Greening the Mining Industry - Part 2

Green Design

Introduction

There is no doubt that dealing with issues of sustainability is difficult. While there is a level of awareness among organisations of the coming need to achieve ‘sustainability’ goals, they are not yet sure of what governments may require of them, so it is difficult to plan responses. There is reasonable clarity on what the issues are: enhanced greenhouse effect, continental and global fresh water availability, toxicity, and eventually issues of ongoing availability of some resources. Planning for success in a market regime where external forces are poorly understood is a great challenge. Even so, a cursory analysis of the likely scenarios indicates that everybody will need to be reducing their greenhouse gas contributions, reducing their impact on the water cycle and reducing the inputs of toxic materials to the environment.

So what can organisations be doing and thinking about now to help them position themselves to be competitive in a world where their ability to comply with government regulations and to do business sustainably, may determine their ongoing existence?

Firstly, companies need to understand and accept that the world is changing, and that societal pressures will require them to respond. If we accept that there is a need to do business differently, the response needs to consider remediating for current operations, and adopting new practices for new operations.

For the mining industry, where particular operations may persist for more than 50 years, there are many current operations with long futures still ahead of them, and no doubt many planned operations will be operating well into the 21st century. Interestingly, many of the projected consequences of global climate change are expected to occur within that same timeframe.

Introducing the new systems and procedures to new operations will be challenging, but nowhere near as hard as retrofitting brownfield operations. The best time to position for success in greenfield operations is during the design phase. This article introduces some of the issues around incorporating sustainability requirements in the design phase. Remediating brownfield operations will be the subject of later articles – so keep an eye on future issues of Symbiosis.

Are we prepared?

In a survey conducted by PWC in 2008 (Table 1) less than 10% of resources industry CEO’s had a high level of confidence in their greenhouse emissions data. More that 50% had taken little or no action to address the issues.
Reporting of greenhouse emission will be required by the Australian Government for almost all mining companies commencing in the financial year 2008-2009. Clearly the level of reparedness for the upcoming requirements in Australia is low, and yet the time of implementation is very near!

What can you do?

Mining Companies need to approach the process of smart design in the following stages;

• Understand the issues
• Work out the information you need
• Simulate and design iteratively until the optimal design is achieved.

Understand the issues

I dealt with the high level issues of sustainability in the mining industry in issue n. Broadly speaking, the considerable interest and debate around the globe on climate change means proactive action is very important and mining companies will need to respond quickly and credibly if they are to retain their ‘licence to operate’. It’s nothing new, the mining industry has been responding to changing community attitudes for the last 3000 years.
Work out the information you need.

In order to respond to anthropogenic climate drivers, and government and community requirements to report on those responses, as well as potentially develop new markets, products and businesses, organisations need to identify what information they need to be collecting. A number of organisations have commenced this work. Firstly the Global Reporting Initiative , is one organisation (see Callout 1) that has widespread support and hasas well as a framework which is currently being used for many nations’ emissions reporting requirements. The ‘Mining and Metals’ sector supplement includes specific details of the information and procedures that should be considered. The Australian Government’s National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act (NGER) provides specific requirements for Australia, and other jurisdictions should publish their requirements in due course.

Iterative simulation and design

The ability to optimise a process for any particular outcome is best achieved in the design of that process, before large expenditures on capital works and equipment make later changes very expensive. Adisa Azapagic of the University of Surrey has studied many aspects of this issue including sustainable development indicators and process design. In these works, Azapagic develops a methodology for considering sustainability issues in the design of chemical processes and further develops the ideas by translating that to the mining industry .

In order to do this, you require an intimate knowledge of the mining process and an holistic view that takes account of the affects of process inputs, as well as the downstream effects of process outputs. That is, it optimises the process not just within the process, but external to the process.

Most industries have a good understanding of how to design a process to optimise financial outcomes, indeed financial outcomes are usually they way that we decide on the viability of an investment. Unfortunately, environmental outcomes are usually considered late in the planning cycle, and certainly after the major design decisions have been made.

Other recent contributions to the literature detail how to measure sustainability outcomes in infrastructure projects and Mangena and Brent describe the application of a Life Cycle Impact Assessment framework in the coal industry . Finally, the development of a mining Life Cycle Assessment Model (LICYMIN) at the Imperial College London provides a solid basis for using the other tools to model a mining operation throughout its whole life (Figure 1).

