The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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Enormous 140-metric-ton autonomous Cat trucks loaded with lithium-boron ore will be driving themselves around on the very first day of operations at ioneer Ltd.'s Rhyolite Ridge project in Nevada. Slated to begin operations in 2024, the Rhyolite Ridge Mine is expected to produce an average of 20,600 metric tons of lithium carbonate and 174,400 metric tons of boric acid annually for 26 years. Electric vehicle batteries are driving unprecedented demand for the lithium to be...
RapidSX team on pace to begin commissioning REE separation plant this year Despite snarled supply chains, Ucore Rare Metals Inc. says it remains on track to begin commissioning a plant in Canada that will demonstrate the commercial viability of its RapidSX separation technology to automakers and others that are seeking an efficient and sustainable means of producing the rare earths needed for electric vehicles, renewable energy, high-tech devices, and household goods. A suite...
Elk Creek demo plant recovers magnesium-calcium carbonate with 99% purity. As an initial step toward the ultimate goal of producing niobium, rare earths, scandium, and titanium at a future Elk Creek Mine, NioCorp Developments Ltd. announced that its demonstration-scale processing plant in Quebec, Canada has produced a high-grade calcium-magnesium carbonate from ore obtained from its critical minerals project in Nebraska. The idea behind removing the calcium and magnesium from...
Lux Partners will tokenize Madison uranium to create first uranium NFT. Is digitizing and selling mineral resources still in the ground the future of financing mineral exploration and mining projects? Madison Metals Inc. believes it could be and has signed a historic agreement to contribute up to 20 million pounds of uranium from resources at its projects in Namibia to support the first-ever uranium-backed NFTs. NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique digital assets that are...
A recent rare earth elements discovery in the far northern reaches of Maine demonstrates the value of the U.S. Geological Survey's Earth Mapping Resources Initiative, or Earth MRI, an aptly named project under which the USGS is partnering with state geologists to scan America's geology and critical mineral resource potential. Much like the Earth MRI name implies, the Maine project began with airborne magnetic and radiometric geophysical surveys that provided a picture of the...
TMX info services division offers AI-powered mining analytics software. Prospecting for investment gems out of more than 2,000 publicly traded mining and mineral exploration companies has gotten a lot easier and accessible with a new agreement for TMX Datalinx, the information services division of the mining exchange powerhouse TMX Group, to sell the artificial intelligence-powered Prospector analytical tool. The brainchild of Emily King, a geologist and visionary with extensi...
Psyche mission to $10 quintillion metal asteroid is slated for 2023. NASA and the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory are psyched about a recent decision to put their planned mission to a metal-rich asteroid beyond Mars back on the docket. The space agency had originally planned to send a probe to 16 Psyche, a roughly 140-mile-wide asteroid in the belt between Mars and Jupiter, earlier this year. This mission, named after the destination asteroid, however, had to be scrubbed...
OZ Minerals, Rio Tinto and Boliden launch initiative that encourages entrepreneurs to reimagine mining and mine tailings. Setting aside professional rivalries for the greater good, OZ Minerals, Boliden, and Rio Tinto have joined forces to nurture new technologies that will reduce the environmental risks posed by mine tailings and extract value from these materials currently considered waste after the targeted metals are extracted. "It isn't very often that competitors come...
To build team of experts focused on accelerating decarbonization of mining through electrification. Switzerland-based ABB and Australia-based Perenti Group have forged a partnership focused on establishing strategies that will help their mining clients achieve net-zero carbon emissions at operations around the globe. ABB, a company that has been electrifying mines since delivering the first drives and controls to a mine in Sweden in 1891, brings more than 130 years of...
Demonstration of Cat 793 Electric mining truck; new mine site of the future to be built at Tucson test site. With executives from some of the world's largest mining companies on hand to witness the historic event, Caterpillar Inc. carried out its first demonstration of a battery electric 793 large mining truck prototype at the heavy equipment company's proving grounds south of Tucson, Arizona. Roughly as tall as a two-story building and capable of carrying nearly 500,000...
USGS to carry out Earth MRI scan of lithium-rich areas of western states. Building upon its successful scans of the United States for potential sources of minerals critical to everything from smartphones and kitchen gadgets to the electric vehicles and wind turbines powering the renewable energy future, the U.S. Geological Survey announced it is investing $1.45 million for Earth Mapping Resources Initiative programs in Nevada and Oregon. Under the cleverly named Earth MRI...
Polymathian will bolster Sandvik's automated and battery-electric mining solutions. In yet another move to bolster its digital mining technologies division, Sandvik has cut a deal to acquire Polymathian Industrial Mathematics, an Australia-based provider of advanced mine optimization software and services. Founded in 2013 by a trio of mathematicians and operations researchers, Polymathian leverages its world-leading expertise in industrial mathematics, simulation, machine...
Boston Dynamics' Spot fitted with Exyn autonomy and Trimble 3D scanning tech. Upgraded with the powerful autonomy offered by Exyn Technologies and Trimble's advanced 3D scanning system, Boston Dynamics' Spot robot dog has been transformed into a state-of-the-art autonomous surveyor that can traverse, image, and map complex environments without the need for GPS or other guidance. "The integration of autonomous surveying technology into a construction workflow has...
