Try looking at boats - particularly yachts and superyachts. They use vast amounts of diesel just for fun, and the pace of innovation in electric propulsion is appallingly slow.
Great Job, Imogen, an interesting and excellent view on how far Electrical vehicle technology can go. How about looking at the electrification of commercial aviation, how far are we from making this actual reality? Is it a fever dream that will remain ever so close yet not attainable, or are the solutions just around the corner?
@@propellhatt great idea - so far we've looked at Zero Avia , Electroflight, Harbour Air Seaplanes and a few other little diddly ones but we need to look at the big big commercial airlines!
After working in electric traction for the best part of 20 years now, i still love the incredible flexibility and possibilities that this technology brings. In this case, i think it's amazing that dropping water, hundreds of miles away, actually lifts up rock in the mine! It's like an huge invisible yet very efficient lever 🙂
I love your imagery of a lever!! I was thinking how, over millennia, the flow of water has eroded rock to shape the landscape - now it is doing it in partnership with humans, but much faster :D This is such a cool project!
These guys really need someone who knows electric traction - Imogen is awesome but someone with knowledge of the last couple of decades of industry practice, and just how reliable electric traction has proven to be in the largest equipment on earth, could have added so much to that story (particularly in terms of the greenwashing thats just industry best practice for efficiency). Im just a mechatronic eng but theres so much more there i wanted to know.
I just love how this demonstrates sometimes the simplest solution is the best. One person might look at some of this electric mining equipment and say, "hmm, let's find an exotic new battery chemistry that will produce unprecedented range, power, and power density." Then someone else said, "what if we just plugged it in?"
Now it creates possibility of mountains of batteries that we are not able to recycle. Why are there millions of cars being produced when we cannot recycle them properly yet?
The Komatsu 830e was the haul truck in the video. One of the best trucks in its class. Using overhead power lines on long haul roads is a great way to start removing diesel usage. to correct something in the video @4:42, the slower haul truck going up the haul road is still electric it is just getting its power from the diesel electric generator on board. it is an older 830e truck. It still has electric drive wheel motors the same as the truck running on the overhead wires.
This makes far more sense than fitting a haul truck with 12+ tons of batteries, and allows for 24/7 operation. The same goes for rhe highway in Germany that has overhead lines to power lorries. Trucks and lorries uae vastly more fuel than cars which are parked up for most of their life. More of this please.
Acctually a full length Eurotruck at 25m and loaded with 74 metric tons uses less than 40L diesel/100km. That's equivalent to 5-8 normal diesel cars. With that said electrification of heavy traffic is very important.
@@morilot my car uses one litre of fuel per day. A truck burns 40 litres per hour for possibly more than 8 hours per day (if driven in shifts). It makes more sense to electrify high use vehicles, and far better to electrify them without huge batteries where possible.
@@the_lost_navigator7266 Comparing the daily usage of your car with a 25m fully loaded truck is like comparing apples to an appletree. It's not relevant. Also very few trucks uses 40L an hour. I did say that it's important to electrify heavy traffic. But that doesn't mean we should use false facts. Most fully loaded 25m rigg with a total weight of 90 metric tons uses LESS that 40L diesel/100km. Let's say it's exactly 40L and the speedlimit for heavy traffic is 80km/h that's gives 32 L diesel/h. A fully high modern truck loaded with 40 metric tons (64tons total) might use 25 L/100km wich would correspond to 20L/h. If we don't put big batteries in them they can't go everywhere ...
@@fidelcatsro6948 Yeah, bikes have poor aerodynamics and drag increase exponentially with speed. If you limit your speed to 80 km/h you will both get better fuel economy and ruin a great bike ride.
As someone who works in heavy industry, getting EVs into these application would be a great thing! These machines are guzzlers and often spend a lot of time idling - not only is this idling causing emissions, but it's also stacking hours on the machine, causing shorter lifespan, extra servicing and decreasing the return the company sees for its purchase/operation.
Agreed. I've always wondered why excavators, trucks etc. are often just idling for very long periods of time at construction sites. It costs money, creates pollution and is very noisy on top of that.
@@dachr2 as a truck driver from a while ago I can answer that - reliability of starting systems. First thing in the morning there's lots of trucks all starting up at the same time & if yours fails to start you can get a jump or tow start from another truck. After that you leave the engine running till lunchtime where you're again among lots of trucks. This is especially true if you're using a tail-lift, even on a perfect truck you get at most 2 raises before the battery is drained so the engine won't start.
A great pleasure to see EV tech being applied to heavy industry but also to see FCS touching on the environmental impact hat needs to be taken into account to fuel this evolution. The fact that this mine's power is fed by renewable hydro energy does negate the "are EVs really reducing the carbon footprint?" question. I would love to have had a broad stroke cost vs. financial benefit analysis (investment figures and cost savings per year). Finally, to repeat my previous comment. This presenter is excellent. Fluid, natural, passionate, concise and engaging. Thank you for the content.
It's not an "evolution", it's a _devolution_ of internal combustion engines. Electric motive power was developed at the same time as _steam,_ a full century before ICEs were even invented, electric has never gone away it just wasn't glamorous for most of its history.
Great video. I would like to see more videos like this one. The electrification of the mining industry needs to be talked about more to counter all the arguments by the EV haters
Especially the history - electric motive power was developed & in use at the same time as steam, a full century before internal combustion, & it's never gone away.
This one bugs me a little bit, but GHG and greenhouse gas have the same number of syllables so it doesn't make sense to say GHG aloud. I get using abbreviations in writing. That makes perfect sense but you don't need to do it when you're speaking, especially when saying the letters in an acronym makes the acronym longer to say (I'm looking at you any phrase containing the letter "w")
I'm pretty sure the "DIESEL" version is also using ELECTRIC motors for propulsion. Like a train, this hybrid tech has been in use for DECADES. In Scotland they had a cable bucket system to transport ore for more than a 100 yrs. Since mine was higher than ore processor it could be used to produce electricity as a braking system plus water and other supplies could be sent up with no energy cost using the weight of ore going down as power. Something similar in Switzerland where they drain electric trucks at bottom of hill by 50% since trucks act as electric generators as they bring the ore down. In this situation they have to bring the ore up to process.
@@orionbetelgeuse1937 Diesel engines are __heavy__ so substantially reduce the payload of the truck. Doubling the electric motor size means doubling the Diesel engine size, the engineers strike a balance where there is still a useful payload but swapping that huge engine for a very lightweight pantograph allows for much larger electric motors.
@@orionbetelgeuse1937 "So the video might be full of BS because the truck has the same power if it is powered by the diesel generator or through the pantograph because it has the same electric motor" There's no BS involved. With the electric truck, it's powered by hydroelectric (falling water), so there's no pollution. With diesel, there's lots more pollution emitted.
I would like to know more. For example, I see that the loaded trucks coming up from the pit are on the grid, but the ones going down aren't. If the ones going down were connected to the grid, wouldn't they be generating power? The weight of elevators and gondolas going up is partly offset by the ones going down. Can't the trucks do something similar? Just wondering out loud.
Your correct the trucks currently have huge resistor grids that turn the energy created from slowing the trucks down hill into hot air out the side of the machine. Komatsu have developed the technology to utilise the down hill grid supply it's up to the customer to use it. Need to remember though the trucks going down the hill are 380tons lighter than the trucks going up the hill
I am a bit confused by the title. The Kumatsu 830E-5 with trolley assist can run fully electric on below the overhead wires, but to my knowledge it's not a battery electric vehicle. With the title "Is There A Limit To What Can Be Battery Electric?" I would expect at least a few words about these limits in the video.
