Abstract

In the mining industry, material haulage is often the most carbon intensive process in the extraction phase. In recent history, material transport solutions have been dominated by diesel electric trucks, conveyors and light rail – each of which has economic, emissions or operational drawbacks. Pressure to decarbonize has placed emphasized the need to engineer Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) optimized for mining operations. Expanded use of BEVs creates new challenges: expanding the global lithium supply, building capacity in organizations and managing massive amounts of batteries from manufacturing to use, from storage to disposal.

While BEVs hold industry attention, experts are aware that haulage systems with fixed infrastructure (e.g., conveyors and rail) have relatively lower carbon emissions and operating expense (OPEX) compared to mobile equipment. Mine operators, familiar with the perceived limitations of conveyors and rail, sometimes relegate those systems to a limited range of applications. At times, the capital cost of technology adoption has prevented carbon-saving solutions from reducing emissions in the mining sector. Today, there is an alternative system which combines the best attributes of conveyors and light rail to deliver low OPEX and emissions - the Railveyor™ TrulyAutonomous material haulage system.

Railveyor is an autonomous, electrically controlled and powered light-rail material haulage system composed of simple components orchestrated by a software program. Based on an economics & emissions tradeoff study between seven competing haulage systems conducted by Warm Springs Consulting, Railveyor is shown to reduce carbon emissions by up to 95%.

Currently the system is commercially operating in eight sites around the globe. Three cases we will highlight include an underground mine in the United States hauling lead ore, a very deep underground mine in Quebec hauling gold, and an industrial application hauling petroleum byproducts to a port terminal. In all of these cases, the customer determined that the Railveyor system was not only the most emissions-reducing but also the most economically viable solution, in one case extending the life of the mine through dramatically low OPEX.

An additional opportunity to study the potential emissions reduction of a proposed Railveyor system at very large scale comes in a study conducted for a project in the Ring of Fire, where Railveyor is compared in terms of economics and emissions to truck and rail transport. Railveyor delivers the lowest total cost of ownership and the lowest emissions over a 24 year period. This finding does not consider potential increases in carbon tax rates. It also does not factor in the minimized disturbance that Railveyor’s light rail infrastructure creates in a landscape composed of peat, which is an important carbon sink. Both of these factors only make the findings of the study more compelling for Railveyor.

Because of the low OPEX and carbon emissions offered by the system, Railveyor should take a leading place in the conversation around decarbonizing material transport operations in the mining sector.