Figure 1 - The mining life cycle impact assessment system and model boundaries. [after Durucan et al 2006]

Discussion

These and many other works have defined the macro and micro level processes and the inputs and outputs of all stages of a mining operation. They explain how these data can be used to optimise sustainable design through a process of simulation in a systems thinking environment. Importantly, this allows these new decision making criteria to be included along with the economic criteria (which are also in the models). Modelling different scenarios in a simulation environment allows all aspects to be considered to provide the best possible outcome; for the company and for the environment. Most importantly, the case is made for the benefits of including sustainability at the design stage rather than trying to squeeze it in later.

With an understanding of how to include sustainability issues into the concept stage design process for a new operation, at both the macro process level (mining, processing, remediation etc) as well as the micro level (coal washing process, copper leaching process etc) and a solid grasp of the data that will need to be captured, mining companies can begin to plan for future reporting requirements.

Greening the Mining Industry – Part 1

Comment by Dennis Franklin

Introduction

For the last 100 years, the mining industry has been responding to changing community attitudes about the environment and sustainability. The considerable interest and debate around the globe on climate change means proactive action is very important, In this article I hope to highlight some of those impacts, and in later follow up articles, I will discuss impacts and responses in more detail. I won’t reproduce all of the work that is being published, but I will point to some of the emerging trends and insights into the role and contribution of Information Technology (IT). In particular, I’ll be highlighting some of the areas where IT can help to support the industry’s response and management of “sustainability”.

Today, not a single project can proceed without an understanding of its impacts on the environment. Now the growing community interest on a global scale means that the mining industry, indeed all industries, need to understand their specific and general impacts on the global environment. The industry’s contribution is through emissions resulting from the mining process, and through the production of raw materials that contribute to the main causes of global emissions. Legislation to minimise those impacts is already being enacted or drafted in many jurisdictions. Even though the mining industry is an important contributor to the economy and our lifestyles, it is, by its very nature, an industry whose emissions will be subject to increased scrutiny.

Where are the impacts across the life cycle of a mine?

Most of the recent press on environmental impacts is about the generation of greenhouse enhancing gases. The main contributors here are Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Methane, and Nitrous Oxide . These contributions are different at different stages of the life cycle of a mine.

The use of fuels, power, and water and the possible introduction of contaminants have impacts that exist across the whole life-cycle. The obvious response to all of this is to use those resources more efficiently and so use less of them. Optimising mine operations through smart design during the concept and pre-feasibility phases of a project can produce significant offsets.

Ensuring that new technologies in mining equipment which lead to reduced fuel usage, more effective tyre wear, and automation and optimisation of their use through fleet management can deliver significant whole-of-life cost savings and can reduce carbon emissions per ton of product. Just as the public are moving towards energy efficiency in their homes through the use of energy saving lighting and appliances, so the mining industry can reduce its energy usage through smart selection of equipment and consumables.

The Build Phase

Perhaps the best time to affect the life-cycle impacts of anything is during the design stage. Minimising the embodied impacts of building a new mine can best be addressed during design. For example, the production of concrete has relatively low embodied energy (energy used to produce the material) but it tends to be used in large quantities . On the other hand, concrete production produces up to 3000 kg/tonne of CO2 and so the carbon contribution is significant.

In domestic applications, however, both of these issues can be traded off against the benefits that concrete slabs can provide. Good design turns concrete slabs into heat sinks that reduce the need for power usage for heating and cooling. So while the interactions are complex, there is a case for good design turning an initial high contribution to environmental impacts into a long term beneficial outcome.

Another example is the use of an in-pit crusher and conveyor to offset the needs for a large diesel truck fleet in an open pit operation. Emissions from the extra trucks is much greater that the carbon footprint of the conveyor system.

The same is true for many other aspects of mine design, mine planning and mining process design where a detailed understanding of the environmental impacts could contribute to a better long term outcome.

The Operate Phase

Good design can go a long way to minimising impacts from operational processes but there are ways to improve existing operations without major capital upgrades. These include better power management, optimising algorithms for mobile equipment, and almost any application of Lean Manufacturing techniques for reducing wasteful effort in the production processes.

The more significant issue during the operational phase of a mining operation is the end-user impact of the raw materials being produced. The obvious example is coal, the burning of which contributes a significant amount of CO2 to the atmosphere. While the argument about whether anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of climate change is controversial, the industry needs to take a position on this issue simply because the political landscape requires it. Besides, any rational approach to risk management would dictate the need to act on the risk anyway, regardless of the likelihood of the risk, simply because the size of the projected global impacts is huge.