This is very encouraging. Great report. Quite a lot of mining has been electric for a while. The world's biggest excavators (German opencast coal mines) have been electric for years. Interesting that for electrifying the haul operation they only had to increase the supply by 35% (65MW to 100MW). Some info on relative costs would help. Presumably they are mostly doing this because it's cheaper and the emissions reductions are a bonus, but possibly there is a policy incentive which helps make the accounts work?
Those big excavators were electric before internal combustion was invented & have remained electric in most roles, Diesel is used where the machine's position changes frequently but the weight of the Diesel engine substantially reduces payload so electric is preferred wherever reasonably practical.
I've often heard that EVs are not nearly as green as they could be, simply because mines use so much petroleum, and then shipping the material requires petroleum. If mines can cut their diesel usage by ~95%, and then the materials can be hauled on Tesla trucks... and the vehicles are run on pure hydro, solar, and wind energy on the grid, it sure as heck seems like things can get pretty green pretty quickly if we put our minds to it.
They didn't say this definitely, but from experience I suppose they haven't got traction batteries onboard. The trucks use diesel to reach the overhead lines, after that an onboard inverter/controller converts the electricity directly to the drive motors. IF this is the case, downhill electricity generation is out of the question, they would need overhead lines on the downhill as well. We didn't see them, though, so maybe they are present. Edit: oh, we see downhill trucks at 2:05. No overhead line.
@@Sekir80 Maybe a small onboard battery to store regen and move around away from the lines would be a solution? Could help smooth out demand on the lines as well. Possibly a next iteration improvement.
@@durwoodmaccool890 Define, small. 😀 We are dealing with huge powers here. A "small" battery must be capable of handling that. As said the truck uses 3MW of power uphills. Moving that on flat ground probably requires 1MW. This means a battery pack of 100kWh is 10C discharging, which is pretty high. But of course, it is doable, just the right size (and weight) needs to be added.
Both ICE and electric are century old techs electric even much older and the funny thing is that it's ICE that made all that possible from the construction of power stations to the grid ...even the roads and more.
It was refreshing to see Imogen reporting on this as she offers a no fuss explanation of the subject, rather than listening to Robert Ranting and Raving like some madman, still a lot of questions were not answered like does it use it's diesel engine to get to the sections of the mine where the powerlines are not installed, is there a battery in the truck to assist when not connected to the power lines, does it have regenerative braking on the return trip, or does it use the diesel engine to power it back down the hill ?
Have worked for Fortescue for 12 yrs and I can tell you this article is full of misinformation. 12 kmh? We slow our trucks to 40kmh. 2 day ago was the first EV truck to be started and the battery was not available so it is running on Diesel. Stop telling lies to make things sound better. You lose credibility.
You should check out LKAB in Sweden that also uses a lot of electric loaders. Some of the biggest in the world in their Kiruna mine. They are also using a lot of hydropower and are starting to look into using electricaly produced hydrogen to heat the ore to refine their metals.
Many of my fellow environmentalists get trapped into thinking we must stop consumption. Impossible. We must stop waste and consume as smartly as possible. These big EV trucks are a great example of being smart and moving away from burning fossil fuel into the atmosphere. Awesome video!
I really enjoy this channel, but sometimes I find it too “in your face fossil fuels”. Almost reminds me of the whole android apple arguments. Must be unintentional, but having a bias sounding script doesn’t help with converting people to electrification. Again love the channel, shows and presenters.
Perhaps this is beyond the scope of your electrification narrative, but long-term, one needs to consider how resource extraction corporations have the habit of winding up the corporation and leaving clean-up to the public purse. Not all corporations are such cynical parasites, but enough are to warrant serious changes to how business is done. Electrification is, I hope, one of those tipping points where everything including the economic system changes. I'm 70 years old, so I have seen the global population increase 3 fold from roughly 2.5 billion to 7.5 billion. It is a little bit ridiculous to expect things to scale up that much without modification, isn't it?
If the trucks had some batteries they could use regen on the way down, replace the small desiel for moving about when over head wires are not available.
I've said the same thing a couple times in the past, but it bears repeating I feel - the speed advantage you see here with the grid-powered electric hauling trucks (3MW!!!! omg lol) is something you get with battery-electric buses as well. We have articulated electric MAN and Volvo buses since a year-plus now in my city - these weigh about 30 tons empty weight, but they climb even steep hills just as fast as a passenger vehicle, and they can even accelerate while climbing. No diesel horker of a bus can do that. They drop down to low gear and chuff along at jogging speed up those hills, with a queue of cars forming behind them, sometimes tempting some to make dangerous overtakes of the bus. So a win there for safety, and also accessibility - you get where you want to go just a little quicker. The bus drivers also seem to like driving them - heavy-footed drivers tend to accelerate so hard it's difficult to hold on while standing upright in the center aisle... :P
The great hope is off course that new batteries and energy storage devices are developed that no longer require these metals and therefore the mines needed to produce them.
This is very positive, and it is a sensible solution. As far as I'm aware, most mining trucks have been diesel electric for years, so the conversion to full electric is simple, on a per vehicle basis.
Lessons can be learned here about how to start electrifying the agriculture heavy equipment here in the US. Caterpiller, John Deer, New Holland etc, etc need to get on the ball in providing electric ag vehicles as well as special means of getting massive amounts of electricity out to all the huge number of crops growing on the huge numbers of different terrains.
most well run farms already produce heaps of rooftop solar, and then where there is open farmland there should be wind power avaliable as well. I can see both swappable high voltage power packs (or containerized on-site CCS charging docks) serving mashinery as well as a buffer for running the farm at times of reduced PV production. Volvo and CAT already are working on that (while JCB has hitched it's waggon to H2. At the same time there already are autonomous farming bots that are a fraction of a large tractor, both battery driven and with a cable attached. My biggest worry are the Diesel loving nay-sayers among the farming community itself. The comment section under most videos showing what's already possible (or me making a suggestion to go electric under a video fetishizing the latest ICE mashine) are really horrendous, especially when taking into consideration the fact that this needs to be started before the decade is out. Full transition to doing things the non fossile way to be done withing the next 15 years : /
When I visited the Superpit gold mine in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, i discovered that the hail trucks there use as much diesel in half a shift (refuel period) as my Toyota Prado would use in the 8000km round trip from Melbourne to Perth. The amount of fuel used by these trucks is astonishing.
Now do the cost math. Diesel is about $2.00 per litre here in BC. When you start adding it up the cost is as enormous as the truck is. That's why this is such a smart idea.
That is highly unlikely to change in Australia. The haul path in the Super Pit changes too frequently and the emissions would simply move from the tailpipe to the the generation plants. WA uses a combination of coal, gas and waste burning plants and some wind and solar in their mixed grid. The other thing to raise is the demand on the local grid and how to upgrade that cost effectively. Many Australian mines are so far remote that they have no choice but to generate their own electricity from diesel or gas generators.
@@Danger_mouse Whenever you move emissions from tailpipe to power plant you reduce emissions. The reason for that is a power plant burns far more efficiently than a "small" combustion engine. While these trucks ARE big, a power station is much bigger.
@@jimthain8777 This is understood mate, what I'm saying is that for mines in places like Australia, they can't plug into the grid. There's either not enough capacity in the grid to the minesite to take on an electric fleet, or there's no grid at all. Currently operating mines had their power budgets set in the planning stages sometimes 30yrs ago. To duplicate the grid out to these remote locations is not feasible or economical.
The "electric" trucks are diesel electric Kumatsu 830E-5 with a trolley assist upgrade, they still carry their complete diesel electric drivetrain. Without the trolley assist upgrade it is a conventional diesel electric truck.
