The US & China are racing to secure supplies of copper as they realise they’ll need a lot more red metal to make a green world. But that’s not the only race going on.
Over demand and dwindling supply means miners will have to either find new, accessible copper deposits—an expensive, long term proposition—or get more from what we already have. And doing it smarter and cleaner is the new mantra of course.
A new report by the Economist makes that very clear, saying mining companies are “desperate for new technologies to boost production”. Luckily its a great time to be doing just that as “a suite of new ideas—from better drills and power systems to cleverer uses of data and AI—emerge round the world.”
For example, XtremeX Mining Technology in the US has developed a drilling machine that can drill continuously, more precisely and faster, meaning they can go 50% deeper and use 20% less fuel.
China’s Huawei has developed the FusionSolar Smart Mine microgrid, a standalone power plant composed of a battery, solar panels and inverters, allowing miners to use as much or as little power they need.
Rio Tinto has also developed “Nuton”, its process of infusing crushed rock with proprietary additives and cultivated microorganisms for a high-purity copper.
Exploration is also seeing breakthroughs using new forms of data to find higher-grade ores with faster assessment and mapping. For example USA’s Ivanhoe Electric uses electric currents 1.5km underground to scope out deposits, map subsurface areas and detect metals.
Clearly there’s no end of innovation going on. The Economist does say it doesn’t know how many of these technologies will get taken up or how fast, but says it knows “we have to change the way we work”.
We made the same conclusion at the end of our Net Zero Mining road maps. We already know there’s a lot of very smart solutions ready or emerging, the next step is putting them to work.
Cheers, John Fennell