It may be early days for green hydrogen usage in the hard-to-abate mining sector, but a number of companies are becoming more serious about adopting it to help decarbonise their operations, especially their heavy-duty haul trucks and loaders.

Hydrogen has inherent advantages over batteries for such vehicles, while it has been argued that the mining sector has first-mover advantage for hydrogen given the high cost of diesel in more remote locations.

“For mine equipment such as large mining trucks and loaders, hydrogen has two key features that set it apart from battery electric technology—a low mass-to-energy ratio, and very fast fuelling capability,” Andrew Stuart, president and CEO of Hydrogen Optimized, a Canadian developer of large-scale green hydrogen electrolysers, tells Hydrogen Economist. “With current battery technology, the relatively high mass and long charge time are prohibitive given the energy intensity of large-scale mining equipment and processes.”

“One of the beauties of hydrogen is that you can locally produce it” Stuart, Hydrogen Optimized

At the same time, many mine sites have plenty of space to construct solar and wind power installations to power their mining operations, as well as the electrolysers to produce green hydrogen. “One of the beauties of hydrogen is that you can locally produce it,” says Stuart.

The mining sector accounts for 1pc of global greenhouse gas emissions, excluding fugitive-methane emissions from coal mining, based on McKinsey’s Basic Materials Institute estimates.

Hydrogen moves

Tokyo-based Komatsu is starting a programme to develop a line of hydrogen-powered haul trucks (similar to the above picture) for the mining industry, reported in February, the first major manufacturer to do so. The company is targeting a 2030 launch date, as it foresees several technical hurdles to overcome for these massive vehicles—up to 300t—and the high cost of fuel cells at the present time. On that note, Komatsu is planning to procure the fuel-cell stacks for its trucks from outside suppliers.

But this timeline is too slow for London-based Anglo American, the ninth-largest mining company in the world and widely regarded as the early leader in the sector’s shift towards green hydrogen. The company, in partnership with the UK-based Williams Advanced Engineering, has converted a massive Komatsu 930E haul truck to a fuel-cell and lithium-ion battery powered prototype, with trials to start at Anglo’s Mogalakwena platinum mine in South Africa this year.

If all goes well, the company is planning to convert its entire fleet of heavy-duty haul trucks at sevens mines to hydrogen by 2030, with the 40 trucks at the Mogalakwena mine to be converted beginning in 2024. In this case, Anglo American would install 75MW of solar power generation capacity near the mine-site in a first phase, and ultimately 320MW, to power the mine and produce hydrogen to fuel the trucks and possibly other hydrogen-powered applications.

Hydrogen also has the potential to “buffer the renewable energy supply from its peaks and valleys”, according to Hydrogen Optimized’s Stuart, which is exactly what Glencore, the largest mining company in the world, has done at its Raglan nickel mining complex in the extreme north of Quebec. During periods of low consumption, the mine’s two wind turbines power an electrolyser to produce hydrogen, providing longer-term storage for the mine site than batteries.

1pc – Mining sector’s contribution to global emissions

Finally, Hatch, the global engineering and consulting company, along with three mining companies—Anglo American, BHP and Fortescue Metals—formed the Green Hydrogen Consortium last year with the aim of expanding hydrogen use in the mining sector and at companies that use their products, such as steelmakers, to slash carbon emissions throughout the supply chain.

Proposed activities of the consortium, which has a three-year mandate, include undertaking research on green hydrogen technologies and supply chains, and piloting projects to de-risk technologies to accelerate their adoption.

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Author: Vincent Lauerman