trip coincided with Greenland entering its election campaign, however, and politicians gave the company a wide berth. In the capital Nuuk, the Australian miners received a warm reception from Greenland's business community that has long spruiked the territory as a mining investment destination, including at promotional days in Perth. Greenland Business Association director Christian Keldsen said the Australian company's legal case was frequently brought up by foreign companies whenever he did promotional talks. "(From the association's perspective) we are concerned about the loss of potential jobs and possibilities from any mining project that doesn't go forward," Mr Keldsen told AAP. "What we are working for is to be a reliable jurisdiction where the framework and the conditions aren't changed somewhere in the process." Despite the prospect of creating about 300 jobs for Greenlanders, the project is deeply unpopular in Narsaq, a town of 1500 people located about eight kilometres from the proposed mine. Sub-zero temperatures and about a dozen Narsaq protesters greeted the Australian mining executives' helicopter. Many worry about the environmental impact of radioactive dust from the proposed open pit mine, as well as the potential leakage of radioactive tailings. The region is considered Greenland's breadbasket and farmers are grazing some 20,000 sheep. There are fears for food production, human health and potential water contamination affecting fish and whales in the fjord, says anti-uranium campaigner Niels Henrik Hooge from the Danish environmental organisation Noah. Mr Mamadou insists the environmental impact assessment and project design are world class and the company would guarantee Narsaq residents' safety. But mine opponent Mariane Paviasen Jensen, a government MP from Narsaq, said such assurances fell flat and the timing of the visit was inappropriate. "I do believe that they are trying to interfere with our (upcoming) election," she told AAP. The mine threatens the survival of the town, Ms Jensen said. "It is not an option because if they get (permission) to dig, it will mean the end of Narsaq," she said. Any potential displacement of Narsaq residents would feed into the trauma of Greenland's difficult colonial past with Denmark. Some Greenlanders were forced to move from a settlement in the 1950s to make way for an expanded US Thule Air Base. Sensitivities about uranium also run deep - the US secretly built another military base deep within Greenland's ice sheet, where it planned to potentially launch nuclear missiles at the Soviet Union if war broke out. In 1968, a US bomber carrying four nuclear bombs crashed in northwest Greenland contaminating a fjord. As Greenland's politicians hit the hustings, political campaigning centres on a growing push for independence, perhaps supercharged by Trump's interest. But financial dependence on Denmark and a tiny economy heavily reliant on fishing remain sticking points to achieving that dream. While the left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit Party narrowly came to power on an anti-mine stance in 2021, the Kvanefjeld mine has support from the centre-left Siumut Party. Whoever forms the next Greenlandic government will have to deal with mounting legal bills as the dispute with the Australian miner rolls on. But Greenland observers are reluctant to say the mining project is dead in the water. "The project never dies in the sense that the deposit is there. The uranium and the rare earth minerals are in the ground until someone digs them up. In that sense it could be resurrected any day," Danish Institute of International Studies senior researcher Ulrik Pram Gad said.
Reuters
11-02-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Uranium ban repeal in Greenland could revive massive rare earth project, licence holder says
NUUK, Greenland, Feb 11 (Reuters) - The mining company that owns the licence to Greenland's Kvanefjeld deposit is hopeful that a new government will repeal a ban on uranium mining after next month's election, potentially rejuvenating one of the world's largest rare earth projects. U.S President Donald Trump last month voiced renewed interest in acquiring the strategically important Arctic island. In response to Trump's comments, CEO Daniel Mamadou of Kvanefjeld licence holder Energy Transition Minerals ( opens new tab, said: "I think it certainly puts everything related to minerals back on the map." Kvanefjeld is among the world's top three rare earth deposits outside China, capable of supplying up to 15% of global production of the critical components used in manufacture of consumer electronics and weapons, according to Mamadou. However, the project's development was halted four years ago following the election of the Inuit Ataqatigiit party, which had pledged to stop the Kvanefjeld project due to its uranium content and proximity to populated areas. The government subsequently enacted a law banning extraction from deposits with uranium concentrations higher than 100 parts per minute (ppm). The company had been on track to gain final approval for the mine under the previous government, but locals fear its development could harm the country's fragile environment. The site is located near a UNESCO World Heritage Site and just a few kilometres from Narsaq. Mamadou was met by local protesters from Narsaq when he visited the site last week. Greenland's government is in a caretaker period because the election has been called and is no longer fully active. The ruling IA party says it is still opposed to the project and wants to keep the uranium ban in place. Its government coalition partner Siumut, which did not vote for the passing of the uranium ban in 2021, has since the election was called not said if it wants to scrap the uranium law. However, Siumut says in its party constitution that it should be possible to develop mines with uranium as a biproduct. The head of Greenland's biggest labour union SIK with 8,000 members supports the development of Kvanefjeld. Before the halt, Energy Transition Minerals had invested over 1 billion Danish crowns ($138 million) in the project. The company has since launched an arbitration case seeking compensation from the Greenlandic and Danish state. "The way this case is going to be solved - whether it's in our favour or not - is going to dictate the view and the attitude of foreign investments into Greenland going forward," Mamadou said. The company's shares saw a significant boost following Trump's comments but remain far below levels seen before the enactment of the uranium law. The timing of Mamadou's visit to Greenland during the election campaign was a coincidence, he said. Energy Transition Minerals, with China's Shenghe Resources holding 7% as its largest shareholder, is prepared to supply a supply chain outside China within the next three to five years, Mamadou said. Despite protests from locals in Narsaq near the Kvanefjeld site, Mamadou remains optimistic about the project's economic impact. He believes that the project could provide a much-needed boost to Greenland's fishing-dependent economy, potentially paving the way for the country's economic independence from Denmark. ($1 = 7.2366 Danish crowns)
