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Mining giant, Anglo American has unveiled the world's biggest hydrogen-powered mine haul truck. The massive truck is three stories tall and weighs in at over 220-tonnes. The truck is said to have entered operations at Mogalakwena PGMs mine in South Africa.
The nuGen prototype is said to be the first of a large fleet, said to replace the company's conventional diesel-powered trucks. The hydrogen truck is powered by a 1.2 MWh battery pack, with eight fuel cells producing a total output of 2,682 BHP. The hydrogen truck is also said to boast of multiple electric motors, regenerative braking and the ability to carry 290 tonnes of ore.
As per reports, the hydrogen truck is based on a diesel model and took three years to build. The company currently has plans to retrofit 40 diesel-powered trucks to hydrogen at their mine in South Africa. Thereafter, the company also has plans to roll out the hydrogen tech to power their global fleet consisting of around 400 trucks.
Duncan Wanblad, CEO, Anglo American, said that if the pilot operation of the hydrogen truck is successful and implemented across the globe, it would help remove 80% of the diesel emission at the open-pit mines.
Reports suggest that a typical diesel-powered truck consumes 9 lakh litres of fuel every year. By replacing these with the hydrogen truck, it could keep '700 cars' worth of carbon dioxide emissions out of the atmosphere.
Source:
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Intresting!
This is a very good idea. Carbon emissions from these trucks due to operation can theoretically be taken to 0%. Lots of solar panels around mines could be used as a source of electricity to generate hydrogen. Mines are always far away from general population. So availability of land for solar parks isn't an issue.
However there are some safety issues regarding hydrogen. Especially since it's flame is invisible and hard to put out.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thilak29
(Post 5313053)
Remarkably interesting. There is ample scope for such green initiatives. ABB is working on converting mines into e mines and here are couple of clips..
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If you're interested, there's actually been a lot of proposals to retool legacy mines towards energy transition use cases. Not open pit mines I should add. But some of the proposals include as areas to store server farms, or fill with water as giant potential energy storage systems. Another possibility being explored is utilising the latent heat of mine water in district heating schemes (geothermal).
Pretty cool to see Anglo American fielding hydrogen in their big mining trucks. I'm one of those who believe hard to electrify sectors such as heavy transport and shipping will have no choice but to go the hydrogen route in order to decarbonise so it's fascinating to see this in action in one such end user case. It's a pilot scheme granted but the results will be very useful in determining whether if at all there's merit to the hydrogen approach (obviously Elon is the most influential detractor).
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