Abstract
Mining and agriculture are known to be the parents of all other industries and the foundation of all .economic endeavours, as they produce the basic material needed to sustain human civilization. While agriculture produces food, mining generates metals and minerals, and along with agriculture most other material which are needed in all technologies, including renewable energy and sustainable development. As the objectives of these two industries converge, there is a need to investigate the possibilities of co-operation between them. One way to create synergy between mining and agriculture is to use the waste heat from mineral processing to supply usable energy for greenhouse growing. Greenhouse operations in Canada (and in many other countries around the world) are very energy intensive. Each hectare of an under-glass growing facility needs a least 1MW of energy. The waste heat generated by comminution has the right temperature to be used in greenhouse growing facilities. Almost all the power consumption related to comminution, is converted to heat, which can be used in an energy-thirsty greenhouse operation.
This paper discusses the technical and economic viability of brining greenhouse growing operations at mine sites, so that they can use the enormous amount of usable heat generated at the mills. Economic analysis show that greenhouse growing will enormously benefit from the cheap heat energy which can be offered at a mine site. Viability of a 5ha greenhouse growing facility (as a demonstration project to be built at Canadian Mine site) is investigated, with cash-flow analysis. It is shown that both mining and greenhouse growing industries can benefit economically and environmentally from such projects.