Inside Sweden’s copper mega-mine | DW News
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- čas přidán 24. 06. 2023
- Sweden is becoming one of the EU’s key suppliers of natural resources. And without copper, there’s no high tech, no battery or environmental technology. We joined the driver of a giant truck in one of Europe’s biggest copper mines, the Aitik copper mine.
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#Sweden #Copper #Mining - Věda a technologie
'miles'? It is not the dark ages anymore, DW. Tell your reporters to use standard units of measurement.
He probably meant Scandinavian miles, those are 10 km.
Why do you consider miles as inferior?
Probably not Scandinavian 'mil'.
If this is the mine outside of Gällivare as I suspect I doubt it has more than 15km of conveyors.
@@andrewturner8491because it is
@@Julian-mv5zithey are reporting to Americans mostly, the strongest military and economic power in the world. Imagine if this was meant for a weak country like russia, who has to dig trenches and build defenses when they invaded another country lol.
These diesel-electric with cont actors are pretty cool. When there is overhead power available, they run like a train, If they have to leave the grid for maintenance, to go around a lane blockage or to access remote locations, they switch on diesel generators like a WWII submarine. There's trials of this being done for big rigs on freeways.
Also, Dual mode buses are a thing. Trolleybus is over 100 year old tech, but before there have never been trolleybuses with diesel and electric in normal service. But now, last 20 years or so, there is some cities across the world who have taken them in use, Seattle had them in the 90's, so they can drive from suburbs with diesel, but when closing the city, connect to the overhead trolleybus cables.
@@SergeyPRKL Bergen, Norway has some in use today.
@@SergeyPRKLand it exists on trains
@@bnkh yeah, i know. Been there last summer :) I'm a Finn!
The driver also indicated in the video that if she's gone for a week it's difficult to know the transportation paths (presumably because the existing paths have been blasted/taken away). It sounds like a fantastic concept, especially on freeways ~ like a video Tom Scott made a few years ago. I don't understand how this could work economically in a dynamic environment like mining.
We're pretty fortunate that our mines are located in areas that have both large rivers and are quite sparsely populated, meaning there is less competition for the hydropower. If either of these were not the case, I don't think running the stone mill on green energy alone would be possible.
Power generated is transmitted from sparsely populated areas by method of power lines to densely populated areas, Sweden has a national power grid.
This also means that green energy can be generated anywhere, even abroad since the Swedish power grid is connected to continental Europe.
@@kronop8884 dock är det ca 3% energiförlust enbart i högspänningskablarna per 10 mil transport, så det blir snabbt dyrt att transportera mycket energi långt
was about to say this@@Mr0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Hypocrites.
what do you mean?@@lancewood1410
It's nice to see that the copper refiners are taking pride in the quality of their copper ingots. I'm sure Nanni would be pleased after his unpleasant dealings with Ea Nasir a few years ago.
Ah ancient copper quality complaint reference. 😉
Ea Nasir that scammer
God damn, those trucks are absolutely massive.
I like that waving is required
Hats off to the sound strategies implemented by the company👏👏
They cause irreversible damage to nature. I hope that company goes bankrupt.
I work there! As a heavy truck mechanic! We repair those trucks!
How is it like to be a mechanic of those heavy machines
@@Johnsjoylife Theres tons of challenges when repairing such big machines, but luckily we have heavy equipment for most jobs and usually everything goes well. The truck themselves are not to complex, most days we servicing, changing hydraulic hoses and doing other back logs. CAT 797 is even more impressive ,but sadly (luckily) we don’t have those here in Aitik mine
I was just there in that area tenting couple of days ago. Randomly watched this video and figured out that i am actually next to it. I went to have a peek at the quarry. Did not get too far but it is massive, surrounded by endless forests.
Well... that is a good thing, because trees do live on CO2 and they suck a lot of it up.
I have always admired Sweden, an industrialized country and a very civilized people
Sit over thousands of years of systematized robery. But you liked.
@@MrConquistador76 L
@@MrConquistador76 you should keep drinking whatever it is you are drinking because whatever it is you have left in your head is not worth keeping so be a good boy and kill the last if your tiny brain now! Thank you!!!