Pretty much all the majors have decarb projects underway, with very aggressive net zero targets. Electrification of mobile equipment is just the start. Sourcing clean power is also a focus. Not many operations are lucky enough to have access to clean hydro like Copper Mountain, so many mines around the world have started building their own renewable power generation plants. There's a number with large solar arrays and batteries in Australia for example.
This to me is one of the greatest strengths of renewables, democratising energy to the point that it's feasible for a large infra project like a mine to do it itself and move the bar.
I do find it odd they use trucks instead of conveyor belts to move that material. But I'm sure they've done the math and the trucks are more economical. The scars that are left on Earth from mining are pretty sad to see. I wonder if that one could be used for pumped storage when they've finished the mining efforts.
The diggers are constantly moving their location. So only utilizing a conveyor belt would not be logistically possible. Plus as you pointed out the capital cost would be horrendously high.
Unfortunately, there's a grain of truth in what you say. Why do people drive 3 ton offroad trucks around town, when all they need is a 1.5 ton family car?
I recall an episode about the electric ferry in ?Sweden : I bet *that's* the biggest 'vehicle' you've ever filmed. "Wheeled vehicle": definitely. Or maybe that train in Queensland . . . "Rubber tyred vehicle" . . . ?
What I would like to see is an effort to re-landscape the areas of the mine where the copper deposits have run dry. Let's not just leave gaping scars and holes after we've extracted those minerals.
That's often a part of the licensing agreement. Not that it's always acted on, companies will a lot of times use creative bankrupties to avoid site restoration, at least in the coal world, metals might be a slightly different game.
@@durwoodmaccool890that's why it needs to be made part of the initial investment. Construct the mine and funds in investment that can be used by the gov to do reconstruction properly once the mine life is done.
@@JohnR31415but the wheel's about as big as big pick up truck, how can it be that heavy? I'm genuinely trying to wrap my around this, it seems unfathomable
@@SweBeach2023 the 797 carries over 400 tonnes in its box. The total weight is over 600 tonnes. I work around these trucks. The one in the video is the small ones. It looks big until you see it next to the really big trucks.
A perfect example why EVs won't work. In 2022, total lithium refined was 130,000 tons. A Tesla Semi uses 250 lbs of lithium. That means if you used every bit of lithium just forTesla Semi trucks you could make 1 million a year. There are 9 million heavy trucks just in the USA; it would take a decade to replace them and then you'd need to start to replace the 10 year old trucks; so that is using all the lithium on earth just to make Semi trucks for the USA, I guess the rest of the world won't need cars , trucks, cell phones or laptops etc.
Unfortunately for the Princeton, BC Copper mine the ore once treated gets moved by some filthy double trailer diesel trucks to Vancouver through a beautiful Park. So the company cares about hydro (power) costs not the environment or its inhabitants.
@1:40 ... strange anti-ev mining talking points refutation reason #4. oil extraction is mining too, and the pollutions resulting from it is a function of mass of fuel being mined. An average North American car 20k km/yr 10l/100km -> *0.75 kg/l -> 1500 kg. which is about the weight of the entire car. so People complaining about mining are overlooking that oil is mining too, and it is more mining in terms of mass, every year, than what is done for the life of an EV. And the above numbers are conservative, because to get 1l of gasoline, you need a bit more than 2 of crude oil. And that's before you get into the cobalt and platinum used to build ice vehicles.
"Stewardship" is a Rehabilitation program, (not carried out). Mother Nature is recycling continents it's a waste of breath to object. Yay for Electrification. And "stop burning stuff" should have included global forestry. Reality is harsh.
The mines that haul loaded down from top of a mtn then charge uo the battrries to go enpty back up the mtn. A tain in Australia does this too. Yes 24 hr 7 days a wk. Lots big saving. Same with Robotic control. Its on a. Private rd too. The big trucks have the right away. $100 K cost of hightech itrms on a car big cost. On a big haul truck the 100K cost can be recovered in 1 yr labour saving. Battey cost pay back quickly too. Big power mines in Sk etc had Elect ( with cable yrs ago) Hey we had hybred vehicles too. Had to plug in over night to get engine started next morning at -40 C. Elect works better in winter too. Low humidity in winter cold diesel engines dont have good power. This is a problem with hey trucks too in the winter etc
So the real Prince Charming is the pantograph. "Ohhhh, no it isn't!" "Ohhhh, yes it is!" [Cue the greasepaint, spangly fishnet tights and much thigh slapping. Brits will get the pantomime reference; others may simply be bemused...]
It made me laugh when I realised that the trucks pick up power from overhead cables. Why? As a youngster in south London, I used to regularly travel on trolleybuses up until the early 1960s - when they were withdrawn from service. These trucks are not a far cry from those trolleybuses of a bygone era - just a matter of scale! 21st innovation, or a return to an earlier technology? 🙂
It's a bit complicated to provide electric power to vehicles in motion, but refueling vehicles in motion is worse. Making then fully electric wouldn't be that technically challenging, the engine alone weighs >8 tonnes, dry weight, if I found the right model. Replacing that with batteries with the same weight as the engine, and fluids, can give you ~2 MWh battery capacity, which can put out 3 MW a few minutes at a time, a few times on a charge. But, you'd still want the overhead system to get uninterrupted operation, and ideally still while going uphill loaded. 2 MWh battery packs for a fleet would cost a lot of money, and it is often best to not change too much at once. Replacing >97% of the diesel fuel is undeniably a great improvement.
Sorry but this is what I would refer to as a green washing video. Mostly because as a rule BC hydro Produces vast quantities of methane from the destroyed lands that make up its reservoirs. Hydro also dose not take into account the environmental effect of their project, the needs of agriculture or aboriginal rights. Site C is classic of this lack of regard for the environment. Their own advisors were against this project from many point of view One was there was no need for the project from a demand point of view. The site of the dam is gelogicly unstable and has caused cost over runs and delay. do to one side of the dam being unstable. They are flooding much needed agricultural land. The down stream effects are also being ignored. Primarily because the majority of those effected are aboriginal. The use of roof top solar, solar farms, wind farms at the coast and geothermal would be far cleaner and cheaper than Site C. I know the pro BC Hydro stance by Fully charged is fueled by the green washing sponsorship of Hydro for the fully charged show here in Vancouver. On the up side the electrification of mining has been common for a long time especially in underground. It is being done for cost saving not environmental reasons. Mining in BC gets away with all kinds of eventual mining 'accidents' such as tailing pond failure.
A couple of problems here, where the right fuel really needs to be considered. And plant machinery really isn't the place to focus. Plant machinery is typically used in locations where there is no, and it would be difficult to provide grid connection to charge the vehicles, and any electricity on-site is generated by diesel generators anyway. So, in most cases, there is no saving of 32L/km of fuel, it's just shifted elsewhere. The only places where the cost or offset are where it's worth it, are in enclosed spaces, or gigantic mines like this with a grid connection.
That guy is loving it. Bring on the environmental movement. Let tax payers buy his trucks, pay for the dam and hydro plant, pay for the transmission lines. Win, win, win for the mining company. Not so much a win for tax payers.
How much did this company get in government subsidies to install the system and buy the trucks. Most likely tax payers paid for the trucks and system. So a great "savings" for the company using these trucks.
Thanks for driving into the new ways we see electrification beyond passenger cars. While the video touched lightly on the environmental and indigenous impacts of mining, I do think more could have been mentioned about the very heavy consequences of mining and what is being done other than electrification. Here in Canada we see waterways polluted and blocked and the forced takeover of indigenous lands for resource development. This video is a great start, but because the point of this show is to ultimately promote sustainability, other environmental and social impacts should be explored further.
They burn less fuel. Unless you consider the fuel burned to make the electricity. The 2/3 loss of converting heat to shaft horsepower to spin a generator. The efficiency loss of the turbine. The loss of ten percent in the generator, the 5-7% loss of transmission and the 10 percent loss of the motors on the truck. Other than that, more efficient. Ha, Ha, Ha.
