Cement Energy Environment

27 Switching from fossil fuels to renewable fuels • Bio-mining process application - the process of using small organisms, such as bacteria, to extract metals from ore, has a lower environmental impact and requires less energy. • Replacing drilling and blasting methods with continuous miners with dust suppression methods. It involves fewer people, can be performed remotely, and will operate on an around-the-clock schedule. • If blasting is required then it should be effective blasting with better fragmentation, which helps in reducing GHG emission levels in subsequent processing of material, as it - Reduces the amount of ore sent to crushing/grinding, - allows for bulk sorting (takes out less-viable rock earlier) is easy • Few mines (example – Rio Tinto mine) developed a more efficient aluminium smelter that lowered its costs & emissions while improving productivity by 40%. • Use of Electric Motors tend to be more emissions-efficient than similar diesel-powered machines. - the electricity source is cleaner - Less noisy - less maintenance - Less noxious fumes exhausted or diesel particulate matter for U/g Mining - produce less heat than diesel equivalents, reducing ventilation needs. • OEMs such as Sandvik, MacLean Engineering, and others are developing battery or electric-powered drills, bolters, and other mining machines. • By using electric machines instead of diesel, Goldcorp Borden Lake Gold Mine in Ontario, Canada, expects to save 7,000 tons of CO 2 , 2 million litres of diesel, and 1 million litres of propane annually. This help Goldcorp’s bottom line, and it will help its social license as well; operating a cleaner mine makes obtaining the necessary environmental permits easier. • Ministry of Mines, Govt of India, vide letter no. 20/55/2016 dated 01.07.16 have already emphasized on application and adoption of solar power in the form of Mega watt scale Solar plants in mining fields and to use minimum 5% of the total power consumption through solar energy. Environmentally beneficial electrification refers to the “electrification of energy end uses that have been powered by fossil fuels (natural gas, propane, gasoline, diesel, or fuel oil) in order to reduce GHG emissions.”