As renewable energy gets cheaper in Chile, the country’s copper miners-and the environment-are seeing the benefits. According to Bloomberg Businessweek “massive renewable energy projects are powering Chilean mines” as the costs of supplying electricity from solar, wind or hydro keep falling. According to the article “Chile has little in the way of fossil fuels, leading […]
Aussie Copper Exports To Boom
World demand for electric vehicles and renewable energy is great news for copper miners. The Reserve Bank of Australia-RBA-is sounding upbeat on copper and lithium production says a new report in the Australian newspaper. According to the article “a pick-up in global GDP growth in the past two years has boosted demand and prices for […]
100% Clean Energy Copper Mine
Chile’s Zaldívar copper mine is the country’s first mine to operate with 100 percent renewable electricity. The mine, a joint venture between Antofagasta and Barrick, recently signed a contract for electricity sourced from hydro, solar, or wind sources for a ten-year period beginning in July 2020. As a result Zaldívar will be able to replace […]
Helping Aussie Miners Breathe Easier
BHP trials underground electric vehicles at Olympic Dam copper mine. South Australian company Voltra has built a zero-emission underground mining vehicle its calling the Voltra eCruiser. Using Toyota’s LandCruiser 70-Series as the base, the company replaced the combustion engine components with an electric drivetrain. The conversion proved an engineering challenge according to Voltra, telling the […]
Can Copper Startup?
Innovative startups in mining not easy but it’s now urgent says U.S. expert. U.S. technology expert, Hal Stillman, says a new approach to boosting productivity at Australian copper mines or developing new ones is needed if the country is to keep up with rising global demand. Mr Stillman, Director, Technology Development and Transfer for the […]
South Australia’s Copper to the World
Copper experts from U.S. Chile, Britain and Australia join leading miners and innovators in Adelaide on 26 June for the Copper to the World conference. The South Australian Government has developed the Copper to the World program to deliver a global perspective on the future of copper, while covering trends, opportunities and developments across the […]
Australia Opens World’s First Urban Mine
Australian-developed “microfactories” are recycling copper from technology. The world first microfactories come as researchers in China and Australia showed extracting metals from technology is far more financially viable than it has been in the past. Using data from 8 Chinese recycling plants the research team calculated the cost of recovering gold and copper from recycled […]
India’s Cool Campaign
ICA India’s recent campaign on 100% copper AirConditioners proved a major success by reaching out to consumers across a broad range of digital platforms. The 100% Copper Advantage campaign stood out for all the right reasons, reaching an estimated 4M consumers using a combination of both paid and organic promotions. Creative content like ads, videos, […]
China’s Greener Transformers
Efforts to improve the carbon performance of distribution transformers are backing the role of copper. A method to calculate carbon emissions of distribution transformers was recently completed by the China Quality Centre (CQC) ahead of submitted to China’s central government for certification. The new method strengthens the use of copper winding over aluminium. The results […]
Copper reaches 2018 high
IT was copper’s time to shine overnight as the US dollar dropped and supply fears crept in LME cash copper rose by 1.6% overnight to a 2018 high of US$7211.25 per tonne, while three-month copper gained 1.7% to $7220/t. Labour negotiations at BHP’s Escondida mine in Chile – the world’s largest copper mine – are […]
John’s Blog – Rumours Of Copper’s Demise Greatly Exaggerated (apologies to Mark Twain)
Despite the outgoing NBN boss Bill Morrow blaming copper for a lot of the NBN’s ongoing problems, the red metal has never been so popular for building technology and cabling. In fact a new snapshot says the global structured cabling market size is projected to reach US $14.3B by 2025, growing around 8% each year. […]
OZ Minerals Gets Green Light
One of Australia’s biggest copper-gold projects just got the go ahead. OZ Minerals says it has now received approval from the South Australian Government for the next phase of its planned $916M Carrapateena copper-gold project. The mine is expected to be a 4.25M tonnes per year copper-gold underground operation. With an estimated life of 20 […]