@5:11 It's not like the diesel powerplant isn't capable of higher speeds, it can. They have their speed restricted to save on fuel costs. This is same strategy that commercial cargo ships do. Even modern commercial aircrafts that are capable of achieving high cruising speeds are restricted to .85 mach because, you guessed it, save on fuel costs.
You should research the metals inc Cobolt that’s in surgical replacement parts, like knee, hip joints etc. Take all those parts/tonnage per year and find out what happens to those fitted and then renewed a few years later to see if the used ones are broken for individual minerals?
I shudder at the delicate post mortem discussions with the loved ones of the deceased about a potential donation (to be fair they do that anyways when it comes to organ donations)
Is the hydro like the Iskut hydro? Where hundreds of millions was spent to make a dam and hydro plant to supply "cheap" power to a mine? Once again, tax payers pay to buy stuff for mines.
The problem has never been the ability of electric motors. All trains for the last 7 decades, including diesel powered trains, are propelled by electric motors because it's a lot more efficient. Some of the largest ships on the ocean are propelled by electric motors. Diesel is only used to produce the electricity. Electric cranes for mining have been used for many decades. They just require very long extension cords for power.
That's cool! Very old technology, but more often than not, what's old is new again. With the extra load on the hydro-electric system, where does the extra power come from? Is it made up with fossil fuels? Is there less exported to the south, where it must be made up for with fossil fuels? Until we have a surplus of renewable electricity, adding extra load only transfers the CO2 emissions from the local tailpipe to the distant one. Sort of cart before the horse, if you will. What we SHOULD be focusing on is decarbonizing the electrical supply even to meet the CURRENT demand. THEN work on electrification and simultaneously work on further increasing electrical supply capacity.
The really sickening thing, the thing you missed *_completely,_* is the history - _electric motive power was developed at the same time as _*_steam,_*_ a _*_whole century before_*_ the internal combustion engine!_ *The only thing that's changed over the last century is scale & even that is just a slow progress without any sudden jumps.*
I wish they could upgrade them to get rid completely of the diesel engine. Since the fuel consumption is so low, and there is plentiful of power from the pantographs, it would need a far smaller and lighter backup battery. I heard about a mine situated at high elevation that uses fully electric trucks to bring down the ore and making extra electricity in the process as it uses regenerative braking when going down and when going up it's empty and light.
The 'diesel' one is also electric. it uses a diesel engine to create electrical power to drive the wheels. The same way that an locomotive does. It doesnt have a diesel engine with a drive shaft going to the rear wheels. A little misleading to say they are diesel only when they are not. Ironic you say you want to stop misinformation when you did just that.
Would I be right in assuming that the diesel powered haul trucks have electric drive motors in the wheels anyway? So electrifying the whole thing must be easy as pie! (pi?)
Was thinking they put an insane amount of batteries on these trucks which is worse then diesel imo, but this is way better. They drive up the same road all the time so it makes sense to have a trolly truck!
With a bit of battery on board they could recharge from regen braking going down hill. When trains and trams do it they put electricity back into the overhead wires but here it seems there are only wires for going uphill.
Like in the food industry, there is sure coming an awareness how consumer hardware and raw materials where made and how ecological they where produced or mined. It will make overthink other raw material industries to get in environment friendly mining, if they want sell to the following generations. Sure, the greenwashing "industry" will never die and many will choose the comfort way with commercial spots instead of doing real things.
These aren't new. Open pit mines have been using electric trucks with either diesel generators or a trolly like power systems for decades. Check out Edison motors. They are applying the same solution for semis.
1:23 How about I tell you, that behind only one of your gold rings somewhere out there are 20 tones of rock dug out? Multiply the weight for the other ornaments.
So when are we gonna start mining the infinite resources of asteroids to fuel our mineral consumption here on Earth? Why limit ourselves to scarring our terrestial preserves when we can extract the same stardust that made our planet but out in the vacuum of space?
We need charge as you go infra for long distance cargo trucks and public transport. Patch of road with over head cables that can be tapped into by vehicles on the move and they charge up the batteries as there cover the distance.
Surprisingly it wasn't mentioned that almost all huge machines like mining equipment are electric anyways. You can't f.e. built a gearbox for such a huge truck. As they are almost always "hybrids", there is a huge potential for reducing complexity as well.
That's not even a new idea, back in WWII that monstrosity that was going to be the Maus (almost 200 tons of tank) had a diesel engine... to power the electric drive train.
do they have enough battery to get use of the regeneration on the way back down the hill as well? the fact they go twice as ast must be pretty compelling as a buisness case.
U didnt really cover the electric part of the hauler. Does it still have a battery? U talked about diesel engine still. ??? Obviously it can move without connnected to the power lines.
We have been very anxious to dig (pun intended) into some of these "hard to abate industries" - what should we delve into next or in more detail?
Try looking at boats - particularly yachts and superyachts. They use vast amounts of diesel just for fun, and the pace of innovation in electric propulsion is appallingly slow.
The current state of coal replacement in steel & cement industries?
Great Job, Imogen, an interesting and excellent view on how far Electrical vehicle technology can go. How about looking at the electrification of commercial aviation, how far are we from making this actual reality? Is it a fever dream that will remain ever so close yet not attainable, or are the solutions just around the corner?
@@jbmaru that's a great idea
@@propellhatt great idea - so far we've looked at Zero Avia , Electroflight, Harbour Air Seaplanes and a few other little diddly ones but we need to look at the big big commercial airlines!
After working in electric traction for the best part of 20 years now, i still love the incredible flexibility and possibilities that this technology brings. In this case, i think it's amazing that dropping water, hundreds of miles away, actually lifts up rock in the mine! It's like an huge invisible yet very efficient lever 🙂
I love your imagery of a lever!!
I was thinking how, over millennia, the flow of water has eroded rock to shape the landscape - now it is doing it in partnership with humans, but much faster :D
This is such a cool project!
These guys really need someone who knows electric traction - Imogen is awesome but someone with knowledge of the last couple of decades of industry practice, and just how reliable electric traction has proven to be in the largest equipment on earth, could have added so much to that story (particularly in terms of the greenwashing thats just industry best practice for efficiency). Im just a mechatronic eng but theres so much more there i wanted to know.
I just love how this demonstrates sometimes the simplest solution is the best. One person might look at some of this electric mining equipment and say, "hmm, let's find an exotic new battery chemistry that will produce unprecedented range, power, and power density." Then someone else said, "what if we just plugged it in?"
Now it creates possibility of mountains of batteries that we are not able to recycle. Why are there millions of cars being produced when we cannot recycle them properly yet?
Even more so, the very first electricity vehicles were electric! We went backward to go forward 100 years later?
The Komatsu 830e was the haul truck in the video. One of the best trucks in its class.
Using overhead power lines on long haul roads is a great way to start removing diesel usage.
to correct something in the video @4:42, the slower haul truck going up the haul road is still electric it is just getting its power from the diesel electric generator on board. it is an older 830e truck. It still has electric drive wheel motors the same as the truck running on the overhead wires.
So, er, what's the little Diesel engine in one of the mostly-electric haulers _for?_
This makes far more sense than fitting a haul truck with 12+ tons of batteries, and allows for 24/7 operation. The same goes for rhe highway in Germany that has overhead lines to power lorries.
Trucks and lorries uae vastly more fuel than cars which are parked up for most of their life.
More of this please.
Acctually a full length Eurotruck at 25m and loaded with 74 metric tons uses less than 40L diesel/100km. That's equivalent to 5-8 normal diesel cars.
With that said electrification of heavy traffic is very important.
