The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced the selection of eight
new technology-development projects designed to reduce energy consumption,
enhance economic competitiveness, and reduce the environmental impacts
of the domestic mining industry. The projects will be managed by DOE’s
National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), and are part of the Office
of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Industries of the Future
program.
The Industries of the Future program is at the core of DOE’s efforts
to improve the energy efficiency of America’s most energy-intensive
industries. The program provides cost-shared support for research to address
the needs of nine industries: agriculture, aluminum, chemicals, forest
products, glass, metal casting, mining, petroleum, and steel. Its goal
is to accelerate the development and use of advanced, energy efficient,
renewable and pollution-prevention technologies that benefit industry,
the environment, and U.S. energy security.
While the mining industry uses many of the latest technologies to locate
and mine materials, further process and technological advances are needed
to enable enhanced and more efficient resource identification, characterization,
and production. The eight new projects are part of a continuous effort
to make these advances in the mining industry. Chosen under an Exploration
and Mining Technology solicitation issued by DOE last year, the projects
fall under four “areas of interest” identified in the solicitation.
The eight projects are described below, grouped by area of interest.
Area of Interest 1: Exploration and Mine Planning
| University of Utah, “Development of
New Geophysical Techniques Mineral Explorations and Mineral Discriminator” |
| DOE Funding: |
$1,454,852 |
| Cost Share: |
$1,455,000 |
| One of the major problems of mineral exploration is
the ability to reliably distinguish between uneconomic mineral deposits
and economic mineralization. While the mining industry uses many geophysical
methods to locate the mineral deposits, until recently, there was
no reliable technology for mineral resources identification and characterization.
The main goal of this project is to develop a new geophysical technique
for subsurface material characterization, exploration, and discrimination,
based on electromagnetic methods. |
Area of Interest 2: Underground Mining
| Stolar Research Corporation, “Demonstration
of Crosswell Imaging Technology and Advanced Drillstring Radar Navigation
for Horizontal Directional Drilling” |
| DOE Funding: |
$1,500,000 |
| Cost Share: |
$1,500,000 |
| The overall objective of this project is to demonstrate
two advanced technologies critically needed by the coal mining industry:
(1) crosswell imaging of a coal seam in advance of mining via horizontal
boreholes, and (2) real-time measurement-while-drilling for guidance
and navigation of drillstrings during horizontal drilling operations
applicable to both short and long holes. The two technologies will
be developed into commercial prototypes and field tested in actual
mining conditions. The in-mine demonstrations are a necessary step
in the successful commercialization of advanced coal mining technologies.
|
| |
| Carnegie Mellon University, “Effective
Conveyor Belt Inspection for Improving Mining Productivity” |
| DOE Funding: |
$966,970 |
| Cost Share: |
$1,092,999 |
| Carnegie Mellon University will develop and commercialize
a low-cost, comprehensive inspection system to identify defects in
conveyor belts used in underground and surface mines, coal-fired power
plants, and other large-scale material-handling operations. Current
belt inspection methods are ineffective. Manual inspection is time-consuming,
misses many defects, and sometimes is impossible to perform because
of insufficient access. Numerous technologies for monitoring belt
condition have been researched, but very few have penetrated the mining
market because of high costs, poor reliability, and high false-positive
rates. |
Area of Interest 3: Surface Mining
| Caterpillar, Inc., “Investigation of
GPS/IMU Positioning System for Mining Equipment” |
| DOE Funding: |
$602,227 |
| Cost Share: |
$602,237 |
| The objective of this project is to validate the energy
savings and reduced costs from the improved performance that a combined
global positioning system (GPS) and inertial measurement unit (IMU)
could offer for information-based displays on earthmoving machines
and for automated earthmoving machines in the future. An IMU provides
data for calculating position by sensing accelerations and rotation
rates of a machine’s rigid body. This technology has the potential
to allow an information-based product like Caterpillar’s Computer
Aided Earthmoving System to operate in areas with satellite shading.
Satellite shading is an issue in open-pit mining because machines
are routinely required to operate close to high walls, which significantly
reduces the amount of sky visible to the GPS antenna on the machine. |
| |
| University of Nevada Reno, “Robot-Human
Control Interactions in Mining Operations” |
| DOE Funding: |
$286,145 |
| Cost Share: |
$383,217 |
| This project will evaluate the new robot-human machine
control concept. Three specific research objectives are: (1) to prepare
a robotized excavator for testing, and implement a machine control
concept with realtime man-machine interfacing; (2) to evaluate the
robotized machine in a variety of tasks in the laboratory and field;
and (3) to promote applications of the new control and man-machine
interfacing technology to industrial partners and the technical society.
The project will include bench- and small-scale field experiments
and testing at mines with the participation of industrial partners.
Energy cost savings and waste reduction for an operating mine will
be determined to test whether the investment in robotic machine hardware
is beneficial to the economy and the environment. |
Area of Interest 4: Energy Intensive Processes
| Hibbing Taconite, “Upgrading Low Grade
Ore by In-Pit Crushing and Cobbing” |
| DOE Funding: |
$1,200,000 |
| Cost Share: |
$7,005,000 |
| The goal of this project is to lower energy costs of
comminution (grinding) of iron ore, to reduce costs to produce iron
ore pellets, and to use low-grade ore that would otherwise not be
processed because of its poor economics. Mining and mineral processing
is very energy intensive. Currently, about 33 billion kilowatt-hours
of electricity is consumed annually in U.S. mining. A small reduction
in the energy required for comminution offers tremendous potential
for energy savings and cost reduction. This project targets a minimum
energy savings in comminution of 8.4 percent, and a potential for
as much as 20.8 percent savings. This energy reduction equates to
an annual savings of $275 million for the mining industry. |
| |
| University of Utah, “Online SAG Mill
Grinding Pulse Measurement and Optimization” |
| DOE Funding: |
$246,253 |
| Cost Share: |
$250,000 |
| Current ball mills use some 99 trillion Btu annually
for size reduction. Comminution in grinding mills is inherently inefficient,
using only 1 percent of the input energy. Grinding mills also consume
tons of steel balls and liners. By monitoring grinding-mill operation,
grinding energy efficiency can be improved. Grinding efficiency of
ball milling depends on the tumbling motion of the total charge within
the mill. Use of this tumbling motion to efficiently break particles
depends on conditions inside the mill. However, measuring conditions
inside the mill shell during operation is virtually impossible because
of the severe environment presented by the tumbling charge. The goal
of this project is to develop an instrumented grinding ball capable
of surviving for hours and transmitting the impacts it experiences.
This data could then be used to improve grinding energy efficiency
and reduce costs. |
| |
| Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University, “Mine to Mill Optimization of Aggregate Production” |
| DOE Funding: |
$679,947 |
| Cost Share: |
$715,214 |
| The production of a mineral commodity is a two-stage
process, involving mining to extract the commodity, and processing
to convert the commodity into a marketable product. Traditionally,
these two stages have been viewed as self-contained entities. However,
mining and processing are intimately linked, particularly in the area
of particle size reduction. Optimizing each stage separately without
considering the total system often misses potential economic benefits
and energy savings. The purpose of this project is to adapt current
mine-to-mill technology for use in the aggregates industry. The project
will be carried out at two full-scale test sites. |
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