The responses to the liberation of CO2 to the environment by burning coal and other carbon fuels tend to be technological. Now, many are researching processes that capture liberated CO2 and turn it into a form that can be stored for long periods, for instance Geo-sequestration. Sequestration seeks to inject CO2 back into the geological strata to remove it from the short-term carbon cycle. Research into these technologies is in its infancy, but most large mining companies and most governments are contributing funds to the research. Another approach is to offset emissions by parallel activities that remove CO2 from the atmosphere, such as reforestation. In time, the establishment of carbon trading markets will allow nett emitters to offset against the activities of others.

The Retirement Phase

The retirement phase of a mining operation includes all of the activities discussed with the life-cycle but offers some interesting opportunities for offsetting emissions as the environmental repatriation activities are progressed. Where appropriate reforestation of mine sites is progressed, carbon offsets should be claimable. Here are also gains to be made through the optimal dismantling of the infrastructure and the reuse of equipment. One option is the mothballing of operations until a time when the technology advances have addressed the problem, similar to the practice of mothballing operations during times of low prices. The threat of this possibility is enough to give the mining industry a strong motivation to be an active participant of the technology development.

Conclusions

The issues at question for the mining industry are not trivial, and the interrelationships between the natural processes are complex. Most of the research on the impacts is detailed and well understood but the necessary responses that need to be taken are not yet well researched. Even so, there are many activities that can be commenced, not just because they make environmental sense, but because they can make business sense as well. Already, in other industries, innovations that reduce energy use are being instituted because they save money. Smart design can help to deliver both energy savings and operational benefits; they are worth doing for their own sake.

Business Analytics in Mining

Recycled from a previous blog post...

I just saw this great article by Dr Graeme Lumly in the latest issue of 'Highgrade". He talks about the need for more and better analytics in the mining industry and provides an example.

The example is a clear illustration of what can happen when you don't really know what your process looks like. In an effort to change their bulk transport processes to prevent (or at least lessen) the amount of ore that is spilled, the mining company managed to do an amazing thing. The new process saved about $1 million in cleaning up spillage, but cost approximately $9 million in revenue. The change to the process led to less ore being transported.

This is obviously not a great outcome. It certainly argues strongly for better analytics that would help operators to define their current practices, and to model what any change to process might mean. Tying that to bottom line outcomes can clearly show whether a change is a good idea or not, clearly had the company in the example done so they might not have proceeded. I'm sure that eventually common sense would prevail as the revenue started to be affected and questions started to be asked.

The illustration begs another question about innovation. I didn't get it from Dr. Lumley's article, but did the company do a pilot of the process change. If they had they would have quickly determined that the change was great for the spillage problem, but not great for the financials!

Its Safety and Production...

Hi Readers

There is a very lively discussion going on in LinkedIn about the guys who were sacked for doing the Harlem Shake underground (click here)

"Social media opinion across Australia is divided after 15 mine workers were sacked for doing the Harlem Shake dance craze while working underground.

The eight dancers, a worker who recorded the stunt as well as several onlookers were fired after the video they posted on YouTube went viral. " Australian Mining

So in the LinkedIn discussion there are three schools of thought. The first says that the guys broke all the rules and should have been fired, the second says they were letting off steam and should not have been given the sack, and the third (and the one I belong to) is that the guys were stupid, should not have been sacked and anyway this sort of thing is good for morale.

On the LinkedIn page I commented that if this had not been posted on YouTube they would never have been fired, a warning maybe, which is closer to what I think would be the appropriate management response.   One other writer commented that this action by management was a response to being embarrassed in public and that it was justified on spurious safety grounds.

More generally, I think that mining companies treat safety like a religion.   The dogma cannot be challenged, even when it is clearly stupid.   One example comes from a company where I was working wherein an employee in head office was hauled over the coals because they walked down the stairs without holding the handrail.   I get that the safety culture needs to be part of business everywhere, but walking down the stairs in an office building is not unsafe like working underground is unsafe.   There needs to be perspective.

Why is it important for us to take a realistic approach to safety?   Because if you have rules which are inappropriate to the particular workplace then the whole safety regime will fall into ridicule and people will do no more than play lip service to the rules.

I believe it is more important to have a regime that is appropriate to the circumstances, an even more importantly safety systems need to equally prioritise production or else when the production screws are on, safety will be compromised.   If a production supervisor needs to make safety shortcuts to meet a target, they will do so.   You either need to accept that production KPIs need to be adjusted down or find a way to be safer and produce more.