@@morilot my car uses one litre of fuel per day. A truck burns 40 litres per hour for possibly more than 8 hours per day (if driven in shifts).
It makes more sense to electrify high use vehicles, and far better to electrify them without huge batteries where possible.
@@the_lost_navigator7266 Comparing the daily usage of your car with a 25m fully loaded truck is like comparing apples to an appletree. It's not relevant. Also very few trucks uses 40L an hour.
I did say that it's important to electrify heavy traffic. But that doesn't mean we should use false facts. Most fully loaded 25m rigg with a total weight of 90 metric tons uses LESS that 40L diesel/100km.
Let's say it's exactly 40L and the speedlimit for heavy traffic is 80km/h that's gives 32 L diesel/h.
A fully high modern truck loaded with 40 metric tons (64tons total) might use 25 L/100km wich would correspond to 20L/h.
If we don't put big batteries in them they can't go everywhere ...
@@morilotwow only 40L for 100km?? My 1200cc bike drinks 6L every 100km..I need to get those economical trucks
@@fidelcatsro6948 Yeah, bikes have poor aerodynamics and drag increase exponentially with speed. If you limit your speed to 80 km/h you will both get better fuel economy and ruin a great bike ride.
As someone who works in heavy industry, getting EVs into these application would be a great thing! These machines are guzzlers and often spend a lot of time idling - not only is this idling causing emissions, but it's also stacking hours on the machine, causing shorter lifespan, extra servicing and decreasing the return the company sees for its purchase/operation.
Agreed. I've always wondered why excavators, trucks etc. are often just idling for very long periods of time at construction sites. It costs money, creates pollution and is very noisy on top of that.
@@dachr2 as a truck driver from a while ago I can answer that - reliability of starting systems.
First thing in the morning there's lots of trucks all starting up at the same time & if yours fails to start you can get a jump or tow start from another truck. After that you leave the engine running till lunchtime where you're again among lots of trucks.
This is especially true if you're using a tail-lift, even on a perfect truck you get at most 2 raises before the battery is drained so the engine won't start.
Will this be available in the test drive section at Fully Charged Canada?😊
Sure Derrick, in vr
A great pleasure to see EV tech being applied to heavy industry but also to see FCS touching on the environmental impact hat needs to be taken into account to fuel this evolution. The fact that this mine's power is fed by renewable hydro energy does negate the "are EVs really reducing the carbon footprint?" question. I would love to have had a broad stroke cost vs. financial benefit analysis (investment figures and cost savings per year). Finally, to repeat my previous comment. This presenter is excellent. Fluid, natural, passionate, concise and engaging. Thank you for the content.
It's not an "evolution", it's a _devolution_ of internal combustion engines. Electric motive power was developed at the same time as _steam,_ a full century before ICEs were even invented, electric has never gone away it just wasn't glamorous for most of its history.
Great video. I would like to see more videos like this one. The electrification of the mining industry needs to be talked about more to counter all the arguments by the EV haters
Especially the history - electric motive power was developed & in use at the same time as steam, a full century before internal combustion, & it's never gone away.
I love that Imogen was driving a Rivian R1T. They could have hired any car but commitment to the cause, electric only. 🥳
Nothing controversial about this EV, if anything it's controversial not more mining vehicles are electrified already! Great episode.
They cant get the batteries. they all have products lined up.
There's a similar project in Sweden, and I work at a factory making the copper wires. Nice being part of this evolution.
Imogen is the perfect host to show the size of this machine.
Shes got such a weird but lowkey cool name tho lol
@@Rohahahahahah I can't take any credit for it, but thanks!
@ImogenBhogal, talking of size, I loved how the high-viz jacket was sized to the truck, not to you 😇😇😇
This one bugs me a little bit, but GHG and greenhouse gas have the same number of syllables so it doesn't make sense to say GHG aloud. I get using abbreviations in writing. That makes perfect sense but you don't need to do it when you're speaking, especially when saying the letters in an acronym makes the acronym longer to say (I'm looking at you any phrase containing the letter "w")
Yes ,but jargon and acronyms are far more cool if you want to sound knowledgable to the ignorant
Same syllables yes, but one is easier and faster to speak
This one bugs me a little bit, comments that can't see the forest for the trees.
Hmmm, wasn't that ferry in Norway technically bigger ;-)
I thought this too, probably meant land vehicle.
Nobody loves a pedant, Antony......!!
You forget about railways. How about the 9000ton load iron ore railway Luleå to narvik that have been electrified since the 1920's.
@@ulwur
Electrically powered pleasure boats were cruising on the Thames from late 1800s.
Google is your friend.
Being pedantic..... Brits favorite pastime....
I'm pretty sure the "DIESEL" version is also using ELECTRIC motors for propulsion. Like a train, this hybrid tech has been in use for DECADES. In Scotland they had a cable bucket system to transport ore for more than a 100 yrs. Since mine was higher than ore processor it could be used to produce electricity as a braking system plus water and other supplies could be sent up with no energy cost using the weight of ore going down as power. Something similar in Switzerland where they drain electric trucks at bottom of hill by 50% since trucks act as electric generators as they bring the ore down. In this situation they have to bring the ore up to process.
Diesels at this scale are usually either Diesel-electric or Diesel-hydraulic.
@@orionbetelgeuse1937 Diesel engines are __heavy__ so substantially reduce the payload of the truck. Doubling the electric motor size means doubling the Diesel engine size, the engineers strike a balance where there is still a useful payload but swapping that huge engine for a very lightweight pantograph allows for much larger electric motors.
Cool, I'll have to read up on hydraulic propulsion. @@alanhat5252
@dailyrider2974 you are correct!! 🙂
@@orionbetelgeuse1937
"So the video might be full of BS because the truck has the same power if it is powered by the diesel generator or through the pantograph because it has the same electric motor"
There's no BS involved. With the electric truck, it's powered by hydroelectric (falling water), so there's no pollution. With diesel, there's lots more pollution emitted.
Very encouraging to see such responsible mining.
“Biggest electric vehicle we have ever seen… ever.”
Actually, you did visit on an enormous electric ferry in Denmark if I recall…
Also China has introduced a battery operated overseas container vessel yet.
Green mining is a wild concept and I love it!
I would like to know more. For example, I see that the loaded trucks coming up from the pit are on the grid, but the ones going down aren't. If the ones going down were connected to the grid, wouldn't they be generating power? The weight of elevators and gondolas going up is partly offset by the ones going down. Can't the trucks do something similar? Just wondering out loud.
Your correct the trucks currently have huge resistor grids that turn the energy created from slowing the trucks down hill into hot air out the side of the machine. Komatsu have developed the technology to utilise the down hill grid supply it's up to the customer to use it. Need to remember though the trucks going down the hill are 380tons lighter than the trucks going up the hill
I am a bit confused by the title. The Kumatsu 830E-5 with trolley assist can run fully electric on below the overhead wires, but to my knowledge it's not a battery electric vehicle. With the title "Is There A Limit To What Can Be Battery Electric?" I would expect at least a few words about these limits in the video.
This is very encouraging. Great report. Quite a lot of mining has been electric for a while. The world's biggest excavators (German opencast coal mines) have been electric for years. Interesting that for electrifying the haul operation they only had to increase the supply by 35% (65MW to 100MW). Some info on relative costs would help. Presumably they are mostly doing this because it's cheaper and the emissions reductions are a bonus, but possibly there is a policy incentive which helps make the accounts work?
Those big excavators were electric before internal combustion was invented & have remained electric in most roles, Diesel is used where the machine's position changes frequently but the weight of the Diesel engine substantially reduces payload so electric is preferred wherever reasonably practical.
