Mining

GM and Komatsu will co-develop a hydrogen fuel cell power module for Komatsu’s electric drive mining truck – here’s why that makes sense. General Motors and mining and construction equipment giant Komatsu will jointly design and validate the hydrogen fuel cell technology for the 930E electric drive mining truck. Executive director of GM’s Global HYDROTEC business, Charlie Freese, said, “Mining trucks are among the largest, most capable vehicles used in any industry, and we believe hydrogen fuel…

Since launching its first test mission to vaporize bits of an asteroid in space, AstroForge has struggled to keep a hold of its spacecraft and is now at risk of losing the ability to send commands to the in-orbit demonstration.'Even AI Rappers are Harassed by Police' | AI UnlockedThe California-based AstroForge has big plans: mining asteroids for platinum and processing the materials in space before selling them on Earth for lucrative profit. The company’s demonstration mission, however, has had a series of issues since…

The U.S. is running out of miners. More than half the nation's mining workforce, about 221,000 workers, is expected to retire by 2029, according to the Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration, and the number of candidates willing to fill those slots is shrinking."Our workforce is aging," said Bold Baatar, chief executive of copper at Rio Tinto. "There is a lot of baby boomers that will be looking to retire or are already retiring, and we're continuing to rely on their expertise."At the same time, demand for rare…

A water hog is lurking in your crypto wallet.  Bitcoin-mining operations slurp up billions of gallons of water globally each year.  Estimates vary, but the annual footprint is projected to surpass 591 billion gallons of water this year, according to an article published last week in the peer-reviewed journal Cell Reports Sustainability. Copyright ©2023Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8 A water hog is lurking in your crypto wallet.  Bitcoin-mining operations slurp up…

A new paper published in Science says that as glacier ice melts, new land and rivers are being revealed in the ice-covered transboundary region shared by northern B.C., Alaska, and the Yukon. The peer-reviewed paper was a collaboration among researchers from Simon Fraser University, the Gitanyow Hereditary Chiefs' Office, the University of Montana Flathead Lake Biological Station, and Taku River Tlingit First Nation.Researchers say that for Pacific salmon, these emerging territories may present an opportunity to offset…

Copper mines like Rio Tinto's Bingham Canyon mine on the outskirts of Salt Lake City are on the frontline of America's transition to clean energy.Global demand for copper, a major component of electric vehicles, is expected to grow from 25 million metric tons to nearly 49 million metric tons by 2035, according to S&P Global.But miners face a multitude of issues as they ramp up production, including addressing the concerns of local stakeholders, mitigating environmental damage and operating in remote regions of the…

Surface mining extents for 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020 draped on 2020 Landsat 8 OLI natural color imagery. Credit: Remote Sensing (2023). DOI: 10.3390/rs15184597 As the demand for rare earth elements increases world-wide, so too do the mining activities associated with rare earth element extraction. Rare earth elements are listed as 15 elements on the periodic table constituting what is known as the lanthanide series, ranging…

A miner's hand holds a pebble-sized bit of mercury-covered gold ore over a bowl of water. The picture was taken at a small-scale gold mine in Senegal. Credit: Jacqueline Gerson Jacqueline "Jackie" Gerson knows very well how "artisanal gold mining" sounds to people who haven't heard the phrase before. "It sounds quaint, right?"…

Deep sea mining could pose a danger to local jellyfish populations, a new study suggests. The first-of-its-kind study was conducted by researchers and marine ecologists and aims to see just how much deep sea mining affects the wildlife that calls the sea floor home.There are, of course, several benefits to mining the ocean floor, including access to rare minerals and elements that we can’t find in high concentrations above the ocean surface. However, mining under the sea could actually cause harm to deep sea…

Americans tossed 292.4 million tons of trash into landfills in 2018, or about 5 pounds of garbage per person per day. Once in a landfill, much of that trash undergoes some wild chemistry, often polluting the surrounding area. But amid all the stinking refuse is potentially valuable material, and some environmentalists and engineers see landfills as a resource to be tapped. This Summer’s Hottest UmbrellaLandfill mining is the process of uncapping a landfill and sifting through its cells of garbage to reclaim any sort of…