Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Goldeneye (Earth observation and Earth GNSS data acquisition and processing platform for safe, sustainable and cost-efficient mining operations)
Reporting period: 2020-05-01 to 2021-10-31
- Exploration challenges: There are fewer high-quality ore deposits left to develop. New deposits are often in remote and difficult-to-access areas. Consequently, the costs, lead times and risks associated with developing and operating new mines are increasing. Future exploration requires sensing technologies that can reach the remaining, more remote locations, or extract more value from existing mines and tailings.
- Mining operations challenges: The global commodities boom in the early 2000s was driven primarily by the rapid expansion of the Chinese economy. However, as China’s economy has shifted away from resource-intensive manufacturing, there has been a slowdown in demand growth and consequent fall in commodity prices and mining profits: efficiency and cost reduction has therefore become a higher priority for mining operators. New sensing technologies can increase the efficiency and reduce the costs of mining operations, by allowing geo-referenced, qualitative and quantitative assessments of the mined ore, material flows and equipment tracking.
- Hazard risk management challenges: Recent and tragic tailing dam failures in South America have brought the management of tailings dam across the industry into sharp focus. Going forward, the mining industry will be under increased regulatory scrutiny from both a community safety and an environmental point of view. Better data acquisition and processing methods will enable mining operators to improve risk management, using the fusion of satellites, drone and proximal sensors as well as numerical simulations for advanced geotechnical analysis of open pits/underground excavations, rock, groundwater, and ground support to increase mine safety, community confidence and environmental outcomes.
- Closure & post-closure challenges: The renaturation of mining areas requires high-resolution monitoring via multi-spectral sensors to monitor vegetation health and detect Acidic Mine Drainage (AMD). The acquired data allows monitoring the response of vegetation to stress factors at a high temporal and spatial resolution and hence, is the basis for an improved management of renaturation. These data acquisition and processing methods are also useful for considering post-mining land use suitability and agricultural capability.
The Goldeneye project will implement a unique combination of remote sensing and positioning technologies, exploiting Earth observation and Earth GNSS data, together with data fusion and processing powered by data analytics and machine-learning algorithms. The Goldeneye platform will allow satellites, drones and in-situ sensors to collect high-resolution data of the entire mine (highwalls, stockpiles, waste dumps, tailings dams, blasting and plants), which can be processed and converted into actionable intelligence for safety, environmental monitoring and overall productivity, allowing more efficient exploration, extraction and closure. These tools will be demonstrated in real life applications creating a compelling value proposition for implementation across the mining industry value chain.
The project has already started dissemination activities, providing a project website, video and template materials. Moreover, it has actively published in the social media, conferences and produced press releases and mainstream publications. Initial exploitation plans and data management plan have been created. Finally, the project has delivered the Ethics requirements.
In addition to improve mine safety, environmental protection, as well as operations and explorations efficiency, the project aims to create new jobs to the mining industry technology provider section (after the project). In addition, it is expected that the improved exploration efficiency will help EU ta achieve more independent position in the raw material markets. The introduction of the novel technologies to the mining applications can potentially help attracting young people to work in the industry and furthermore, improved environmental protection and monitoring will help in gaining social licence to operate from the general public.