
New 2MW electric vehicle chargers could revolutionise mining industry - clouddrover
https://thedriven.io/2019/10/23/new-2mw-electric-vehicle-chargers-could-revolutionise-mining-industry/
======
jillesvangurp
Mining is not the only place where this is starting to happen. Fully charged
recently did an episode on an electric digger:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cumZxYjzx6M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cumZxYjzx6M)

Fuel cost is a great incentive of course but other advantages include a lot
less noise and pollution; which is great for indoor operation. Also, these
things only use power when you use them (as opposed to idling and slurping
lots of diesel).

I could see batteries get common for a lot of equipment that is currently
diesel powered, in the agricultural, construction, and other sectors. If all
you need is a lot of torque/power, electric & hydrolic can do the job.

~~~
api
Fascinating... I always thought that stuff would be the last to be
electrified.

~~~
dzhiurgis
I always thought they should be first. They are order of magnitude more
utilised than passenger cars (at least 30% of time compared to 5% or so). They
produce tons of noise and are more complex than electric.

~~~
t34543
It just hasn’t been cost effective until now. Tesla saw this and started with
a very expensive roadster and just recently ended up with more affordable
options like the Model 3.

Industrial equipment is either making money or spending it. I look forward to
the cost optimization that will come with battery powered heavy machinery.

Thinking aloud: how can the electrical grid keep up? Surely we need to invest
in this area, too.

------
Reason077
The charging system being referred to is called HPCCV (High Power Charging for
Commercial Vehicles), and is being defined by the CharIN group, the same
industry organisation responsible for the CCS standard.

Incidentally, Tesla is also involved in this effort, as part of the
specification of the charging connector for the Tesla Semi.

 _CharIN Steering Committee paves the way for the development of a CCS
compliant plug for commercial vehicles with >2MW_

[https://www.charinev.org/news/news-
detail-2018/news/charin-s...](https://www.charinev.org/news/news-
detail-2018/news/charin-steering-committee-paves-the-way-for-the-development-
of-a-ccs-compliant-plug-for-commercial-v/)

~~~
p1mrx
It's nice to hear that Tesla is working on a real standard for once. I bought
an EV recently, but didn't consider the Model 3 because it doesn't have a
J1772 port (nor a proper dashboard, but I digress.)

~~~
zaroth
Tesla comes with a J1772 adapter. Isn’t J1772 limited to 20kW?

Why would a built-in 20kW max charging connector be a must-have specification
for an EV?

And the lack of the “real dashboard” is obviously one of the best things going
for the Model 3. Makes night time driving in particular almost surreal.

The car is extremely forward thinking and futuristic. Definitely not for
everyone.

~~~
p1mrx
> Why would a built-in 20kW max charging connector be a must-have
> specification for an EV?

The J1772+CCS DC connector can handle up to 350 kW, but even if that weren't
the case, I would prioritize standardization over raw power. I don't want a
car with a proprietary dongle for J1772, nor a phone with a proprietary dongle
for USB.

Proprietary connectors and anti-consumer and anti-competition. It would be
nice if more people said no to them.

~~~
greglindahl
You will have to try pretty hard to convince people that using a small adapter
IS THE END OF THE GODDAMNED WORLD.

------
SigmundA
Just to put in perspective if my math's right based on 139k btu per gallon and
say 40% diesel engine efficiency and 60 gallons per minute truck stop diesel
pump flow, the diesel pump is equivalent to about a 60 megawatt charger.

Which is why a diesel semi can refill in a few minutes and go for 1000+ miles
while an electric semi will take half hour to charge for 500 miles at 2MW.

Obviously though for mining operations where its short range goes up and then
back down electrification is perfect, its also great for urban buses with
regular short routes.

~~~
sunstone
Apparently the largest electric mining trucks on earth never have to charge.
They go up the hill empty, load up with tons of rock, and regen all the way
back down which is more than enough to recharge. This makes my engineer's
heart smile.

~~~
rayiner
> Apparently the largest electric mining trucks on earth never have to charge.

Well that can't be true.

~~~
tupshin
Yes. Yes it can. Regenerative braking downhill, while holding a full load, can
generate more power than it takes to move the _empty_ truck back up.

------
ehnto
Some entrepreneurs in Adelaide recently developed a fully electric utility
vehicle for use in agribusiness and mining. It's based on a 79 series
LandCruiser (which are still made brand new) and it has 350km of range. I saw
some people scoff at that, but mining and agribusiness have the ability to
introduce infrastructure, and these vehicles are work vehicles for use on
site. Well managed vehicle and battery stocks could see these running 24/7 if
need be. Have some solar on site or a grid hookup and you'd never have to
worry about fuel logistics for the light vehicle section of your fleet.