@@MrConquistador76No.
@@MrConquistador76huh? Explain yourself
driving those machines does look like a really fun job. cleaning and repairing them is another story.
Not as bad as you might think and good money, at least here in Australia. Those gigantic CATs don't have transmissions they are much more like a diesel electric locomotive so are relatively low maintenance for what they do.
Working as a diesel tech on the mines here can earn earn you mid to high 6 figure salaries for about 6 months of work a year. I imagine the pay wouldn't be as High for people that don't fly in to the remote site and fly home after a couple of weeks but it's good paying work.
@@SpencerHHO yeah I know that jobs in heavily industrialised resource extraction tend to pay very well by manual labour standards - it's a relatively small number of humans running very productive and extremely expensive machines. running the machines at a high productivity level and with little damage is worth some expense in labour. even in jobs that are not difficult to fill due to low skill requirements, replacing workers and needing the new ones to learn the ropes generally reduces productivity and safety.
with that mine truck driving job, it would probably be particularly bad. I would assume that if you really had to replace a driver with someone with no experience, even someone with driving talent would be very slow in driving and maneuvering for weeks or months, since developing an awareness of the space that giant vehicle takes up must be quite an unusual experience, and learning to drive around the questionably secure edges of that deep pit all day in a hard to handle vehicle is probably quite stressful.
@semechkiforputin6920 A couple of experienced drivers of these trucks that I met earned half a million dollars in 2 years. Paid off a massive house in 4 years and semi retired after about 6 years and only works part-time so his savings amd investments can grow in the background. It is hard he was basically in the middle of the outback Australia for 6 years of his life forgoing the usual 2 weeks on 2 weeks off most FIFO workers have. In Australia, one of the last genuinely powerful trade unions covers all minning, construction, engineering and forestry workers and as you can imagine they get good deals for their members and even non members.
Yes I bet she’s making bank too
@@SpencerHHO Unfortunately you won't earn anywhere near those amounts in Sweden. You can expect about $50-60k a year for full time (shift) work as a fairly experienced tech. After taxes that's about 36-40k.
Maybe you could get up to 100 before tax if you have some REALLY specialty knowledge and 30 years of experience or something, but that's exceedingly uncommon. At that point you're still only taking home 55k or so though.
And then you'll be working in Kiruna, a depressing place where the sun doesn't come up for months in the winter, is 500 miles away from any major population center, and where all the women left to go south years ago so you won't ever find a partner... I worked there for a while; did NOT like it, though admittedly the nature around there is stunning!
If you want to earn 100k+ a year in an "industry" field in Sweden, you just move to Norway and work on an oil rig instead. Pays double or triple and with less taxes.
That'a girl! 🤜💥🤛.... I'm a Miner and work in a nickel mine. I work 4600 ft underground. Lots of us females down there. Nice seeing a documentary that shows the female roles too.
Sudbury, Ontario, Canada 🇨🇦✌️
Good job miners greetings from the coal mines in the Rocky Mountains in Alberta
@@mzee5533 😊👋
🤜💥🤛 The Highest of Fives 🙌
@@mountainstream8351 I suppose it would be if you didn't like confined spaces. There's many comparable jobs on surface too, though. 😊
✌️
@@missthang4982 4600 feet underground! I have a heart attack just thinking about that. You are very brave.
Yea, girls should not be scared to work in mines. We need equallity you know, you need to work as hard as men or harder to prove yourself.
Its not easy, but it is possible if women is up for it. Its always a trade, trade of free time, trade of choices you do, And a lot more!
Men might be more free to make these choices easier to have a career, if we talk about biological nature of men & women.
Amazing to see that in Sweden even a truck driver knows perfect English.
English is the second language. We teach it as early as second grade in school.
Fun to see the dam from my hometown in Norway, being used as an example for hydroelectric plant :) Clearly a superior dam
Im from Denmark - and we secretly envy you for a lot of things :) including oil fields and cheap hydroelectric energy
That was a Swedish hydroelectric dam no?
