Creating sustainable Remote mining operations for the future
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Introduction
The OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050 Report paints a grim picture of the Earth’s condition by 2050 (Holloway, 2012). Due to negligence towards the increasing environmental degradation, the changes in climatic conditions are likely to be severe. Simultaneously, it predicts a world population of 9.2 billion people with a global GDP of over 300 trillion USD, four times the 75 trillion USD it was in 2010 (Gillespie, 2014). Over 70 per cent of the population of the planet will live in cities by 2050, as compared to 50 per cent in 2008 (UNEP, 2010). To support the increased population, unprecedented requirements of energy, agriculture and materials will be needed. All of this is likely to have an impact on the environment, with the average temperatures rising 3 to 6 degrees across the planet (OECD, 2012). This will correspondingly lead to a rise in sea levels and the surface of the Earth available for habitation will shrink. The world energy demand is likely to be 80 per cent more than today. However, a significant portion of this demand will be met by atomic energy and renewable sources as oil and gas reserves reach exhaustion levels.
Keeping these projections in mind, the mining multinational Rio Tinto faces a number of important challenges which it will have to address. These include:
- As surface level mining exhausts existing levels of mineral resources, how will the company tap into resources further below the Earth’s surface in a sustainable manner?
- What can the company do to ensure that its present mining operations do not leave the surface of the planet uninhabitable, given the increasing demand for land required for agriculture and settlement, as the population grows?
- What can the company do to minimize its impact on the environment caused by mining, ore processing and refining operations carried out presently and their increasing output in future?
- How can the company reduce the need to personnel to be deployed in these increasing hazardous conditions?
These are the key questions that require answers.
Subsurface Mining and Conservation Efforts
As the deposits of mineral ore close to the surface get exhausted, the incidence of open mines will reduce. Rio Tinto will then have to look at increasing depth of its mines to extract usable ore from below the surface. Working at great depths requires specialized equipment and the productivity of human workers is greatly reduced due to the environmental conditions. Instead, the deep shaft mines are likely to be worked by robots and intelligent machines controlled from the surface or even remotely from thousands of miles away. The power required will be provided by solar or nuclear power generation systems located on the surface. Compact mining robots will be able to work 24 hours a day and deliver better productivity than human beings in these conditions. Their operators will change in shifts on the surface, but the robots will only halt for scheduled maintenance.
This kind of mining will also preserve the surface of the planet. Instead of digging up thousands of tons of soil and spoiling millions of acres of land, the surface will remain intact, with only a work shaft and utility/transportation shafts going down into the depths of the mines. These will only be used to pull up the robots for routine maintenance. Around the location of the shaft, towns, cities, even farmlands can develop peacefully without being affected by the mining activity taking place several miles below the surface.
The adoption of this kind of technology has additional advantages. As the cost of mining underwater or even on the Moon becomes viable, this kind of machinery will make it possible to run mining operations in these locations remotely without having to deploy humans to work on them at location.
Minimizing the impact of ore processing on the environment
In order to preserve the ecosystem, ore processing can be done below the surface and the residue used to close off non-productive sections, so that no waste is raised to the surface. Only the useful minerals in their pure or transportable forms will rise up the shafts and be deposited onto automated transport trucks or trains that will carry the mineral for manufacturing or processing to the destination required. In this way, pollution levels at the surface will be kept to a minimum and the impact on the environment will be negligible. The main causes of pollution in any mining operation are –
- The damage to the land by open surface mining.
- Pollution due to particulate matter thrown up by mining operations
- Pollution due to processing of ore – furnaces, etc.
- Pollution due to the waste materials left behind after processing the ore.
- Pollution due to logistics and transportation.
While the earlier section addresses the problem of the first two, the use of an underground processing unit resolves the issue of the next two causes of pollution. By recycling the dust and using the leftover slag to shore up unused sections of the mine, only a limited portion of the mined ore, which is useful is brought up to the surface. The pollution caused by transporting the final mineral extracted will be far less than the pollution caused by hauling millions of tons of raw material. This deals with the final cause of pollution as well. By using solar and nuclear power to drive the machinery that operates on electricity, the question of vehicular pollution can also be tackled.
Present Scenario
Efforts of this kind are already being undertaken by Rio Tinto in its Mine of the Future™ program, presently underway in the Australian desert at Pilbara. The company presently has 53 trucks which operate autonomously, the world’s largest fleet of such trucks. These are large capacity trucks controlled remotely to transport ore from the mines to the processing plant (Rio Tinto, 2014). The trucks made by Komatsu, are equipped with vehicle controllers, a high precision GPS, an obstacle detection system and a wireless network system. The trucks’ technology was jointly developed by Komatsu, Komatsu America and Modular Mining Systems (International Mining, 2012). Rio Tinto is also working on an automated drilling system that operates independently in the mines. The Automatic Drilling System (ADS) will drill the mines without requiring human supervision to be present at the site. This will save the necessity of sending miners into hazardous situations, thereby saving the environment and improving safety.