[https://thedriven.io/2019/10/24/first-electric-ute-
engineere...](https://thedriven.io/2019/10/24/first-electric-ute-engineered-
in-australia-for-use-in-mining-and-agribusiness/)

~~~
Aperocky
Electric vehicles also come with an enormous low speed torque simply because
of the nature of electric engines.

~~~
beauzero
This is why mining haul trucks use them for brakes.

------
londons_explore
A quick thought experiment...

If you wanted to transfer 2MW, you could do it at 200 amps and 10,000 volts.

Two 200 amp conductors, 3 meters long, and 10 mm^2 cross sectional area will
come out at half a kilogram. 400 watts of heating will happen in the wire,
which could be cooled by a 1mm^2 water/steam return cooling pipe in each
conductor running at 1 ml/sec. That weighs another 12 grams.

Insulating a 10,000 volt supply sounds a lot, but if the wire was insulated
with PTFE, with a 10x safety margin, you would only need a thickness of 1mm on
each conductor. Total weight 140 grams.

So - the total weight of a 2 Megawatt human-safe cable could, with the right
engineering, be under a kilogram (2 lbs) for 3 meters of cable, plenty to hook
up your car or truck.

~~~
mdorazio
You're not wrong, but what is an EV going to do with 10,000 volts? You'd have
to convert that into something useful to the battery system, so all you've
done is shove the efficiency drop and heating issues into the vehicle's on-
board transformer systems (which would add more weight) instead of the
charger.

~~~
londons_explore
Downconverting voltages is surprisingly easy - a single bank of MOSFETS and an
inductor is all you need. A 2MW convertor made of [1] comes out to less than
100 grams (excluding cooling, but that's fairly small at ~100 watts).

There are also a lot of reasons to increase voltages in EV battery systems.
The current ~400V systems need thick heavy internal wiring, and for all
electric (ie. no mechanical) braking and ultra fast charging, they are
insufficient.

[1]:
[http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/csd19537q3.pdf](http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/csd19537q3.pdf)

~~~
Kirby64
You understand that the device you linked will blow up if exposed to over 100V
right? You're insanely oversimplifying what it would take to convert 10kV down
to a usable voltage for use in EVs. Anything that can convert 2MW will be the
size of a fridge, at minimum. If you could save a bunch of copper cabling by
running everything at 10kV, people would be doing it. 800V is already pushing
the limits of what most folks can do with technology we have today.

As a reminder, 10kV can arc close to 2 inches in free air (depending on
humidity, of course), which means you need to insulate the hell out of it
anywhere it's exposed. That means motors are pretty complicated to use at
10kV. By comparison, 800V only arcs 0.1mm (0.004 inches) max.

~~~
t34543
Yes, and even a tiny penetration of the insulation will destroy the dialetric
strength of the material, posing a substantial risk to humans.

------
qiqitori
Are there any mines where machines/vehicles are powered by e.g. overhead
cables? Seems like that might in some cases be cheaper to pull off than
equipping huge vehicles that go up and down the same path over and over again
with huge batteries.

~~~
bryanlarsen
The article mentions that pantographs are unusable due to the number of
exposed moving parts and the existence of conductive dust.

~~~
londons_explore
Conductive dust is _evil_. Even your phone will likley stop working if you get
conductive dust into it. It's as bad as water, except gravity doesn't keep it
pooled on the floor.

------
cascom
For what it’s worth I know the three highest costs in most mines are: Diesel,
explosives, and tires. Anything you can do to address those issues are big $
savings

~~~
londons_explore
Tires? Really?

Most work vehicles rarely go above 10 mph, and could probably get away with
non-air-filled tyres made of steel if necessary. They'd last forever then.

~~~
ceejayoz
[https://www.mining.com/kal-tire-at-minexpo/](https://www.mining.com/kal-tire-
at-minexpo/) seems to back that assertion up.

------
kuu
It's promising to see some other areas more than the cars trying to use
electric vehicles. I hope we can reach a 100% electric (and clean generation)
before it's too late...

~~~
epistasis
It's already "too late" in the sense that stopping carbon emissions won't be
enough to prevent catastrophic change. It's just now that in addiction to
stopping, we need to go negative and start sequestering carbon. This is a far
more expensive path than if we had decarbonized sooner.

For detailed info from real scientists rather than an internet rando, see IPCC
SR 1.5, in particular figure 2.5:

[https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/graphics/#cid_457](https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/graphics/#cid_457)

And if you have kids or care about fairness to future generations, this paper
should spur you into action:

Young people's burden: requirement of negative CO2 emissions

[https://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/8/577/2017/](https://www.earth-syst-
dynam.net/8/577/2017/)

------
zaroth
At some point isn’t it simpler and cheaper to have several independent battery
packs which each present their own 350kW ports and you can connect multiple
charging cables at once — versus inventing entirely new standards and needing
a pluggable harness that can carry two freakin’ megawatts?