@@vik6092 Nope. Think they just used stock footage while the script read something different.
Makes me a little proud to be Swedish.
🇸🇪👍🏻
Join us in NATO!!!
@@jesse8600 we are trying. say that to russia's best friend turkey
@@trollingpcgames Everything has a cost. We in Sweden are sacrificing our mountains for a better world and we should be proud about that no one else is doing it like we are.
Why?
When I grew up, we had to get a couple of weeks of job experience in school. I got two weeks in the laboratory at Rönnskärsverken where Boliden make the final products, e.g. copper, lead, zink, gold and silver. I got to analyse the metal concentrates from Aitik and Boliden's other mines in various ways.
"Waving is required to see that you're awake and doing fine", I'm sure they were just greeting each other, just like busdrivers do when they pass each other
Compulsary waving sounds like one of those workplaces pranks, like sending a newbie for a glass hammer or a long weight
It is a requirement here it's to ensure that we see each other. Cuz we don't only met other trucks but cars and smaller vehicles. It's a way to ensure that we don't crush some one.😅
"Waving is required" has to be one of the funniest things I've heard in a while.
No its it's bloody serious, it confirm that both have seen each other, its even more important, then you mix heavy traffic and foot traffic. Sometime I do work on road construction on foot, and the dumper trucks wave and we wave back, and they drive past very careful. Unsafe driving will have them banned for life.
Worked in big open pit mines in Labrador, Canada. Very similar operation to this.
Canada doesn't care about their own land,the tar pits and copper mines are poluting their lands and water.
I was lucky enough to go down the Ancient copper mine ‘Falu’ in Falun in Sweden, further south than this Mega pit Aitik 👌🏻😎
My brother worked as a tour guide there haha
2:32 this exact moment makes it the most obvious how insanely large these machines are, i have been next to one of the "small" ones (the one in the bottom right corner) and already that felt really big. but seeing it compared to these other vehicles is insane
Can we just all agree how sick the beat is in the background?
One day I'll buy one of those caterpillar trucks.
For what
Thats pointless. Buy shares in Caterpillar! But a truck? Seems like a waste of money too me.
Just fill it up with pop corn and start film.
4:07 best background music
Great project very
well managed
It's a good thing that I properly inform you that I'm having these American highway workers who are also implanting these pennies into these asphalt streets. Not just throw their pennies out in the streets. That really ticks me off when they really do those things. Whatever happened to when the rich are supposed to support the poor? The case represents the real life "Beverly Hillbillies."
@@georgeshelton6281 what are you on about bro
@@Peppanomaly I'm finding both OLD and NEW PENNYS that were being thrown out into the streets. Being abandoned. Some are being rescued too late. The new PENNYS don't say in God we trust anymore. It's true that I'm sometimes function like a homeless guy.
Imagine trying to impress her with your souped up lifted pickup truck and she's like "Dude, i drive a truck with 3500hp which is the size of your house, get your puny toy car out of my way"
I wrote my ph d thesis about dissolved metal contaminants from this mine affecting surronding ground and surface water the dissertation was in the spring 1997
Green copper is a funny term, since copper turns green on the surface (patina) after many years of oxidation.
The commentsection here is absolutly great. Cheers
My uncle worked In Aitik and we got to visit (several of the cousins) many years ago :)
And?
I was in Sewell, Chile...that place is crazy
Those trucks are crazy
Yes they are large, but there are even larger ones from Belaz.
The clip that end with the dump truck connected to a Pantograph is cool, but I don't understand how that's a viable approach with mining. The video also states that if drivers go on vacation for a week they have difficulty finding their way around (presumably because their existing path was blasted/taken away). Is it expected that there's a separate dedicated team creating/maintaining overhead electric lines?
Very interesting. Must be great to drive a machine that big.
bro the mine is located in Kiruna, i let you look up where it is in Sweden and you'll see that even if you drive the biggest machine it's probably the worst place to live. There's nothing there and when i say nothing it's nothing
@@bigty5474 hounestly sound nice. love being alone
@@bigty5474 There is a town with stores, bars and stuff. 23k people live there.
