September 2014
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World Coal
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37
S
ufficient and reliable supply of mineral commodities is an
indispensable basis for the development and performance of
any industrialised economy. For example, every German
citizen consumes more than 950 t of mineral raw materials,
including fossil fuels, metallic ores, industrial minerals and aggregates
during an average 78 year life time.
The economic growth of developing countries and a rapidly
growing global population cause demand for mineral commodities to
increase year by year, accelerating in the last decade to new records.
More than 12 billion tpa of solid mineral commodities are currently
mined.
As internal mass transport in the mine is estimated to cover about
25% of total energy consumption of mining projects, it is an important
issue regarding costs and greenhouse gas emissions. Haulage is an
interesting field for optimisation.
The basis for any optimisation is predominantly a technical and
economical evaluation of the employed or planned system and the
final comparison of results for different possible solutions.
Apart from technology and costs, environmental aspects are
increasingly focused on by society, politicians and authorities and
therefore also focused on by decision makers within the mining
industry.
Dr David Buttgereit,
XGraphic, and
Prof. Hussein Tudeshki
and Thomas Hardebusch,
TU Clausthal, Germany,
discuss the use of
economic and ecological
analysis software and its
use in mining, engineering
and material handling
operations.
A reliable
guide
