Power supply 90%
The targeted reduction in a vehicle’s fuel consumption
through the use of ABB’s Ability eMine Trolley system. ABB Australia
driving for an hour out and then an hour back down,” he says. “It’s a lot of lost productivity. Whereas you can put a hoist in at 6–7MW of power on one motor and it’s moving 40t from 1.3km under the ground. I think there needs to be a fundamental shift sometimes in how we do mine design and planning if we’re really serious about decarbonisation.”
The simulation solution However, some obstacles remain. For one, any degree of change creates a certain level of inconvenience, regardless of the industry. Changing the way a mine is designed, of course, is quite a big switch. “It’s not a risk-averse industry, mining – mining embraces a lot of risk,” Stanway says. However, much of the risk involved comes during exploration and the markets, along with geopolitical risks, as the current supply chain issues around the war in Ukraine have made clear. As a result, when it comes to the design of a mine, the industry tends to be quite conservative.
“I think you’re going to see more mines approved. Supply will increase to match demand because it makes fi nancial sense for the markets to do just that.”
Nik Gresshoff
As a result, “adopting new technology around the physical design of a mine is not easy”, he notes. One of the other main challenges here is with the supply of equipment, as there is a limited number of OEMs catering to the mining industry. Since it can be quite costly to develop and swap out new equipment, there can often be little incentive to do either. Other industries, such as aircraft or automobile manufacturing, would be able to make use of virtual simulation tools in the design of their assets, allowing players in those industries to come up with designs that wouldn’t have otherwise been too expensive to test out in the real world. These kinds of highly advanced simulations are far less common in mining, for two reasons – it’s a small industry and it’s also very complex, requiring more bespoke solutions. “You can imagine the situation where [that kind of simulation software] was widespread in mining – a lot of new electric designs could be rapidly prototyped and tested virtually, which would encourage adoption and development more effectively,” says Stanway. “That [would be] a big enabler.”
While much of this kind of technology might be aspirational for the moment, Stanway expects to see some forms of simulation, like digital twins, increasingly adopted within the industry. And as these new technologies become increasingly
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implemented in the industry, they will ultimately enable new design options for mines.
Supply and demand
Another potential stumbling block for the future of electrification is the growing cost of critical minerals used in the construction of batteries and other connected systems, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) predicting shortages of lithium, copper and other key materials by 2025. There have already been shortages affecting the uptake of BEVs, Stanway notes, with OEMs struggling to meet the demand for their batteries. Yet, this isn’t necessarily a downside for the mining industry. “We tend to look at the shortages as a huge opportunity,” Stanway says, which Gresshoff echoes, noting the rising prices of lithium, copper, nickel and other such resources. The shortages in these materials will likely feed back into the cost of transition, however, delaying the uptake of BEVs and other forms of electrification in the industry. This, somewhat ironically, might cause the biggest issues for the producers of battery minerals, as many of their consumers have set quite strict carbon targets. “You may not be able to sell to them, if you can’t decarbonise your battery minerals mine,” Stanway notes, though of course, not all battery producers will be quite so demanding. Gresshoff, similarly, isn’t overly concerned with potential critical mineral shortages. He cites developments in hydrogen power, for example, which may limit reliance on lithium-ion batteries, noting recent events like Andrew Forrest’s investment in hydrogen trucks for Fortescue Metals, or Anglo American’s use of the same. Even operating under the assumption that lithium will be the future for batteries, there remains a considerable amount of lithium currently held in reserve.
“I think you’re going to see more mines approved,” he says. “Supply will increase to match demand because it makes financial sense for the markets to do just that. There’s copper, which will come up too – again, supply will catch up with demand.” At the same time, advances in recycling technologies – largely absent when it comes to current BEV batteries – will see considerable investment in the next five to ten years, kickstarting a circular economy, which “is absolutely not evident right now in the market”. Ultimately, the next level of electrification in the mining industry will require a considerable amount of cooperation and collaboration. The goal is a worthy one, however, when weighed against the price of failure to decarbonise the industry. “For me, it makes me feel better that we are trying to solve these problems together,” says Gresshoff. “And we are talking about it and taking those steps to make a cleaner, greener world.” ●
World Mining Frontiers /
www.nsenergybusiness.com
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