Rio Tinto is also in the process of deploying remotely operated trains to transport ore. The system, called Autohaul, has over 1500 kilometers of track and has trains 2.3 kilometers long. The stock comprises 10,000 wagons and the whole system costs an estimated $518 million. It is expected to begin operations in 2015. The activation of this will save approximately $94M every year for Rio Tinto (Kara, 2013).
Planning for the Future
These are developments that are only a few years away from actual commercial deployment. In the next forty years, it is easy to envisage the Automatic Drilling System being operated commercially across deep mines and possibly even underwater. Similarly, the autonomous transportation systems can also be brought into widespread use. The critical challenge therefore lies in automating the processing plants and operating them underground. Mineral processing plants today are huge industrial setups requiring a lot of space and investment to set up. Converting their operations into a compact structure that can operate underground will be critical, but this is possible to achieve in the next 40 years. This will require investment in research on building automated plants that can function without direct human intervention at the site.
Similarly, Rio Tinto will have to invest significant amounts in rehabilitating the vast tracts of land its mines have destroyed. This requires a significant investment and one which can generate dividends for the company, as the rights to the land already lie with the company. It is a question of revisiting the locations and creating habitats that can be fit for human settlement. Reforestation and environmental conservation efforts would help restore these areas back to their former appearance and make them attractive for people to settle in.
Building for Better productivity and lower pollution
Rio Tinto can start implementing the plan for creating such locations with its remote mines in Australia. It has already implemented automation in the drilling and transportation aspects of operations. By investing in prototypes of compact ore processing plants that can possibly be assembled underground, the company can add another capability to its automation efforts. This in the long run will also reduce the cost of running a full-fledged processing plant at a location away from the site of the mining. By creating plants underground, lower pollution levels will result. This means that the towns required to accommodate the increasing population of people on the planet can co-exist with the mines and processing plants without the pollution from the latter affecting the people.
Evaluation of Risks
Setting up such a plant involves its own share of risks. Based on the information available, the risks of such a project can be defined as:
- Ore deposits are smaller than originally estimated, making the project unviable – this is a standard project risk that happens in any scenario. However, the advantage here is that since the mining robots, processing plant and transportation vehicles can be operated remotely, they can be shifted to a more viable location without having to move the personnel responsible for operating them.
- Plant or machinery breakdowns – since the plant and robots are automated, they would be scheduled for maintenance on a regular basis. However, in case of unexpected breakdown, a small recovery and repair team can be sent across to the location to fix the problem. Over time, even maintenance could be undertaken remotely by another set of robots.
- Mining or processing accident – Since these plants are remotely operated and have no human presence at the site, the chances of human casualties is reduced significantly. The only possible damage will be to equipment, which can be replaced.
Rio Tinto should look at getting this project live and working at full capacity at the earliest, which is projected to be 2015. Studying the project over the next five years, the company can correct and refine the approach for the project, and start replicating it in other remote locations as well. By 2030, the process of setting up remotely operated mines should be mainstream, and can then be used in experiments for deep mines in remote locations, possibly even for mines under the surface of the sea. This progressive development will see Rio Tinto having fully operational remotely operated mines in major locations across the world by 2050.
Concluding Remarks
The OECD report on climate conditions projected for 2050 shows that urgent steps need to be taken to make industrial activity sustainable. Thankfully, Rio Tinto is already taking steps in that direction. By extending the path of its present efforts into the future, it is possible to see that the company will be able to create viable remote underground mining operations that do not damage the environment and leave the land suitable for human settlement. By continuing along this path, Rio Tinto can continue to make profits, improve its productivity and efficiency while at the same time contribute to the conservation of the environment through sustainable practices.
References
Gillespie, E (2014) 2050 weather forecasts: why we need stories like this to tackle climate change, The Guardian, retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2014/sep/11/un-2050-weather-forecasts-stories-climate-change
Holloway, J (2012) Hot, crowded, and running out of fuel: Earth of 2050 a scary place, ARSTechnica, retrieved from http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/03/hot-crowded-and-running-out-of-fuel-earth-of-2050-a-scary-place/
International Mining (2012) Automation & Remote Mining, retrieved from http://im-mining.com/2012/01/01/automation-remote-mining/
Kara, D (2013) Rio Tinto Rolls Out Ambitious, Autonomous, Mine of the Future, ARISPLEX, retrieved from http://www.arisplex.com/analysis/rio-tinto-rolls-ambitious-autonomous-mine-future/
OECD (2012) OECD Environmental Outlook to 2050, retrieved from http://www.naturvardsverket.se/upload/miljoarbete-i-samhallet/internationellt-miljoarbete/multilateralt/oecd/outolook-2050-oecd.pdf
Rio Tinto (2014) Rio Tinto improves productivity through the world's largest fleet of owned and operated autonomous trucks, Rio Tinto Press Release, retrieved from http://www.riotinto.com/media/media-releases-237_10603.aspx
UNEP (2010) The Urban Environment, United Nations Environment program, retrieved from http://rona.unep.org/cities/index.html