I've often heard that EVs are not nearly as green as they could be, simply because mines use so much petroleum, and then shipping the material requires petroleum. If mines can cut their diesel usage by ~95%, and then the materials can be hauled on Tesla trucks... and the vehicles are run on pure hydro, solar, and wind energy on the grid, it sure as heck seems like things can get pretty green pretty quickly if we put our minds to it.
Tesla trucks are literally just a scam, they're not going to be a thing.
Surprised they didn't mention anything about using re-gen on the way back down, either to power other trucks going up or an onboard battery
They didn't say this definitely, but from experience I suppose they haven't got traction batteries onboard. The trucks use diesel to reach the overhead lines, after that an onboard inverter/controller converts the electricity directly to the drive motors. IF this is the case, downhill electricity generation is out of the question, they would need overhead lines on the downhill as well. We didn't see them, though, so maybe they are present.
Edit: oh, we see downhill trucks at 2:05. No overhead line.
If they are not hooked up to the catenary on the way down: they may be burning it all off in resistor grids.
@@jamesphillips2285 Most probably, if they use elecrodynamic braking. I bet they do.
@@Sekir80 Maybe a small onboard battery to store regen and move around away from the lines would be a solution? Could help smooth out demand on the lines as well. Possibly a next iteration improvement.
@@durwoodmaccool890 Define, small. 😀
We are dealing with huge powers here. A "small" battery must be capable of handling that. As said the truck uses 3MW of power uphills. Moving that on flat ground probably requires 1MW. This means a battery pack of 100kWh is 10C discharging, which is pretty high. But of course, it is doable, just the right size (and weight) needs to be added.
Nice to see industry making the effort to move toward carbon neutral. Funny to me that it's based on century old tech. It really is about choices.
Century old tech with much more modern technology too lol!!
Both ICE and electric are century old techs electric even much older and the funny thing is that it's ICE that made all that possible from the construction of power stations to the grid ...even the roads and more.
Great video guys,. It's just getting better and better. Keep smiling everyone and good luck with the Canadian show.
It was refreshing to see Imogen reporting on this as she offers a no fuss explanation of the subject, rather than listening to Robert Ranting and Raving like some madman, still a lot of questions were not answered like does it use it's diesel engine to get to the sections of the mine where the powerlines are not installed, is there a battery in the truck to assist when not connected to the power lines, does it have regenerative braking on the return trip, or does it use the diesel engine to power it back down the hill ?
Everytime I see pantographs, it's awesome! I hope they get lorries on highways electrified like this too!
Already done
going back to the 1930s?
@@alanhat5252 There's nothing backwards about pulling power from wires.
Have worked for Fortescue for 12 yrs and I can tell you this article is full of misinformation. 12 kmh? We slow our trucks to 40kmh. 2 day ago was the first EV truck to be started and the battery was not available so it is running on Diesel. Stop telling lies to make things sound better. You lose credibility.
You should check out LKAB in Sweden that also uses a lot of electric loaders. Some of the biggest in the world in their Kiruna mine. They are also using a lot of hydropower and are starting to look into using electricaly produced hydrogen to heat the ore to refine their metals.
Many of my fellow environmentalists get trapped into thinking we must stop consumption. Impossible. We must stop waste and consume as smartly as possible. These big EV trucks are a great example of being smart and moving away from burning fossil fuel into the atmosphere. Awesome video!
I really enjoy this channel, but sometimes I find it too “in your face fossil fuels”. Almost reminds me of the whole android apple arguments. Must be unintentional, but having a bias sounding script doesn’t help with converting people to electrification. Again love the channel, shows and presenters.
LOL, I know it means "effort", but as a speaker of Canadian English, my first thought on hearing "graft" is "bribe", not "effort". 🤣
Biggest electric vehicle you've seen?
You haven't seen electric ships such as the Norwegian ferries?
The pedantic people of the world, good luck getting a life....
Perhaps this is beyond the scope of your electrification narrative, but long-term, one needs to consider how resource extraction corporations have the habit of winding up the corporation and leaving clean-up to the public purse. Not all corporations are such cynical parasites, but enough are to warrant serious changes to how business is done. Electrification is, I hope, one of those tipping points where everything including the economic system changes. I'm 70 years old, so I have seen the global population increase 3 fold from roughly 2.5 billion to 7.5 billion. It is a little bit ridiculous to expect things to scale up that much without modification, isn't it?
Interesting to see if there's been any incidents with these cables on the ground.
Old ones: black. New ones: yellow. I think that tells a story.
Do you know if it has batteries? Regen might not work if you don’t have onboard batteries.
This has been a thing since the 70s, the largest vehicles on earth are all mains electric.
If the trucks had some batteries they could use regen on the way down, replace the small desiel for moving about when over head wires are not available.
Nice to see that Colin Robinson has found a new job.
Plenty of energy for him to feed on, I guess
I've said the same thing a couple times in the past, but it bears repeating I feel - the speed advantage you see here with the grid-powered electric hauling trucks (3MW!!!! omg lol) is something you get with battery-electric buses as well.
We have articulated electric MAN and Volvo buses since a year-plus now in my city - these weigh about 30 tons empty weight, but they climb even steep hills just as fast as a passenger vehicle, and they can even accelerate while climbing. No diesel horker of a bus can do that. They drop down to low gear and chuff along at jogging speed up those hills, with a queue of cars forming behind them, sometimes tempting some to make dangerous overtakes of the bus. So a win there for safety, and also accessibility - you get where you want to go just a little quicker.
The bus drivers also seem to like driving them - heavy-footed drivers tend to accelerate so hard it's difficult to hold on while standing upright in the center aisle... :P
The great hope is off course that new batteries and energy storage devices are developed that no longer require these metals and therefore the mines needed to produce them.
LOL I have to look a European show to learn about the country where I live! Great one!
This isn't a European show.
@@tbird81 no?
As a cyclist I find it quite hard to be excited by episodes about new heavy SUVs. This episode I found really interesting :)
This is very positive, and it is a sensible solution. As far as I'm aware, most mining trucks have been diesel electric for years, so the conversion to full electric is simple, on a per vehicle basis.
No reason pantographs couldn't be used for regular trucks on motorways/freeways.
In use in Germany
I actually work at copper mountain and drive these trolley trucks every day, massive difference in fuel consumption and yet way faster
Cool!
i think the mine looks beautiful especially the layers going down the pit.
Lessons can be learned here about how to start electrifying the agriculture heavy equipment here in the US. Caterpiller, John Deer, New Holland etc, etc need to get on the ball in providing electric ag vehicles as well as special means of getting massive amounts of electricity out to all the huge number of crops growing on the huge numbers of different terrains.
most well run farms already produce heaps of rooftop solar, and then where there is open farmland there should be wind power avaliable as well. I can see both swappable high voltage power packs (or containerized on-site CCS charging docks) serving mashinery as well as a buffer for running the farm at times of reduced PV production. Volvo and CAT already are working on that (while JCB has hitched it's waggon to H2. At the same time there already are autonomous farming bots that are a fraction of a large tractor, both battery driven and with a cable attached.
My biggest worry are the Diesel loving nay-sayers among the farming community itself. The comment section under most videos showing what's already possible (or me making a suggestion to go electric under a video fetishizing the latest ICE mashine) are really horrendous, especially when taking into consideration the fact that this needs to be started before the decade is out. Full transition to doing things the non fossile way to be done withing the next 15 years : /
When I visited the Superpit gold mine in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, i discovered that the hail trucks there use as much diesel in half a shift (refuel period) as my Toyota Prado would use in the 8000km round trip from Melbourne to Perth. The amount of fuel used by these trucks is astonishing.
Now do the cost math. Diesel is about $2.00 per litre here in BC.
When you start adding it up the cost is as enormous as the truck is.