So lets think about safety systems that are appropriate, that improve safety, and also improve production.   And lets not make it difficult for people to behave safely, or punish them for letting off a bit of steam (as long as the are not being unsafe).

I've written about this before here.

4 Myths that prevent Innovation in the Mining Industry

Recently I've noticed a lot of people in the news talking about the importance of innovation and commercialisation as potential drivers of enhanced productivity in Australian industry.   With a number of recent studies talking about how Australian industry productivity levels have fallen behind our peers, many argue that this has to do with a lack of investment in innovation.   In a powerful talk, Mark Cutifani (CEO AngloGold Ashanti and now CEO Designate of Anglo American) discusses, among other things, the importance of mining to the world economy and its innovation challenge.  Click Here to watch Mark speak.

A lot of industries around the world are investing in innovation that is being driven by advances in information and communications technologies.   These advances include: New wireless communications technologies, smaller and more powerful mobile computing platforms, access to big data and big computers over the internet (think Cloud computing) and whole new ways for people to collaborate (think Twitter and Facebook).  The combination of all these technology trends forms the eye of a perfect storm that will allow many companies and industries to re-invent the way they operate.   

In a mining context these trends present opportunities to work and be effective in remote areas, or across geographically dispersed footprints, or in difficult operating conditions.   New approaches that these ideas will allow are machine and process automation, operational control and monitoring from a distance, mobile equipment automation, and comprehensive sensor networks that allow unprecedented vision of an operation.   So why aren't mining companies investing hell-for-leather in these new ideas, to try to find competitive advantage in their marketplaces?    

Over the last 15 years working around mining companies trying to bring new technological approaches to the table, I have been rebuffed more times than I can count.   This is not to say that all mining companies are luddites.  Some companies are rising to the innovation challenge with major step change initiatives.  However, they are the exception, not the rule.   Here are some of the myths that are used by miners to avoid innovation.

Myth Number 1.   We are different to other industries.   Many of the ideas that I talk about to miners are ideas that have already been proven to work in other industries.   But the first response I often get is that mining is different to other activities.   It is true that there is inherent operational complexity in mining and processing an ore body that is not homogenous and invariably different to every other ore body in some significant way.  This means that miners need lots of flexibility.   Fair enough, but once the ore is out of the ground and loaded into the transport medium, the process becomes as predictable as any industrial chemical or manufacturing plant, all of which are leaps and bounds ahead of mining in terms of automating their operations.    And even parts of the upstream mining process have outside analogies.  For instance, there is a direct analogy between operating and automating a truck and shovel fleet in an open cut mine to operating and automating a tank warfare operation.   Lots of large machines hooning around the countryside with a need to know where all of the others are, avoid crashing into each other, and deliver an efficient outcome for the operation.   Yes mining is different, but it’s not that different, and parts of it are very similar to other industries.

Myth Number 2.   Ours is a simple business.   I often hear the refrain that mining is a simple business - that “we just dig stuff up and send it to our customers”.  Interestingly, I often hear this argument from the same people as argue for complexity being a big issue.   The level of complexity that we observe depends on the scale at which we look.   At the highest level mining is a fairly simple matter, but this masks levels of great complexity within the industry.   It is true that no two ore bodies are the same; geographical issues introduce variability and even the nature of the metallurgy will dictate the complexity of the extraction and concentration processes.   Miners do much more than dig stuff up and sell it.   All of which leads me to conclude that smart new information technologies must surely be able to lighten the load.   For instance, with all of the computing power available today, and with clever new analytical programs, the simulation of multiple potential outcomes becomes relatively straight forward.   If complexity of the ore body means we can't make decisions in advance, then simulation holds the key to building multiple mine plans from which we can choose as we go along and improve our knowledge of an ore body.   As the ore body knowledge is improved, previous simulations would help operators quickly home in on the right course of action.

Myth Number 3.   Innovation is risky.   Yes innovation is risky.   But it is not as risky or expensive as flawed investment decision processes involving billions of dollars.   It is not as risky or expensive as exploring for minerals, and it is not as risky or expensive as not innovating at all.   Innovation through R&D is a process.   It should be undertaken strategically, and it should be managed like all other business processes with one small exception.   Early in the innovation process, ideas need to be given seed funding to help them deliver a business case and they need to be protected from those whose interests are vested in the status quo.   That seed funding needs to ensure that the biggest risks, the biggest assumptions in an innovation idea, are tested early, and failed early.    After developing a sensible business case and identifying a path to commercialisation, the idea must be managed as rigorously as any other project.

