Release Date: May 3, 2007

MORGANTOWN, WV - An archive of information from the Mining Industry of the Future program is now available on the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) website. The archive includes fact sheets, roadmaps, annual reports, and other materials from the highly successful program, which was launched in 1998 to improve the energy efficiency and environmental performance of the mining industry.

Each year, more than 20 tons of raw materials, including more than 7,500 pounds of coal, must be mined per person to maintain Americans’ high standard of living. Common household items such as a telephone require as many as 42 different mined materials, including aluminum, beryllium, copper, gold, iron, limestone, and silica.

Getting at these materials requires enormous amounts of energy.  Each year in the United States, mining consumes 1.25 quadrillion Btus of energy—enough to power more than 11 million single-family homes. Technologies developed under the Mining Industry of the Future program, a collaboration between the U.S. mining industry and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), could theoretically slash energy use for coal, industrial minerals, and metals mining in half.

“The Mining Industry of the Future program provides funding for high-risk, high-cost mining research that industry otherwise would not be able to conduct on its own,” said Mike Mosser, the Mining Industries of the Future portfolio manager for NETL, which implements the program for the Department of Energy (DOE). “The program has received tremendous support from the mining industry. In only 8 years, the program sponsored 48 cost-shared projects with 146 project partners.  Cost sharing was 56 percent, with industry contributing $34.6 million to DOE’s $27.3 million.”

Perhaps even more impressive is the quality of the research.  Six technologies developed under the program received prestigious R&D 100 Awards from R&D Magazine for being among “the 100 most technologically significant products introduced into the marketplace” during the preceding year:

• EDIT Horizon Sensor — A sensor that “sees ahead” of coal-mining equipment, increasing the accuracy of cutting, reducing wastes, and improving safety.
• Fibrous Monolith Composite Ceramics — A new class of structural ceramics that lessens wear on drilling and cutting tools and reduces energy consumption.
• RIM-IV Imaging System — An imaging system that has been used at more than 40 mine sites over the past 3 years and is projected to save $42 million per year by 2020.
• SmartScreenSystems™ — An energy-saving screening device that separates fine mineral particles by size and improves mining safety.
• Drill String Radar™ — A radar navigation system for horizontal drilling that lowers operational risk, reduces drilling costs, and cuts energy use.
• Data Transmission System — A real-time communication instrument that can significantly improve the productivity and profitability of drilling and mining operations.

The archive contains fact sheets about these and other projects, along with program roadmaps that were “developed with industry input and used to prioritize research efforts,” according to Mosser. Available roadmaps include the Crosscutting Technologies Roadmap (1999), the Mineral Processing Technologies Roadmap (2000), and the Exploration and Technologies Roadmap (2000). The website also holds white papers, annual reports, and studies such as the new Mining Industry Energy Bandwidth Study, which is due out later this year.

“The program archive is a valuable repository that helps explain where the mining industry has been, where it is now, and where it is going,” said Joe Renk, a mining project manager for NETL. “The projects demonstrate the promise of advanced technology to solve energy and environmental problems, and the program structure is a model of public-private collaboration.”

The online archive can be accessed from NETL’s mining reference shelf.  More information about the Mining Industry of the Future program is available on EERE’s Office of Industrial Technologies.