That's why this is such a smart idea.
That is highly unlikely to change in Australia.
The haul path in the Super Pit changes too frequently and the emissions would simply move from the tailpipe to the the generation plants.
WA uses a combination of coal, gas and waste burning plants and some wind and solar in their mixed grid.
The other thing to raise is the demand on the local grid and how to upgrade that cost effectively.
Many Australian mines are so far remote that they have no choice but to generate their own electricity from diesel or gas generators.
@@Danger_mouse
Whenever you move emissions from tailpipe to power plant you reduce emissions.
The reason for that is a power plant burns far more efficiently than a "small" combustion engine. While these trucks ARE big, a power station is much bigger.
@@jimthain8777 This is understood mate, what I'm saying is that for mines in places like Australia, they can't plug into the grid.
There's either not enough capacity in the grid to the minesite to take on an electric fleet, or there's no grid at all.
Currently operating mines had their power budgets set in the planning stages sometimes 30yrs ago.
To duplicate the grid out to these remote locations is not feasible or economical.
So presumably the 'diesel' trucks in this video are actually electric drive, so the full-electric conversion is relatively straightforward?
Yes. Most heavy haul trucks are diesel electric, like trains. The engine runs a generator to power the motors.
The "electric" trucks are diesel electric Kumatsu 830E-5 with a trolley assist upgrade, they still carry their complete diesel electric drivetrain. Without the trolley assist upgrade it is a conventional diesel electric truck.
Pretty much all the majors have decarb projects underway, with very aggressive net zero targets. Electrification of mobile equipment is just the start. Sourcing clean power is also a focus. Not many operations are lucky enough to have access to clean hydro like Copper Mountain, so many mines around the world have started building their own renewable power generation plants. There's a number with large solar arrays and batteries in Australia for example.
This to me is one of the greatest strengths of renewables, democratising energy to the point that it's feasible for a large infra project like a mine to do it itself and move the bar.
I do find it odd they use trucks instead of conveyor belts to move that material. But I'm sure they've done the math and the trucks are more economical.
The scars that are left on Earth from mining are pretty sad to see. I wonder if that one could be used for pumped storage when they've finished the mining efforts.
The diggers are constantly moving their location. So only utilizing a conveyor belt would not be logistically possible. Plus as you pointed out the capital cost would be horrendously high.
I want one of these for school run and shopping.
Unfortunately, there's a grain of truth in what you say. Why do people drive 3 ton offroad trucks around town, when all they need is a 1.5 ton family car?
I recall an episode about the electric ferry in ?Sweden : I bet *that's* the biggest 'vehicle' you've ever filmed. "Wheeled vehicle": definitely. Or maybe that train in Queensland . . . "Rubber tyred vehicle" . . . ?
Fantastic presentation with great information!
What I would like to see is an effort to re-landscape the areas of the mine where the copper deposits have run dry. Let's not just leave gaping scars and holes after we've extracted those minerals.
That's often a part of the licensing agreement. Not that it's always acted on, companies will a lot of times use creative bankrupties to avoid site restoration, at least in the coal world, metals might be a slightly different game.
@@durwoodmaccool890that's why it needs to be made part of the initial investment. Construct the mine and funds in investment that can be used by the gov to do reconstruction properly once the mine life is done.
Did i hear that right? 23 tonnes for a single wheel??!
Yep
The really big haul trucks weigh 1.2 million lbs while fully loaded.
@@JohnR31415but the wheel's about as big as big pick up truck, how can it be that heavy? I'm genuinely trying to wrap my around this, it seems unfathomable
Trucks used in mining can weight 300-400 ton in total.
@@SweBeach2023 the 797 carries over 400 tonnes in its box. The total weight is over 600 tonnes. I work around these trucks. The one in the video is the small ones. It looks big until you see it next to the really big trucks.
Fully Charged is getting some good local content in while visiting the coastal province.
A perfect example why EVs won't work. In 2022, total lithium refined was 130,000 tons. A Tesla Semi uses 250 lbs of lithium. That means if you used every bit of lithium just forTesla Semi trucks you could make 1 million a year. There are 9 million heavy trucks just in the USA; it would take a decade to replace them and then you'd need to start to replace the 10 year old trucks; so that is using all the lithium on earth just to make Semi trucks for the USA, I guess the rest of the world won't need cars , trucks, cell phones or laptops etc.
Unfortunately for the Princeton, BC Copper mine the ore once treated gets moved by some filthy double trailer diesel trucks to Vancouver through a beautiful Park. So the company cares about hydro (power) costs not the environment or its inhabitants.
@1:40 ... strange anti-ev mining talking points refutation reason #4. oil extraction is mining too, and the pollutions resulting from it is a function of mass of fuel being mined. An average North American car 20k km/yr 10l/100km -> *0.75 kg/l -> 1500 kg. which is about the weight of the entire car. so People complaining about mining are overlooking that oil is mining too, and it is more mining in terms of mass, every year, than what is done for the life of an EV. And the above numbers are conservative, because to get 1l of gasoline, you need a bit more than 2 of crude oil. And that's before you get into the cobalt and platinum used to build ice vehicles.
"Stewardship" is a Rehabilitation program, (not carried out).
Mother Nature is recycling continents it's a waste of breath to object.
Yay for Electrification.
And "stop burning stuff" should have included global forestry. Reality is harsh.
The mines that haul loaded down from top of a mtn then charge uo the battrries to go enpty back up the mtn. A tain in Australia does this too. Yes 24 hr 7 days a wk. Lots big saving. Same with Robotic control. Its on a. Private rd too. The big trucks have the right away. $100 K cost of hightech itrms on a car big cost. On a big haul truck the 100K cost can be recovered in 1 yr labour saving. Battey cost pay back quickly too. Big power mines in Sk etc had Elect ( with cable yrs ago) Hey we had hybred vehicles too. Had to plug in over night to get engine started next morning at -40 C. Elect works better in winter too. Low humidity in winter cold diesel engines dont have good power. This is a problem with hey trucks too in the winter etc
So the real Prince Charming is the pantograph.
"Ohhhh, no it isn't!"
"Ohhhh, yes it is!"
[Cue the greasepaint, spangly fishnet tights and much thigh slapping. Brits will get the pantomime reference; others may simply be bemused...]
It made me laugh when I realised that the trucks pick up power from overhead cables. Why? As a youngster in south London, I used to regularly travel on trolleybuses up until the early 1960s - when they were withdrawn from service. These trucks are not a far cry from those trolleybuses of a bygone era - just a matter of scale! 21st innovation, or a return to an earlier technology? 🙂
It's a bit complicated to provide electric power to vehicles in motion, but refueling vehicles in motion is worse. Making then fully electric wouldn't be that technically challenging, the engine alone weighs >8 tonnes, dry weight, if I found the right model. Replacing that with batteries with the same weight as the engine, and fluids, can give you ~2 MWh battery capacity, which can put out 3 MW a few minutes at a time, a few times on a charge. But, you'd still want the overhead system to get uninterrupted operation, and ideally still while going uphill loaded.
2 MWh battery packs for a fleet would cost a lot of money, and it is often best to not change too much at once. Replacing >97% of the diesel fuel is undeniably a great improvement.
