Technology for Underground Loading and Hauling Systems Offers Exciting Prospects

摘要

Clean-running automated mobile machines are no longer a dream for underground miners. Cutting-edge fuelcell technology promises the low emission characteristics of a battery-powered LHD drive system with the versatility of a diesel-powered machine. Autonomous machines are already proving they can work in a production environment. In fact, the world's first commercial application for robot LHDs, Sandvik Tamrock's AutoMine, was recently commissioned at Codelco's El Teniente mine in Chile. Given that ventilation requirements for diesel-powered equipment are costly, growing more expensive with increasing depths and temperature gradients, fuelcell-powered machines could offer major savings. It's taken some time to reach this stage--an actual machine ready to run that only emits water vapor from the tailpipe. Back in 2001, there were confident reports that the fuelcell loader would be on the market in five years with a price tag estimated to be roughly 25 percent higher than conventional units and now, four years later that claim seems somewhat premature. Initial tests of the experimental Caterpillar (CAT) R1300 LHD fitted with a fuelcell stack have yet to be completed before the machine can start the second phase of its trials at an underground hard rock mining application in Nevada.