~~~
greglindahl
That's what Tesla showed for the semi, it's 4 car battery packs used in
parallel to power 4 motors, and a 4-cable cable for charging.

------
lbriner
I'm not sure how much these batteries are compared to the rest of the truck
but why not just have removable battery packs that can take longer to charge
while a fresh one gets clipped on? You might only need a few % spare
batteries?

~~~
drcross
It's difficult to build an interface for high power draw which is convenient
enough that doesn't break down over thousands of uses.

------
Roark66
I always thought mining equipment intentionally runs on hydraulic power (and
pneumatic back in the day) to avoid sparks that could set off possible gas or
dust particle explosion. With brushless motors etc I can imagine how electric
can match the safety of hydraulic power, but lithium-ion batteries in a mine?
That is a horrible accident waiting to happen. What if the battery is pierced
by something? What if it shorts internally when due to an accident? I wouldn't
want to be anywhere near it when that happens. We limit the size of lithium-
ion batteries we can fly with precisely for the same reason.

~~~
pixl97
No. Unless its specialized underground mining may take precautions, but a huge
portion of above ground mining equipment is already electric. Most of the
biggest shovels on the planet are hooked to a power cable.

------
satanspastaroll
Interesting; it seems that the dust in mines is actually conductive, and makes
for a challenge with high-powered appliances.

~~~
scrumper
I saw that too. I wondered whether it might be simpler to have removable
batteries (I know they'd be big) and set the charger up on the surface, away
from the conductive dust. Vehicle downtime that way may be shorter (remove
expended batteries and replace them with a fresh set from the charging
station) than charging the vehicle. Maybe that means you need fewer vehicles?

Not a fan of the class of comment where people from outside the field propose
dumb obvious solutions that make no sense to any actual practitioner, so this
is more of a question.

~~~
duckymcduckface
The problem with that is getting the batteries to surface. Underground mines
operate in either of two access methods: shaft to surface or ramp to surface.
In shaft to surface you use an elevator to move all the ore and waste out of
the mine for processing, in ramp to surface you'll either use a conveyor belt
or use trucks like these to run from where they're loaded to surface. Trucks
are also used in shaft access to move ore internally but generally not to
surface. In the truck to surface the swap would work but in a shaft access
scenario you'd have to throw the batteries into the elevator which has an
impact on the proportion of the time you use the shaft for ore. Also usually
those trucks are left near where they're needed the operators get picked up at
the end of their shift and the next guy gets dropped back at the equipment at
the start of his shift. So positioning of these chargers would be tricky. The
payoff in terms of savings in ventilation though are where the benefits come
for these though. Price of electricity can be very high depending on where the
mine is since it's very common to operate off grid in remote locations.

~~~
scrumper
Thanks, I understand that. Of course access-to-surface is another constrained
resource which is no doubt already optimized for existing operations.

------
baybal2
Sounds too ambitious.

There are people working at 900kw chargers at BYD, and they say that cabling
for it is already so stiff and heavy that it's bordering on the limit of what
is humanly possible to handle.

Under spec electronic components are exploding in split second. Imagine a bank
of DC-DC converters operating at 600A, and where few stages go out of sync.
10% of 600A is still 60A that turns into heat, in addition to heat already
generated by normal operation.

~~~
tw04
In a mining situation, why would you think they’d be handled by humans? I
would expect it to be a machine driven coupler. Completely unrealistic in a
consumer situation due to potential damage and liability. But in a mine?
Nobody is going to care about a scratched body panel.

~~~
C1sc0cat
They might care about horrific electrical accidents.

With High voltage/high Amperage acidents - your lucky if you die on the spot
otherwise you last a few days in intensive care with limbs blown off and your
internal organs destroyed

~~~
Reason077
Like EV chargers, the couplers and protocols are designed with safety in mind.
It's not like you're plugging in to a giant electrical socket and throwing a
switch. The system handshakes, runs tests for current leakage, etc. If
anything doesn't check out 100%, it won't energise.

~~~
C1sc0cat
Have you not heard of murphy's law, or not thought that miners might take
shortcuts and bodge a connection.

~~~
Kirby64
Then where are all the folks dying today from the high power Tesla
Supercharger incidents? 2MW or 250kW, either way you'll be dead if that
accidentally lights you up.