Seeking to unearth the future of smart mining, Swedish telecom giant Ericsson has partnered with Becker Mining Systems AG to distribute private 5G networks at global operations. According to a recent report by Ericsson, the successful implementation of digitalization into the mining sector could potentially triple productivity growth in the industry by 2025 – shining a light on the value of creating data-driven mines. With the apparent necessity mining will play in the o...
Rio Tinto, Ottawa to invest C$737M in lowering GHG emissions, upping critical minerals output in Quebec. Mining giant Rio Tinto and the Canadian government have committed to investing up to C$737 million (US$537 million) into significantly reducing the greenhouse gas emissions at Rio Tinto Fer et Titane (RTFT), a metallurgical complex in Quebec that produces titanium, scandium, steel, and other metal products critical to electric vehicles, 3D printing, and aerospace. "Rio...
USGS, NASA use hyperspectral imaging to seek critical minerals in Southwest US. To gain a broader view of potential domestic sources of the minerals needed for everything from electronic devices and household tools to electric vehicles and wind turbines, the U.S. Geological Survey has teamed up with NASA to use airborne hyperspectral imaging to scan portions of the American Southwest for critical minerals. "NASA has a long history of Earth observation that shows us how the pla...
Rio Tinto, Scania are reimagining mining with more agile and efficient self-driving truck. Will the automation and electrification of mining trucks shrink the size of equipment used to dig up and haul ore and waste rock at mines around the globe? Rio Tinto believes it could and has teamed up with Scania to develop more energy-efficient and agile autonomous haul trucks at the Channar iron ore mine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. "Rio Tinto is excited to partner...
Plans to build first rare earths plant In the Gulf Coast state by 2024. With $10 million in economic incentives and quicker permitting of already established industrial sites on the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana has lured Ucore Rare Metals Inc. and its proprietary rare earths separation technology away from Alaska. In 2020, Ucore set a plan in motion to begin producing individual rare earth elements in Alaska by 2023. The idea was to install its RapidSX rare earths separation...
Adding to the rapidly expanding line of mineral exploration and mining products, technologies, and services, Epiroc has cut a deal to acquire Geoscan Pty Ltd, an Australian company that provides digital mineralogical analysis and core logging solutions. Logging the cylindrical core of rock brought to the surface by drilling into the earth provides geologist with a layer-by-layer view of the rocks that lay beneath their feet and sampling that core provides a detailed analysis o...
Continuing a trend of supporting mineral exploration with its cutting-edge artificial intelligence and machine learning software, Minerva Intelligence Inc. has carried out a case study on the Lone Star gold zone on Klondike Gold Corp.'s Eldorado property in the Dawson Creek Mining District of Yukon, Canada. Evaluated using Minerva's DRIVER software, Klondike Gold says it was extremely impressed with the results. "The close agreement between DRIVER's model extents and...
To speed the discovery of nickel needed in enormous quantities for the lithium-ion batteries powering the electric vehicle revolution, Talon Metals Corp. is piloting Fleet Space Technologies' ExoSphere satellite-enabled geophysics system. Fleet's ExoSphere system utilizes a combination of lightweight earthbound geophones, edge computing, and a constellation of low-earth-orbit nanosatellites to quickly and efficiently scan the Earth for potential mineral deposits buried...
Autonomous Cat mining trucks surpass 5 billion metric ton mark Accelerating at an accelerating rate, Caterpillar Inc.'s mighty mining trucks have now autonomously hauled 5 billion metric tons of material at mines around the globe. This self-driving milestone comes just nine months after the "Yellow Iron" manufacturer reported that its trucks equipped with Cat MineStar Command for hauling surpassed the 4-billion-metric-ton mark. Currently, more than 550 mining trucks are...
Demonstration plant to verify simplified critical minerals recovery Looking to expand the suite of critical metals produced from a future mine at Elk Creek, NioCorp Developments Ltd. is testing a simplified process for recovering rare earth elements alongside the niobium, scandium, and titanium for which the Nebraska critical minerals project is best known. According to a feasibility study completed earlier this year, an underground mine at Elk Creek would produce an...
EarthLabs Inc., the newly formed holding company that now encompasses GoldSpot Discoveries Corp., announced that the use of its artificial intelligence has successfully assisted MacDonald Mines Exploration Ltd. to intercept copper, gold, and silver with recent drilling at the high-priority Alwyn target in Ontario, Canada. You can read about the company's restructuring under EarthLabs at GoldSpot forms EarthLabs for mining tech in the July 22, 2022, edition of Metal Tech News....
FTP Solutions and Rajant team up to deliver reliable autonomous mine network solution Rajant Corp., a global leader in industrial-grade broadband communications technology, has teamed up with FTP Solutions, a provider of market-leading wireless network monitoring systems, to deliver the extremely reliable and robust communications networks required for efficient and effective autonomous mining operations. Rajant's patented Kinetic Mesh technology offers mine sites with the...