Andrew Jenkin
General Manager Innovation, Technology Transfer Rio Tinto, Australia

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In Australia, companies like Rio Tinto face a great deal of pressure in relation to the issue of climate change. The resources industry consumes large quantities of energy in the mining, moving, and mineral recovery processes that are required to deliver the minerals and metals in strong demand across the world.

Rio Tinto and GE set up an alliance late in 2008 to focus on step-change innovation in this area. The alliance has looked at developing and delivering new technologies to significantly reduce energy consumption, as well as other areas like water and automation. We’ve examined a number of concepts that could significantly alter the energy footprint of both our company and the mining industry as a whole.

We’ve already made some progress with the approval of a program to demonstrate the potential value of a GE road surface product at our Mesa A mine, located in the Pilbara region of Northwest Australia. Dust can be a big problem in places like that, especially for the safety of vehicle drivers on haul roads. Typically, companies like ours will spray water on the roads to help reduce dust. But water is often a precious resource in Australia, and the watering process itself introduces many additional costs and EHS issues to be managed.

Assuming the new road surface performs well, we expect to measure significant improvements in the areas of water consumption, fuel consumption, and vehicle maintenance. And we’re able to redirect human resources away from a support function, towards core value-adding business activities.

In projects like this, the timeframes involved are measured in years, not months. And the alliance brings together a couple of very big companies with some cultural similarities and some differences — it’s like two elephants trying to dance. But we’ve learned a lot about how GE does business, and it’s been a very healthy collaboration to date.