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The Road Ahead: Green, less-mean mining machines

29 August 2019

The International Council on Mining and Metals is looking for industry alignment and buy-in among miners and OEMs for its innovation programme for cleaner, safer mining vehicles. ICMM's Mark Holmes gives Mining Magazine a project update.

This story first appeared in Mining Magazine on 29 August 2019.

According to UN Environment's 2019 Global Resources Outlook, natural resource extraction and processing are behind half of the world's carbon emissions.

Based on the latest safety data from its member companies, ICMM, in turn, found that mobile mining equipment was the single highest cause of deaths last year.

These studies and statistics are the main reason why ICMM set up the Innovation for Cleaner Safer Vehicles (ICSV) programme, which is being led by an advisory group of CEOs from miners BHP, Newmont Goldcorp and Gold Fields, as well as OEMs Komatsu, Caterpillar and Sandvik.

"What we really want to see is innovation through collaboration between mining companies and suppliers to really tackle greenhouse gas emissions and health and safety [issues]," says Mark Holmes, manager, health and safety, at ICMM.

As announced last October, the three key goals of the programme are to introduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emission-free surface mining vehicles by 2040, to minimise the operational impact of diesel exhaust by 2025, and to make collision-avoidance technology readily available to mining companies, also by 2025.

As a CEO-level-led organisation, ICMM includes 26 member companies, representing around 30 per cent of total metal production globally across 50-60 operations in around 50 countries.

"All of [the companies] recognise the need to do more at an operational level to directly contribute to the transition to a low-carbon economy, as well as to continue to aim for zero harm within the industry," Holmes says.

"This is related to the 10 principles we have at ICMM; for example, principle number five for members to pursue is continual improvement in health and safety performance, with the goal of zero harm."

Mobile mining equipment, he adds, can account for about 30 per cent of on-site emissions at mines and that can rise to about 90 per cent if the site doesn't have smelting or refining facilities.

"With the ICSV programme, we're … trying to tackle one of the main sources of scope one emissions, which is essentially the direct emissions from owned or controlled sources, so in this case those emissions coming from the surface mining equipment," he says.

"We're trying to accelerate innovation in technology development and enable mining companies to adopt greenhouse gas-free surface mining vehicles by 2040."

Last year, out of the 50 total fatalities recorded by ICMM members, 15 (or 30 per cent) were caused by transportation or mobile equipment.

"These were recorded as a result of mobile equipment collisions, whether that was vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-person. This illustrates the increased need for collision-avoidance initiatives implemented at mining operations. I think, more generally, looking at research over the past few years, it seems to be quite consistent that this percentage of people has been killed in the mining industry through vehicle interactions, so around 30-40 per cent of incidents," Holmes notes.

While development in the vehicle interaction area is already fairly advanced, the programme is aiming to capitalise on the existing efforts and to create a more collaborative work environment.

The third piece of the puzzle, which Holmes believes hasn't received as much coverage, is diesel particulate matter (DPM).

"DPM is emitted by diesel-powered mining equipment and generators and has known health effects. Some experts see DPM as the potential root of thousands of premature deaths, not just in mining obviously, across the world," he says.

On the right path

With the introduction of more battery-electric equipment - particularly for underground mining operations - as well as more sophisticated solutions for collision avoidance and fleet management, cleaner, safer vehicles are already in operation at many sites.

Indeed, Holmes sees the industry spanning various maturity levels when it comes to technological advancement and adoption. There's also a process of continuous improvement that carries on in the background. However, with ICSV, the organisation wants to be able to push this forward.

"You've got the dark horse of hydrogen fuel cells; I think Anglo American recently announced their plans to try hydrogen fuel cells within mining vehicles," he says.

"Obviously, there's the all-electric mines, like Newmont Goldcorp's Borden in development in Canada."

Battery-powered equipment for mining now comes in the form of LHDs, haul trucks, drills and bolters, and industry players are working hard to optimise battery size and life. Although not the biggest polluters on a mine site, light vehicles for the transportation of personnel, Holmes notes, are also part of the equation. By starting ‘light' companies might find it easier to "implant that cultural change required for the adoption of these technologies", he says.

"People go around driving hybrids and electric vehicles out on the public roads. So, if you're able to bring that same expectation to the mine, it might help generate additional drive to have them implemented in the industry," he adds.

"Of course, there are hybrid systems for haul trucks that have been able to reduce diesel fuel consumption by around 30 per cent. These are typically - a quite old technology really - trolley-assist trucks that can be patched onto an overhead electricity cable."

He continues: "There's also been lots of work on the implementation of collision-avoidance systems in vehicles. There's lots to learn from the automotive industry that has been doing a lot of work on that in terms of public use vehicles on public roads.

"With the use of proximity detection, which is being used more and more, it's all well and good to have that awareness of what's happening, but it's about creating that link to how we get vehicles to actually stop on their own if they're in the way."

A few years back, the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) in South Africa introduced a deadline for the country's surface miners to introduce proximity-detection and collision-avoidance systems by 2020.

"We hope we'll be able to take learnings on from there as well," Holmes says.

When it comes to collisions avoidance, as with many technologies aiming to digitalise the mining industry, one big challenge is lack of interoperability.

"In order for any of these more high-tech, integrated vehicle-interaction or collision-management systems to work effectively, technology needs to be able to speak to each other," Holmes notes.

"The industry is aware; we're getting great experience and feedback from those who are involved in this work. We know there are efforts around standardisation at the moment; for example, the ISO 21815 collision awareness and avoidance standard.  

"You also have something called V2X, which stands for vehicle-to-anything protocols that are in development, driven particularly by the automotive industry.

"If a piece of equipment can essentially plug and play, no matter what the manufacturer, that really helps in building that confidence to change out technology at a faster pace."

The roadmap

With its CEO advisory group and working groups in place, the ICSV is preparing to have a framework of three roadmaps (for the three different goals) in place by the end of this year.

"Basically, what we want to do is provide that information to mining companies and OEMs, so they can identify where they are on that roadmap, and that supplies them with the ability to say what the next steps are they need to take to achieve an overall industry shift towards the three ambitions," Holmes explains.

"We want to provide real-life examples or case studies that illustrate where

different companies are along that pathway to achieving that ambition. We have examples of already-existing good practice, and we can develop a bank of information promoted through what we call a knowledge hub that we want to launch sometime this year, which will provide industry with the tools to progress towards the ambitions."

The programme will also publish several technology whitepapers for each of the three goals, seeking to outline known and likely technologies for the challenges and constraints involved.

"We're developing a detailed communication strategy that targets OEMs, identifying a number of avenues we can create to increase that engagement, and hopefully expanding the reach of the ICSV programme," Holmes says.

As part of the programme, ICMM will also hold regional workshops and forums, so it can get share the information across key mining jurisdictions.

"Working with the OEMs is a new experience for ICMM," Holmes admits, "but it has been a really useful one. Simply being able to draw from their expertise and experience has been really helpful."

In the end, the ball will be in the OEMs' court to design, develop and deliver the equipment to reach cleaner and safer production methods.

"We as the ICSV programme are not looking to develop a single technology to address an issue, instead we want to have a shared understanding of what the challenges are in the industry and what the industry base is," Holmes says.

"That then allows us to decide what the priorities are, and that allows the OEMs to respond and to innovate. They can decide exactly where they want to focus their attention for new technology development."