If you set the system up right, you can't do that in a meaningful way, and if
you do... well there's 2MW of deterrent. It only takes one workplace incident
like that to make sure the bosses put some measures in place to make sure it
never happens again. And keep in mind: at that kind of power level, you aren't
just zapping one person... it's probably going to destroy a LOT of equipment
and infrastructure... so there's a hefty monetary incentive to make sure that
never happens.

~~~
C1sc0cat
Consumer EV charging is basically a cooker circuit.

When you go to serious Amperage and High/Medium Voltages its a completely
different ball game.

~~~
Kirby64
Sure, the wall chargers you have in your house are. You think the 400V, 625A
circuits (250kW chargers) are just dumb circuits though? Fairly certain they
have temperature and voltage monitoring on both sides of the cable and both
sides of the connector, all to monitor for any issues with either the
connector or the cable continuously. Anything goes wrong, gets to hot, etc? It
kills power.

You're right though. Medium voltage circuits (and above) are going to be much
more complex. The fact is, once you start operating at medium voltage and
above, stuff that previously was an insulator may not actually be as
insulating as you think...

------
cellular
The headline made me think bitcoin miners were using free charging stations to
power their mobile mining PCs.

~~~
ClumsyPilot
haha, this is actually quite witty ^ ^

------
bryanlarsen
Why not just run multiple chargers in parallel?

~~~
Klathmon
That's kinda what they are underneath, but things are never that simple.

For example, getting all that power across a single "cable" (or bundle of
cables, or connector of some kind) introduces interesting engineering issues.
Heat is a big problem, and watercooled cables are more and more common even in
regular EVs. The article also talks about how conductive dust can be a massive
issue and how they need to work around that.

~~~
bryanlarsen
But why bother bundling the parallel cables? It's probably faster / easier to
hook up six separate flexible cables than a single bundle that's incredibly
stiff and heavy.

~~~
Klathmon
I'm assuming since even 250kw EV chargers require liquid cooling and are
already difficult to work with (limited length, extremely stiff and a lot of
hardware to safely connect), that it becomes a bit cumbersome to work with 8
of those cables.

And even if you are reusing the same connectors and cables, I'm assuming it
would need some kind of orchestration to have all the chargers work in unison.
And at that point designing a single connector sounds like a logical next
step. Especially if they are going to design it to work in the harsh
environments they expect.

But I'm also just a layperson, so I absolutely don't know for sure.

~~~
Reason077
Higher voltages and liquid cooled cables permit higher power levels without
making the cables and connectors unreasonably large and heavy. You can see
this in Tesla's "V3" supercharger, where they increased the power to 250 kW,
but actually made the cables _thinner_ by adding liquid cooling.

Of course, high voltages do brings other issues, like risk of arcing, that
need to be mitigated.

------
anonymousDan
Is it realistic to remove ventilation with all that conductive dust floating
around?

~~~
remus
Presumably the ventilation and filtration requirements will be significantly
reduced rather than completely eliminated.

------
bullen
Electricity is not a source of energy, you need to burn something else to
generate it. Solar, wind and hydro only takes us so far. Batteries can not
compete with the energy density of dead trees, it's actually two orders of
magnitude off.

~~~
std_throwaway
Try burning dead trees or their derivatives indoors or underground and
suddenly you care about zero emission vehicles. Zero emission here means that
they don't emit at the place where they are used e.g. in an underground mine
or a city center. Electricity generation in a power plant with proper filters
is much cleaner than having many local burners emitting their exhaust right
into your breathing air.

~~~
bullen
Well that doesn't help much when you're down in a hole in the ground risking
your life for money that is created out of thin air.

~~~
bullen
Just to add a law of nature:

The carbon based system can drive metal based systems, but no the other way
around.

So you will never be able to make food/nuclear/mining with electricity, only
dead trees can make both metal and organic stuff.

This means nuclear is completely retarded.

------
auiya
Why quick charge instead of just doing a battery swap?

~~~
ufo
Electric car batteries are large. It is hard to remove them without also
taking apart a big part of the car at the same time

~~~
auiya
You'd do the swap using machinery, not by hand.

~~~
loufe
You're right, but can you imagine how many problems could be introduced by
changing batteries in an underground mine? A brand new equipment takes a
single shift to gain a nice coat of mud from head to toe. I don't think it's
impossible but there are a lot of challenges with regards to battery swapping
that would need to be addressed before this becomes feasible for this
industry.

~~~
auiya
Why would you change it underground? You'd schedule the changes in a
controlled environment. Or is this naive?