@@Sneaadler most of them are miners, season workers or rich people that can afford a 2nd house. Appart from that the cultural life is pretty much 0 and you can't go anywhere else than the town itself. Just pure nature and nothing thousand of kilometers around you
@@bigty5474 It's in Gällivare. Right next to Kiruna. LKAB is the second mine there and they are also present in Kiruna.
And soon... looking forward to the re-opening of the Viscaria mine🎉
Impressive and interesting!
3:12 That STONE MILL is NOT ''the world's largest of its kind'' by NO MEANS !
I work there on occation. That electric ramp they are talking about, I haven't seen that been used a single time since we started working there in late February, they always have the pantograph lowered and run on diesel. But hey, sure nice to pat themselves on the back.
Obviously... They get tons of government subsidies for that sweet sweet renewable money, got to show the cameras they put it to good use...
Greenwashing
Since you only work on occasion, how would you know if it's being used?
They have some difficulties make it work, that's what I've heard.
Interesting clip, thanks for sharing.
Best country in the world😎❤️🇸🇪
Very nice, but how do they deal with the biters?
Impressive and interesting! thank you for sharing
I bet the trucks going down could generate power for the trucks going up by regenerative braking.
Yeah maybe, but wouldn’t they need big batteries aswell?
@@williamknows3908 Just use the overhead wires.
But the trucks going down are empty and the ones going up are loaded . It would have worked the other way around .
The diesel electric ones use their electric engines to brake going down.
So the energy isn’t lost, but like someone already said, it still wouldn’t provide enough power to propel them going up loaded.
@@Thellbro Is there a battery?
Very cool! 😎
Good planning and strategies
The hydroelectric plant shown at 4:20 is located near Lillehammer in Norway! Google, Hunderfossen dam..
I'd be curious how the chemical process to extract the copper looks like and if the chemicals can be produced with green energy too..? what happens with the 99.8% "waste-rock" after extraction? What happens with waste-chemicals?
its pretty straight forward and CHEAP ... the ore itself is EXPENSIVE !
The cooper its easy to refine
you mean...what happens with all the Mercury resulting from MOVING earth in ALL of the industries around the GLOBE ?
It goes into the sea eventually... but it takes centuries to arrive there :)
Its UNAVOIDABLE to have mercury when you're moving earth !
Everything ELSE the nature CAN take care of .. except for the Mercury :(
I've worked in an enrichment plant with mills like those. The rock, or sand that it becomes after crushing, milling and refining is sometimes put back in underground mines as filler material. In an open pit mine like this I cannot say for sure.
@@jakobjohansson4924 Can the sand be used for construction? What properties of it are relevant? I learned the sand in desert is not suitable for construction, because its grains are round and thus won't bind with cement.
@@Hukkinen The case might be the same for this left over sand from the mineral-rock. The only use that I know for it is to fill old mineshafts and tunnels to prevent them from collapsing, but ofc there might be other uses too
😮 wow! Monster truck.
To call a copper mine green would be a lie, sure reduce the diesel etc helps but the trucks still need lubricated oil and alot of it, not metioning the tires, the dust, the water ... mining will never be green and should never be mentioned in same sentence but ofc its very good they take serious steps reducing the pollution of this kind of industry.
I surprised they don't have cables for when they go down into the pit. Use reverse regenerative braking and could likely repower the "grid" due to the sheer amount of braking necessary to get to the bottom.
Sounds to complicated for a mine. You would need poles in permanent places which in mining there are no permanent places as all will get mined eventually.
@@TheCZcamsMethod yeah the only other method I could see is a "discharge station" but likely wouldn't work, like you said will get mined as well as the company not wanting "down time" whilst discharging.
Once the mine will be shut off that will make an interesting mountain lake.
80-90 miles of road and stretches 4 kilometers from north to south. The deepest part of the mine is now at the 1600 meter level.😮
Long love Sweden
3:21 Next time give us an actual break down of the processes. So what chemicals are they using and how do they separate the copper from the other things it bonded to without hurting the cooper
When I studied chemical engineering in high school we went on a trip to this mine!
