DIGGING THE FUTURE
From drones to electric vehicles, Saskatchewan blazes new trails in mining technology
The mine of the future will be battery powered — and in Saskatchewan, that future has already arrived.
Leading the way is a small but ambitious Saskatoon-based firm called PMP (Prairie Machine and Parts).
“We actually have the most advanced underground electric vehicle program in the world for mining,” says Luke Mason, business development manager with PMP.
“In fact, Canada as a country is at the forefront of the implementation of electric vehicles for mining.”
Saskatchewan potash producers have been the vanguard of this technology since PMP got into the electric vehicle business after it saw one in use a couple of years ago.
“We’re the No. 1 supplier for mining systems in Saskatchewan, and we saw an electric vehicle drive by at a mine we were visiting and thought, ‘That’s a game-changer,’ ” he says.
The vehicle was built by a small startup called PapaBravo Innovations, also based in Saskatoon.
PMP ended up buying the company.
Saskatchewan’s mining industry has long been a leader in innovation, whether it’s implementing technology such as drones for aerial surveying, or developing new techniques for production.
Pioneering new ideas is simply part of the fabric of the province’s industry, says Carey Hyndman, spokeswoman with Cameco, one of the world’s largest producers of uranium.
The Saskatoon-based firm’s Cigar Lake mine in northern Saskatchewan exemplifies that penchant for thinking outside the box. At the world’s highest-grade uranium mine, the company employs new techniques and technologies in one of the most challenging underground environments in the world, she says.
“Cameco is unable to use traditional mining methods to access the ore.”
To deal with the problems presented by the deposit’s geology, it developed a new, non-entry mining method, using a jet boring system. “Because the deposit is found within sandstone that is water-bearing, we had to do bulk ground freezing to stabilize the formation.”
Years of trial and error were needed to get the process just right. A machine bores through dry rock beneath the deposit to create production tunnels. Then the jet boring system moves though the tunnels, drilling pilot holes into the frozen ore.
Then a jet-boring nozzle is inserted into the pilot holes and a high-pressure stream of water is shot into the ore to break it apart to be taken to the surface.
Key to the process is limiting the exposure of workers to the ore, Hyndman says.
“All of this was developed to deal with the challenging geology, but it also offers radiation protection advantages, as interaction with the high-grade ore is minimized.”
Other firms are innovating by adopting existing technologies developed for non-mining applications.
Westmoreland Coal Co. in the southeast part of the province uses drones to take aerial photographs that are fed into 3D modelling software. The technology saves time and money because it’s faster than other methods, such as surveying on foot using GPS. Moreover, drones help increase accuracy, which also reduces costs, one of its engineers told Ore magazine, published by the Saskatchewan Mining Association.
The Saskatchewan industry’s ingenuity is being incorporated into mines elsewhere in Canada. PMP is working with multinational mining firms Goldcorp and Glencore in hard rock mines in Ontario.
“The deeper you mine, the greater the advantage of electric vehicles,” Mason says.
Conventional mining vehicles have diesel engines, and the particulates from exhaust are known carcinogens, presenting ventilation challenges.
“With very deep mines, the cost of ventilation is astronomical,” he says. “You have to pump a certain amount of air underground to ventilate these mines, and Ontario has some of the deepest mines in the world.”
So far, PMP has been building smaller vehicles that will transport workers.
One of its competitive advantages over larger manufacturers is that it builds electric vehicles from the ground up. They’re designed and constructed to be battery powered — a rarity in the industry. Most other electric vehicles, including trucks that haul ore, are designed for diesel powertrains and have to be modified to become electric vehicles.
“Most of the industry right now is focused on converting diesel equipment into electric,” Mason says. “The advantage we have had is that we started with an electric vehicle.”
Moreover, PMP has been working on the technology longer than most because the firm it acquired, PapaBravo, had its first prototype in a working mine in 2010.
Already about 100 PMP vehicles are in use in every underground potash mine in Saskatchewan. And the technology is now garnering interest from potential customers from around the globe.
“I don’t like to use the term, but yes we are ‘the Tesla’ of underground mining,” Mason says, referring to the electric automobile maker. “But in underground mining, there are all these different challenges that Tesla would never face. It’s some of the most demanding and extreme applications for vehicles in the world.”
Of course rising to the challenge is nothing new.
“Saskatchewan, in general, has been pushing the envelope for technology, and applications and systems to mine for decades,” Mason says. “It’s just something we’re known for the world over.”
(Underground mining is) some of the most demanding and extreme applications for vehicles in the world.