Myth Number 4.   We can't afford Innovation.   I am often amazed that highly profitable mining companies feel they can't invest in their future.   Of course they do - mineral exploration is the most visible example that they do.   And most mining companies over a certain size will have some significant investment in R&D, either in-house or as investments via university research.   But almost without fail, mining companies invest in incremental innovation that is focussed on the existing portfolio of problems.   Very few take bold steps.   What I find interesting is that mining companies, especially big ones, are more than happy to make flawed (in hindsight) investment decisions that can destroy billions of dollars of shareholder value, but baulk at spending a few million dollars on doing some fundamental research into step change innovation.  

Not all miners are adverse to innovation.   I was recently involved, with many others, in an innovation activity at AngloGold Ashanti (www.aga-tic.com).   Faced with the problem that their South African gold mines were becoming too deep to mine profitably, and the knowledge that there remained enormous reserves of gold below 4000m, AGA initiated an open innovation forum with all of their major suppliers to attempt to re-invent underground mining at depth.   The outcomes are impressive, and are now being tested on a block of ground to see if the new technologies are up to the task.   It's a great example for the industry.   

The Network Centric Mine

We will be publishing a series of posts on the topic of The Network Centric Mine, which is a concept that is sweeping the mining industry under a number of different names,  similar to what happened in the Oil & Gas industry over 10 years ago under names such as Oilfield of the Future, Digital Oilfield, iFields, eFields, Smart Fields, etc.  We published a paper on this topic and presented it at the International Mine Management 2012 conference.

The Abstract reads:

To respond to ever-increasing challenges, mining companies have been experimenting with new business models and technologies in order to speed mine development, production, processing and transport.  The various experiments involve mobile access to data, intelligent sensors, advanced analytics, virtual collaboration, virtual reality, automated equipment, remote operations centres and strategic partnerships.   A synthesis of all these components creates a ‘network effect’ that can dramatically improve the overall effectiveness the entire operation.

The concept of the Network Centric Mine borrows from a variety of industries, including defence, aerospace, aviation, petroleum, utilities and manufacturing.  Central to the concept are improvements to the way we connect people, process, information and technology, resulting in a more highly collaborative business model, with roles and processes designed to take advantage of new technology.  The components of the mining operation act as a connected network aimed at a common goal, regardless of the boundaries of organisation and location.

The design of this new organisational ecosystem needs to take into account the recent advances that enable the ‘plug and play’ integrated collaborative environment, including cloud computing, mobile devices and social networking, as well as advances in augmented reality, robotics, geo-location, digital labelling, simulation and analytics.  However, the most consistent lesson from other industries is the need to properly enable the behaviour and process changes necessary for success.

Benefits from adopting a network centric approach include the more effective use of scarce expertise, improved data and information analysis, reduced process variance, and more informed and faster decision-making.

The future of mining will see more technology savvy workers who will drive adoption of new processes.  The operations will shift from a relatively static and disparate set of functions, to a digitally aware, dynamic, automated, integrated and interactive environment, with increased agility, lower operating costs, higher productivity and improved safety.

Mining in 2020 and 2050 Part 2

In part 1 I looked at how mines could be operating in 2020, but now lets look at what could be happening in 2050

Mining in 2050

Operating mines in 2050 may not be in their planning stages until 2045, allowing us the benefit of 35 years of technology development. Futurists will tell you that predicting 35 years of technology development is very difficult – but we’ll do it anyway because it is also fun.

A mine in 2050 will look very different to that of 2020. For a start, there will be very few people because almost all of the machinery will be automated. The entire area of the open cut will be highly secure, to prevent people entering areas where large machines are operating at very high speeds. The site will look more like an airport than a mine, with service areas located at the edge of the secure site. The only staff present on site will be those securing the site, and a few maintenance engineers. Without people, the support infrastructure required is also small.

Fleet Automation


Within the mine we see large numbers of small vehicles operating at speed, and without human drivers. Technology originally designed by NASA to guide the Mars Rover, and newer planetary probes on the moons of Jupiter are now being used by these vehicles. The vehicles are multi-purpose and directly access the mine plan (updated daily by planning software and mine engineers working in the capital city) and using collaborative machine to machine protocols to determine the most efficient way to deliver against the day's mining targets.   The vehicles self-configure as micro-haulers, drill and blast vehicles, or road maintenance vehicles in the morning, and can change configuration throughout the day as the mine operating plan changes dynamically in response to the day’s events.