The crushed ore is separated by froth flotation. Air is blown through a slurry of ore, and the copper sulfide particles are lifted by the air bubbles and can be skimmed off the surface. That's what's happening at 3:25 in the video. Chemicals used are foaming agents, similar to those used in schampoo.
The enriched ore is transported to a smelter where it is heated and oxygen blown through the melt. This oxidises the sulfide to sulfur dioxide, and the raw copper metal can be poured off. The raw copper is then purified by electrolysis.
The main problems with the whole process is catching and handling the sulfur dioxide, and the waste sand from the flotation process that still contains a small amount of copper. (The sulfur dioxide is converted to sulfuric acid, and widely used basic chemical).
/Chinese mine executive
No truck can carry 600 tons, max capacity is 400 tons
Is it in metric ton? short ton? long ton?
@kirgan1000 u.s Ton , metric tonne is 1000Kg which is heavier I guess
Interesting take on new ways to produce
Grazie, interessante e brave le noste Svedesi.
6:00 They did it!
Nice, thx.
Is there Komatsu unit in this mining?
Awesome, I m in Munich, Germany and I wish to find someone for traveling to Sweden too🌲
You are welcome
You should visit the Kiruna mine, it’s even cooler
@@erikandersson2129 Yeah it's quite majestic to see the walls of stone surrounding the city.
01:47 600 tonnes? That can't be right, the 797F max is 400...
The reporter did not do his research at all. He’s talking about the shovel as an excavator and sometimes runs with electric yet that machine is fully electric driven
I wonder if that is gross weight ? It's GVM is about 620 metric tonnes. A few other issues here too, I'm pretty sure it's 4000 HP traction power too.
The digger fills them with 3-4 buckets so around 280 -320 tonnes.
The newer one Komatsu are bigger than the Cats. Taking a load of +400 tonnes.
@@m8pwa_the 980? I don’t know how much the CAT 797 (the largest CAT) can take in payload, but I think it’s +400 tons.
1:45 Not well researched... Total weight is close to 600t, but the standard truck transports 370t of payload.
great video ☀👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
check the numbers. there are 2 electric motors on truck. for sure its less than 600tonnes per ride, will be around 300
they terraformed a massive pace of land , hat def seems good for the environment.
@DW do you have a comparison of Swiss mining in Sweden and Swiss mining in the Congo? It appears there's a huge disparity on environmental effects especially water pollution and low crop produce.
As a Swed im just amazed didnt knew about all this updates :)
U are probably are like most swedes that live in the south that calls 2/3 of Sweden as "the north" without knowing anything about it
@@erikedlund2904 to be honest i dont care if its in southern part, middle part, north, east or west aslong as it has to do with innovations in engineering or tech its always good. So has nothing to do with geographic at all but nice to see what you values 😉
@@erikedlund2904 As someone from this far up north. Anything south of Piteå is the south for me. The ignorance goes both ways lol
Stora Copper-Berget - dev it to 30, and build the great project that gives local good produced + and watch it generate more income than a gold mine.
Amazing
That last sentence was a taunt yo
I'm still trying to figure out how Dwayne Johnson ends up in the worlds largest stone mills...
Very impressive mine🙌
and VERY very little powders in the air AROUND those mills !!!
In romania the visibility is 1meter around a stone mill and the dust is 5 centimeters thick EVERYWHERE in that room :D
Its an EXCEPTIONALLY clean room for a stone mill there
2:25 the teeth makes it look like it's scooping with a jaw which is pretty metal.
They have haul truck that are electric and driven remotely using GPS now
Not electric, but diesel electric
How much gold is produced as a by product annually?
13 000 kilos a year, we also salvage 5000 kilos from old tech stuff a year
From this mine it’s about 2300 kg/year.
Green copper very cool I love it
All copper gets green by water and oxygen.
@@Sancto58 thanks but I was referring to the ecological factor of being produced with green energy
@@scottprather5645 I know, I was just trying to joke about it.
