Pod 3: Hydrogen powered mining trucks

In the third content pod, speakers focused on one of the most near-term applications for green hydrogen in mining: heavy-haulage surface trucks. According to panellists discussing the latest key developments, the interest of the past few years has turned into activity, with Anglo American moving forward with its hydrogen truck pilot, OZ Minerals looking into hydrogen trucks as part of its Think and Act Differently incubator, and BHP, Rio Tinto and Vale’s Charge On Challenge, which aims to find electrification solutions for large trucks. “The list of available options is starting to be filtered down. It’s widely accepted that mining companies won’t be able to hit their goals without going after haulage quite aggressively. Everybody thought that in 2019 and in 2020 the maths was done to prove it,” said Robert Schaefer, Director, Mining Accounts, Growth and Innovation at Cummins.

Everyone in the sector agrees that collaboration between miners, OEMs and the overall green hydrogen supply chain is indispensable to build a solid business case for these vehicles. The International Council on Mining and Metals’ Innovation for Cleaner Safer Vehicles was one of the first industry collaborations to be set up in 2018. After a few years of awareness building, it expects to share an adoptionfocused strategic roadmap early next year.

Compared to battery-electric vehicles, fuel cell haul trucks present a similar operating and refuelling flexibility to diesel vehicles, but they generate heat and require air filtration in dusty environments. But speakers warned against the tendency to pit one technology against the other. “Hydrogen fuel cell trucks come with a battery as part of it, so we have to solve both technologies. Economic analysis is still needed for these large systems,” noted Michael Lewis, Technical Director at Komatsu. To conduct this analysis, the OEM recently launched the Komatsu Greenhouse Gas Alliance, a collaboration with Rio Tinto, BHP, Codelco and Boliden on product planning, development, testing and deployment of the next generation of zero-emission mining equipment and infrastructure.

Another company modelling the different hydrogen fuel truck applications in mines is Ricardo. Michael Davies, Senior ASEAN technical Authority and Business Development Manager at the firm noted that the vehicles’ arduous duty cycles, high loads and minimum down time required were challenges to overcome in decarbonization. However, heavy haul trucks’ repetitive and well-defined duty cycles, in a self-contained site with an opportunity to install refuelling and hydrogen production infrastructure make the business case for fuel cell vehicles more attractive. “Modelling tools enable significant reductions in development time and improve the robustness of early system decisions, delivering optimized vehicle attributes,” Davies added.

For Kristina Hamernik, Business Development at TUGLIQ Energy Corp, which is preparing to trial both battery-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles at Glencore’s Raglan Mine in the Canadian Arctic, any vehicle electrification programme for a remote site isn’t simply about picking a technology: it’s about making sure there’s a clean energy ecosystem in place to support the application. “It’s paramount to look at the operational needs of the mines and whether there is on-site renewable energy generation to support green hydrogen. There’s also a need for smart dispatch and energy management systems to ensure that hydrogen is generated and vehicles are charged when green power is online,” she advised.

And of course, safety has to be a priority. Geirmund Vislie, Vice President of Hydrogen Safety at Gexcon, shared recommendations for hydrogen plant design practices, and insisted on the importance of ventilation to avoid fatalities in case of an enclosed explosion. “We recommend that any enclosed hydrogen equipment be subject to analysis to find what kind of venting mechanism should be used to prevent the impact of an enclosed explosion,” he added.

In any case, the time to consider and model the various material movement decarbonization options is now, as purchasing decisions will have to be made in a short few years. In a panel on hydrogen trucks, Mauricio Duarte, Senior Engineer at Vale, explained: “The decision needs to be made in the next five years if we expect material movement to play a significant share in our GHG reduction. We are working with suppliers to know when we can expect those trucks to be available and then working backwards to make sure we have all the infrastructure in place by then. 2030 is just around the corner.”