Hydrogen Fuel


All of the vehicles are electric, powered by onboard hydrogen fuel cells. A large part of the mine operation is the generation of hydrogen for fuel cells.  This is achieved using a combination of renewable sources: solar power, wind power and hot rock geothermal power which is  used to produce hydrogen from water. Hydrogen is stockpiled so that it is available for use at all hours of the day and night. The entire mine operates with zero emissions, and all water is recycled. In this mine, ground water is desalinated using waste heat from the hydrogen plant so that water lost to the environment through evaporation and water vapour from the hydrogen cells, is replaced. (A further consequence of this is that groundwater salinity problems of the last century are being clawed back, and the landscape is regenerating).

Nanotechnology


Finally, this mine uses nanotechnology to extract the copper from the ore. The large chemical leach heaps have been replaced by hybrid bio-mechanical nano-extraction techniques where bacteria sized cyber-organisms are bred in large ponds, migrate into the heaps, directly harvest the copper metal from the ore using  biochemical reactions. They incorporate the copper into their bodies and then move to an extraction pond where they die and decompose, leaving elemental copper that can be easily recovered from the pond.

All of these technologies are being researched or developed now.   If anything, this vision of 2050 could prove to be outrageously conservative. If, for instance, nanotechnology, materials science and renewable energy technologies develop along the same kind of timeline as we are used to seeing now, then it is arguable whether the economy will need mining at all.

Mining in 2020 and 2050 Part 1

The populations of the world are beginning to demand that all businesses operate more sustainably. Everybody, but particularly policy makers, can see that we need to do things differently if we expect to have a long term future on the planet. Here I present two views of the mining in the future, seen in terms of their ability to operate with a minimal carbon footprint.

Why 2020 and 2050? In 2020, many of the current operations will still be going, so the 2020 story is one of how we change the current mines to use less carbon. By 2050, we will have used technology advances to build the carbon neutral operation we dream about today.

The carbon footprint of mines today is the result of the fuels we use, how we operate the business and how we mine and deliver raw products. How we reinvent these components will determine what our mines look like in the future.

Mining in 2020.

Today we will visit an open cut copper mine that has been operating since the late 1990’s. New technology developments mean that this mine still has many years of life left, so there is opportunity to make longer term investments in the operation that leave plenty of runway to recoup the investment.

When it was built, this mine was designed with large vehicle transport as the main basis for the layout. It used traditional building methods, heavily reliant on concrete slabs for buildings and metal and concrete workshops and warehouses. An extensive system of haul roads and access roads serves most of the mine areas. This means that the mine’s operation was heavily dependent on haul trucks, water trucks and light utility vehicles,  as well as all manner of mobile mining and drilling equipment, shovels, graders etc. But times have changed…

As we drive into the mine, we need to stop at the security entrance and log ourselves in.   Before we came we enrolled in the biometric access system, and completed the visitors safety induction on-line.   To one side of the gate there is an oil bunker, full of locally produced biodiesel that is used to power the entire fleet of mobile equipment, and much of the fixed plant as well, specifically the generators; turbines fueled by bio-diesel.

We travel over to the workers’ campus accommodating 250 staff.   Each ‘unit’ has its own composting toilet and solar/electric hot water. Temperatures are controlled by their orientation to the sun, deep eaves, and ‘green’ concrete slabs which incorporate fly ash; providing a heat sink to help warm the unit in the winter. All of the water used by the showers and toilets is recycled (and treated) for use in the mining operation.

Our tour includes a visit to the mine operations room. The operations room has two walls lined with video monitors. These low power monitors look just like paper that can be folded up and moved around. This technology was pioneered in 2004 with the development of the e-Ink (www.eink.com) products. Some are displaying real time videos of key operational areas – one shows the ore conveyor, another shows the shovel loading the haul trucks. Different scenes are cycling through and if any operation begins to operate outside of parameters, an alarm sounds and the operations system immediately allocates some monitor space to viewing that process. One whole wall depicts a similar room in the capital – some 500 kms away where mine planners, maintenance planners, and managers are helping the on-site workers to deal with issues, contribute to planning and provide advice on optimizing the operation. That group is helping a number of different mines at the same time.

Out on the site, haul trucks are moving ore to the crushers and from there it goes to the leach heaps. Like today, sulfuric acid is added to the heaps, but a series of sensors spread throughout the heap controls the flow of acid to maximize the process efficiency.

All of the technologies that power these ideas are available and in use today – some in mining operations, some in other industries. They need to be because if the mining industry wants to implement these innovations by 2020, they need to be investing in the next few years.   Things start to get really interesting when we visit the mine in 2050.


