First Battery-Powered Mine

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

Goldcorp has launched the world's first all-electric mine, meaning machines will work with batteries instead of diesel. Sounds like good news to me. Much less noise, much less dirt from the diesel engines. I'm just wondering how much the batteries cost and how durable they are. Goldcorp says it will save $9 million from the switch.

[NickW + 2,714]

8 hours ago, Marina Schwarz said:

Goldcorp has launched the world's first all-electric mine, meaning machines will work with batteries instead of diesel. Sounds like good news to me. Much less noise, much less dirt from the diesel engines. I'm just wondering how much the batteries cost and how durable they are. Goldcorp says it will save $9 million from the switch.

Probably saves a fortune in fortune liability claims. 

Diesel particulate and NOX from diesel exhaust are significant health hazards in mines and tunnels. With NO2 you can't filter it out so unless people wear SCBA / have air lines they have to breath it in. 

[JunoTen + 118]

Excellent news for their business from a financial point of view and also for the health of their employees. More and more mines will go all-electric, which is great.

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

I really want to know what batteries they use. These are heavy machines, right? They have got to be were very powerful and durable, I guess. Bit of a battery fan, me.

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

For this all electric underground mine Goldcorp uses Mac Lean Engineering and Sandvik vehicles.

In the 2018 Mac Lean report I've found this good explanation of the reason why they choose to switch to EV for underground mining  :

We moved rapidly into the EV propulsion space because we saw the business drivers the industry was facing – heat and ventilation requirements becoming a prohibitive cost with a diesel combustion fleet, where the only economic way to access increasingly hard-to-reach ore bodies is through the introduction of electric vehicles, reducing ventilation and equipment maintenance costs and providing a work environment free of diesel fine particulate matter.
 

http://www.macleanengineering.com/images/support/innovation-report/Innovation-Report-2018_v001_r0.pdf

https://www.rocktechnology.sandvik/en/products/underground-loaders-and-trucks/electric-underground-lhds/