Sorry but this is what I would refer to as a green washing video. Mostly because as a rule BC hydro Produces vast quantities of methane from the destroyed lands that make up its reservoirs. Hydro also dose not take into account the environmental effect of their project, the needs of agriculture or aboriginal rights. Site C is classic of this lack of regard for the environment. Their own advisors were against this project from many point of view One was there was no need for the project from a demand point of view. The site of the dam is gelogicly unstable and has caused cost over runs and delay. do to one side of the dam being unstable. They are flooding much needed agricultural land. The down stream effects are also being ignored. Primarily because the majority of those effected are aboriginal. The use of roof top solar, solar farms, wind farms at the coast and geothermal would be far cleaner and cheaper than Site C. I know the pro BC Hydro stance by Fully charged is fueled by the green washing sponsorship of Hydro for the fully charged show here in Vancouver. On the up side the electrification of mining has been common for a long time especially in underground. It is being done for cost saving not environmental reasons. Mining in BC gets away with all kinds of eventual mining 'accidents' such as tailing pond failure.
A couple of problems here, where the right fuel really needs to be considered. And plant machinery really isn't the place to focus.
Plant machinery is typically used in locations where there is no, and it would be difficult to provide grid connection to charge the vehicles, and any electricity on-site is generated by diesel generators anyway. So, in most cases, there is no saving of 32L/km of fuel, it's just shifted elsewhere.
The only places where the cost or offset are where it's worth it, are in enclosed spaces, or gigantic mines like this with a grid connection.
That guy is loving it. Bring on the environmental movement. Let tax payers buy his trucks, pay for the dam and hydro plant, pay for the transmission lines. Win, win, win for the mining company. Not so much a win for tax payers.
How much did this company get in government subsidies to install the system and buy the trucks. Most likely tax payers paid for the trucks and system. So a great "savings" for the company using these trucks.
Thanks for driving into the new ways we see electrification beyond passenger cars. While the video touched lightly on the environmental and indigenous impacts of mining, I do think more could have been mentioned about the very heavy consequences of mining and what is being done other than electrification. Here in Canada we see waterways polluted and blocked and the forced takeover of indigenous lands for resource development.
This video is a great start, but because the point of this show is to ultimately promote sustainability, other environmental and social impacts should be explored further.
They burn less fuel. Unless you consider the fuel burned to make the electricity. The 2/3 loss of converting heat to shaft horsepower to spin a generator. The efficiency loss of the turbine. The loss of ten percent in the generator, the 5-7% loss of transmission and the 10 percent loss of the motors on the truck. Other than that, more efficient. Ha, Ha, Ha.
@5:11 It's not like the diesel powerplant isn't capable of higher speeds, it can. They have their speed restricted to save on fuel costs. This is same strategy that commercial cargo ships do. Even modern commercial aircrafts that are capable of achieving high cruising speeds are restricted to .85 mach because, you guessed it, save on fuel costs.
Outstanding episode, and just shows what is possible with determination, plus government and industry working together. 👍
Want a bigger electrical vehicle? Probably couldn't get much bigger than German bucket-wheel excavators (Braunkohlebagger).
You should research the metals inc Cobolt that’s in surgical replacement parts, like knee, hip joints etc. Take all those parts/tonnage per year and find out what happens to those fitted and then renewed a few years later to see if the used ones are broken for individual minerals?
I shudder at the delicate post mortem discussions with the loved ones of the deceased about a potential donation (to be fair they do that anyways when it comes to organ donations)
Is the hydro like the Iskut hydro? Where hundreds of millions was spent to make a dam and hydro plant to supply "cheap" power to a mine? Once again, tax payers pay to buy stuff for mines.
Love the optimism. My two grandchildren have a future, it won't be the same as what I experienced but no worse.
The problem has never been the ability of electric motors. All trains for the last 7 decades, including diesel powered trains, are propelled by electric motors because it's a lot more efficient. Some of the largest ships on the ocean are propelled by electric motors. Diesel is only used to produce the electricity.
Electric cranes for mining have been used for many decades. They just require very long extension cords for power.
That's cool! Very old technology, but more often than not, what's old is new again. With the extra load on the hydro-electric system, where does the extra power come from? Is it made up with fossil fuels? Is there less exported to the south, where it must be made up for with fossil fuels? Until we have a surplus of renewable electricity, adding extra load only transfers the CO2 emissions from the local tailpipe to the distant one. Sort of cart before the horse, if you will. What we SHOULD be focusing on is decarbonizing the electrical supply even to meet the CURRENT demand. THEN work on electrification and simultaneously work on further increasing electrical supply capacity.
The really sickening thing, the thing you missed *_completely,_* is the history - _electric motive power was developed at the same time as _*_steam,_*_ a _*_whole century before_*_ the internal combustion engine!_
*The only thing that's changed over the last century is scale & even that is just a slow progress without any sudden jumps.*
I wish they could upgrade them to get rid completely of the diesel engine. Since the fuel consumption is so low, and there is plentiful of power from the pantographs, it would need a far smaller and lighter backup battery.
I heard about a mine situated at high elevation that uses fully electric trucks to bring down the ore and making extra electricity in the process as it uses regenerative braking when going down and when going up it's empty and light.
The 'diesel' one is also electric. it uses a diesel engine to create electrical power to drive the wheels. The same way that an locomotive does. It doesnt have a diesel engine with a drive shaft going to the rear wheels. A little misleading to say they are diesel only when they are not. Ironic you say you want to stop misinformation when you did just that.
Would I be right in assuming that the diesel powered haul trucks have electric drive motors in the wheels anyway? So electrifying the whole thing must be easy as pie! (pi?)
Was thinking they put an insane amount of batteries on these trucks which is worse then diesel imo, but this is way better. They drive up the same road all the time so it makes sense to have a trolly truck!
With a bit of battery on board they could recharge from regen braking going down hill. When trains and trams do it they put electricity back into the overhead wires but here it seems there are only wires for going uphill.
Like in the food industry, there is sure coming an awareness how consumer hardware and raw materials where made and how ecological they where produced or mined. It will make overthink other raw material industries to get in environment friendly mining, if they want sell to the following generations.
Sure, the greenwashing "industry" will never die and many will choose the comfort way with commercial spots instead of doing real things.
These aren't new. Open pit mines have been using electric trucks with either diesel generators or a trolly like power systems for decades. Check out Edison motors. They are applying the same solution for semis.
How do they get fuel and equipment in. Yeh sometimes over frozen ice roads. Or flown in. Yup gets very expensive.
1:23 How about I tell you, that behind only one of your gold rings somewhere out there are 20 tones of rock dug out? Multiply the weight for the other ornaments.
Keep in mind the wast amount of all the electric energy needed to refine Oil into Diesel will then be replaced by a direct usage in electric trucks.
So when are we gonna start mining the infinite resources of asteroids to fuel our mineral consumption here on Earth? Why limit ourselves to scarring our terrestial preserves when we can extract the same stardust that made our planet but out in the vacuum of space?
We need charge as you go infra for long distance cargo trucks and public transport. Patch of road with over head cables that can be tapped into by vehicles on the move and they charge up the batteries as there cover the distance.
You Fools! Now that you have shown this truck, some people will now want to buy one to do the weekly shopping and drive the kids to school in. 😵
Surprisingly it wasn't mentioned that almost all huge machines like mining equipment are electric anyways. You can't f.e. built a gearbox for such a huge truck. As they are almost always "hybrids", there is a huge potential for reducing complexity as well.
That's not even a new idea, back in WWII that monstrosity that was going to be the Maus (almost 200 tons of tank) had a diesel engine... to power the electric drive train.
So it's a tram?
Why are these trucks needed? If you already have this electric line system why not just use a conveyer belt or something similar to haul the material
12MW! Suddenly my 0.35MW Polestar feels inadequate...
Hey some mine sites the conveyor belt loaded goung down supplys eeven extra Ekect power for the rest of the mine site.
do they have enough battery to get use of the regeneration on the way back down the hill as well? the fact they go twice as ast must be pretty compelling as a buisness case.
U didnt really cover the electric part of the hauler. Does it still have a battery? U talked about diesel engine still. ??? Obviously it can move without connnected to the power lines.