In my next post we'll have a look at how that works.

Oil from Algae to power the mining industry!

For millions and millions of years, microscopic organisms, including algae, have been harvesting energy from the sun and, after their death, being buried in the sediments of lakes and on the sea floor.   Over time, the oils in these plants are converted to what we now collect from the petroleum deposits of the world, and that we turn into gasoline, diesel, and other fuels and lubricants.   So it seems sensible to see if algae can be specially grown to provide a renewable fuel source today.

Scientists have identified about 65,000 different species of algae.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/04/01/algae.oil/

And so it is.   Even though there is no established industry to lobby for the uptake of algal oil, there is quite a lot of interest in the idea.   In January of 2009, Continental Airlines flew the first commercial test flight with algal derived jet fuel.   Given their dependence on fuel, the airline industry strongly believes that it can lower its carbon footprint by using algal biofuels.    It makes great sense for the airlines because gas turbine engines can use a wide range of fuels and algal biofuels do not contain the compounds that can freeze most fossil fuels at the low temperatures in which the aircraft operate.   (Kerosene and other jet fuels are specially produced to be able to remain liquid at very low temperatures – but they are expensive)  In the USA, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency is investing in major research to develop cost competitive military jet fuel – so the cost of algal biofuel – while now relatively high, will come down as the jet fuel demand increases.

The mining industry has a huge dependence on diesel engines – for powering mining equipment and generating electricity, and diesel engines are also able to use a variety of oil products – we have seen the use of treated and recycled vegetable oil already to power road vehicles.    And the potential to use gas turbine / electric power trains in vehicles could expand the options for machinery power as well.   The mining industry should consider the options of algal biofuels in the long term.

Another application of the process could be to use the algae to metabolise fugitive emissions from coal and petroleum fired power stations.   GREENFUEL Technologies Corporation (http://www.greenfuelonline.com/) is commercialising the process now with CEO Robert Metcalfe’s view being “Why expensively sequester CO₂ when it can be profitably recycled.”   However, from my point of view, this kind of technology can have the best effect when used to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and bringing our ongoing need for the convenience of oil based fuels into the short term carbon cycle, essentially removing the carbon from the atmosphere and reburning it for a short term zero effect on atmospheric carbon.   In the future, the process can even start to remediate carbon levels in the atmosphere, as algal oil could be stored underground in old oil reservoirs.

And there are more advantages still.   Algae can be grown in extreme environments: the desert, the high latitudes.   It can be grown in salt water.   In theory, a mining company in the Atacama Desert could use water from the ocean in a processing plant located next to the mine site to produce all of its own liquid fuel requirements with no excess carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

At present, most algal oil is produced in open ponds which use up a lot of land area, however one entrepreneur has designed and piloted a ‘vertical’ system (Vertigro) that increases the surface area of the process exposed to the sun.   Using this process plant physiologist Glen Kurtz, believes he can produce 100,000 gallons of oil a year per acre.

Plant physiologist Glen Kertz believes algae can be competitive as a source for biofuel.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/04/01/algae.oil/

Is Mining about to go Micro - Post 6 (and final)

Over the last 5 posts I've investigated some whacky ideas, but the world of robotics and automation are developing apace.   Here are a few links you might find interesting

Swarm Intelligence

These robots swarm, evolve, seek food, avoid poison, co-operate, and steal food from other robots.

www.tranism.com/.../2007/02/robot-swarms-ev.html

Cool Robots

A New Scientist video recently turned up on Jack Uldrich's 'Jump the Curve' blog. Have a look at it to see some of the future of robots. New Scientist also has a blog specifically about robotics.

http://www.jumpthecurve.net/index.php/recent_posts/our_robotic_future/#When:15:43:00Z

Robot Dragonfly article

Robotics, artitificial intelliegence, automation, and remote management are all technologies in which the rates of innovation now are enormous. New Scientist reports on a robotic dragonfly that could guide Mars rovers - giving the fly's eye view in a task analagous to helicopters being used as force projection assets of naval warships.


In the near future, further miniturisation of the electronics, and better smarts will mean that this kind of technology can be used to continually update the topography of an open cut mine, with swarms of such robots preceeding ultra large automated vehicles, helping automated shovels load automated trucks. Perhaps they will even be able to replace the truck fleet, with millions of tiny robot flies moving enormous tonnages of ore without the need for roads, ramps etc. Just the saving in the profile of the open cut pit would change the economics of mining.


