Hi, I’ve been watching Gold Rush, here in the US, for a decade now, and have a general question about WORK (F=MA WORK) and Conveyance systems. I’m a Math/Stat and Finance guy, but know little about CE. I grew up near a CE company called Teichert (Sacramento), and have seen some of their pits – though not deep, they have miles of conveyor belts running around their facilities.
Picture a ski-area Chair Lift. People go up, fighting gravity, but the chairs require almost no WORK because the cable and chairs are a balanced system. The only WORK needed is to lift the passengers and skis, etc. What if the People were replaced by open pit mine Ore, and the chairs were replaced by Buckets. The only WORK would be lifting the the Ore, as the buckets balance out.
Now picture a Giant Mine Truck which weighs 300 Tons and can carry 300 Tons. So, climbing 500 M out of a deep pit mine requires the WORK of lifting 600 Tons, but the effective lift is only 300 Tons, because the other 300 is the truck. Half the diesel burned is just to move the truck out of the pit.
Could someone build a conveyor belt or cyclical bucket system that could lift the ore without trucks? Even if there needed to be facilities at the bottom to classify/crush the Ore to fit the conveyance, and maybe a few trucks moving Ore between the new mine face and the classification equipment. The only WORK (though huge of course) would be to lift the Ore out of the pit. It would still require enormous resources, diesel generators for the electric motors, etc., but the WORK would be cut in half. A deep mine could have multiple systems, so that one could be shut down for Maintenance or emergency. Fewer employees needed. Much lower energy costs. It seems so obvious. Why do I not see them anywhere?
Thank you much,
Brian J. McCready
Talent, OR