Mining Operation Goes Electric

wow, that is an amazing machine!

i have owned a few sandvic tools over the years, not quite like that beast.

 

I worked at an open pit mine from 1988 to 2002. There were two underground mines on the property, but I was never myself underground.
(In 1988, 75 ton trucks, in 2002, 280 ton trucks. The shovels also grew)

We went through several generations of equipment as the extent of the ore body was discovered, but I remember these:


P&H Electric Rope Shovels - Surface Mining | Komatsu Mining Corp.

Poles in tires followed them around the pit.

960E-2K | Komatsu America Corp
This is the larger truck currently sold by Komatsu that offers trolley, we actually used trucks 170 tons smaller when I was there.
We had 4.5 miles of trolley to get the trucks out of the pit, they then used diesel to go where they would.

Our pit was 3000 feet deep and air inversion layers would cap the fumes inside and not let them disperse. To reduce the fumes both the shovels and the trucks used electric power. (They own a Natural gas 115 MW electric power plant in Nevada) most other rolling stock remained diesel.

On diesel, the trucks could only go about 8 MPH up the ramp, on electric, 13 MPH. (And as the drivers figured out sometime in the first two hours, using both 15 MPH. This does still cut the fumes in half, as they get out twice as fast)

Pictures Trolley Photos

For the truly adventurous, they are experimenting with autonomous trucks now.

Barrick retrofits five Komatsu trucks with ASI autonomy kits at Arturo JV in Nevada - International Mining

 

It is kind of surprising closed mines haven't all switched to electric equipment, since the open mines have been using electrics, whether a series hybrid or on a tether cable, for decades now. Of course they went electric because electric drive is the only practical means of motion with vehicles of that size. Some drag lines are so large that axles can't support them, and they walk around on huge metal stumps.