Underground mines could benefit too, with robot miners like the fly moving in to survey the mine after blasting - testing the air, rockface stability, everything. There is also my previous post of the robot crawlers which could also operate underground in very confined spaces.

There is a lot to consider, and the extraterrestrial problems being solved by robots can also be applied here, today.

Autonomous Artifical Hummingbird

A prototype robot spy "ornithopter," the Nano-Hummingbird, has successfully completed flight trials in California. Developed by the company AeroVironment Inc., the miniature spybot looks like a hummingbird complete with flapping wings, and is only slightly larger and heavier than most hummingbirds, but smaller than the largest species.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-robot-hummingbird-flight-video.html

Is Mining about to go Micro - Post 5

What is the advantage

So what is the advantage of this idea? How could a 'many small' system of movers compare to a 'few large' system that currently exists.

Factor	Few/Large	Many/Small
Example	Haul Trucks	Flying microbots
Capital expenditure	$5 million each	Maybe $5.00 each (in the long run) but you'd need a lot of them.
Ongoing Maintenance	Complex, expensive	Disposable individuals but may still be significant.
Operators	Many people needed to support operations of haul trucks - drivers, water carts, graders etc etc.	Very few - supervisors located remotely.
Fuel	Significant cost	Very little - solar powered.
Infrastructure	Roads, ramps etc - significant, in fact determines long term viability of the mine	Little - no roads etc.
It System support	Significant number of systems to help manage all aspects.	Significant (but not so much as current state)

The economic viability of this idea has not yet been modelled, but as with all technologies, the costs reduce over time, and with take-up. A single mine using flying microbots would probably be enough to reach those long run efficiencies in terms of manufacture of the robots, and continuing advances in solar power technology mean that the path to sufficient power resources for this idea is quite predictable.

For me the biggest single effect lies in the ability to change the dynamics of pit morphology. By not having to step the pit back to get to deeper parts of the orebody, the options for continuing mine operations to depth are very different.

Conclusions

There is no doubt that flying dragonfly robots will not replace haul trucks in the next 5 years or maybe ever. Even though most of the technologies are in place, or being researched now, there is still a while before they'll be bought together to this one task. But there is one thing that technology futurists well understand. The pace of technological innovation is relentless, is accelerating, and most people underestimate what can be done, and when.

A solar powered dragonfly  see more here

Is Mining about to go Micro - Post 4

Now in Part 4 lets get into a really crazy idea


Small robots

Predicting the future uptake of technologies is a difficult thing to do. Not many people would have predicted the internet or its impact, even as recently as 15 years ago. Lots of people wrote of trains, planes, automobiles, even telephones as things that wouldn't be much use. Even so, let’s suspend our disbelief for a while and see where this might go.

Imagine small earthmovers - not Ford's - but small 'microbots'. As an example, consider  the dragonfly robot. This small robot can see, fly, and power itself by the sun. What would you be able to do if you could have 1 million of these machines each moving a small amount of crushed ore?   While this is perhaps far fetched, it is worth considering as a possibility just as an exercise in reviewing the economics of the small.

If you could engineer it so that the bot know where to pick up a load and where to drop it off, travel in as straight a line as possible to get it there, and rest in the sun to recharge itself when it needed to, little else is needed.

As the prototype of the bot already exists, and the swarm intelligence distributed algorithms already control robots in the laboratory, and the sensor and control systems already exist to control such a system, there is little else for which to wait.

The way this works might look something like this: Two radio beacons are placed, one on the pile of crushed ore at the bottom of the pit (you need the crusher to be at the bottom of the pit) the second at the drop off point. Once activated, any dragonfly bot that has a sufficient charge, and is not carrying a load will fly to the beacon. Once in the vicinity of the beacon, a local control system vectors the bot to the top of the pile where ore of the needed characteristics is known to be located. The bot grabs its load of say 50-100g of crushed ore, and on automatic, it flys to the beacon at the drop-off point. On the way, using a standard swarm model, the bot negotiates the rest of the swarm and its environment until, in the vicinity of the drop-off beacon it is vectored to the release point.

And it doesn't have to be a flying dragonfly robot, there are small crawling robots, snake like robots, and many other variations, any of which may be able to fundamentally change the mining process.

LATE NEWS

Have a look at the new AlphaDog video.   This robot will carry hundreds of kilos over any terrain.   You can also look at earlier prototypes - BigDog on Youtube as well.


http://youtu.be/SSbZrQp-HOk