It's a bit silly with the green energy. Sweden produces a certain amount of hydro electric power, that hasn't increased because of the mine. If it wasn't used for the mining, it would be used for household electricity instead. Now the mine use the green energy and households use less green energy, because it would have less marketing value to waste it where you couldn't brag about it.
Wear more clothes, insulate better, use 5W LED bulb instead of 50W incandescent- less energy need be used for that and more can be used for industries that create jobs.
I’ve worked there as a Diamond driller.
Pretty sure they dont transport 600tons per trip, more like 350-400ton for thos haulers.
I used to work there for a subcontractor driving a Komatsu HD785. Worst job I ever had.
Wow amazing
I would say it’s quite far away from “environmental friendly”, even forgetting the diesel they burn, look at that hole 😂
Rock and Stone brother
hmm this seems wrong. You are supposed to mine for copper at around Y=40
I am born and raised in Sweden and I must say that swedish womens is really hardworkers and indenpendent !
They really are but its very depending on the location, Norrland folk are the hardiest I would say but the south farmers are just a hardy. Cityfolk are getting lazier every year...
@@seriousplayer1
I am born and raised in Helsingborg near Malmö in southern SE.
The text you write is 100 % correct beceause of all I read and hear .. 👌
"swedish womens" - help!
You don't even have to have a driver's license to drive those trucks in Canada. People who work at the mines, get dui's all the time. They lose their license, but not their job. Plus a bus takes them to and from work. But you have to have grace 12 or GED. I don't think that's a legal requirement, more likely company policy
I wouldn't want someone who can't keep their license on any driving job. If you DUI you're irresponsible.
There is no buss line to the mine in the Video. You have to drive to it from any habitable house. And the closest village is removed to make space for the mine.
Салом аз Тоҷикистон❤❤❤❤❤❤.
Nice, gäller hålla sig vaken!
she got that "big, big energy".
Using a dam as a source of electricity is not washing the pollution produced by the mining company, it’s greenwashing!
Amazing!
I got to wonder what does it cost to mine a pound
How to apply a driver here???
It was funny to hear them say "our product has a very low carbon footprint" and then "now it's time to put enough diesel in here to heat a house for a year"
Perhaps they meant in a relativistic kind of way.... those trucks are shifting thousands of tonnes of rock for months or years but a house just stays still....
Good Stuff .
How does the truck ground if it gets its power from catenary??? Just curious
its Direct current. DC, so only + and - is needed
@@toxed9144 correct, but what's the negative if catenary is positive.....
@@mayhemmike1789 it does not work like a train or tram where the rails provide earth, instead it works like a trolleybus, it has 2 wires + and earth. You can see that at minute 02:23 the mining truck has two pantographs. There is no - for none of them tram, train, trolleybus, or mining truck, there is only Earth. Power can be AC or DC, For AC it needs more voltage to have the same power as DC. For example trains in Romania use 25000V AC 50Hz while Italy uses 3000V DC while having same tractive power (for high-speed trains Italy uses 25000V AC 50Hz which is more reliable at higher speeds). Additionally all the rubber wheeled vehicles and in some occasions trams must have a wire (or more) like thing that touches the ground (it's hidden under the vehicle) to prevent electrostatic buildup or accidental voltage buildup from the + DC or phase AC wires that can come through the pole and down on the vehicle when it rains and everything is wet, or other situations like short to the mass of the vehicle.
@@WARGODS-ez1bu "For AC it needs more voltage to have the same power as DC" No, that is not true. The AC-Voltage is the effective voltage, which transfers the same power at the same current. So 1V*1A=1W in AC and DC.
If the same power is needed in a 3kV DC System as in 25kV AC, you need a (25/3=) 8,33-times higher current. This is the reason most countries with DC-Systems switch to 25kV AC for the high speed lines, because the high speed trains use so much more power, that transferring those currents wouldn't be possible in an effective or economical way.
Bit of an exaggeration on the truck size, the weight of the truck and payload is 600 ton but the truck itself only carries 350 ton and now they are mostly driven by autonomous systems.
No, there are about 10 trucks in the autonomous project.
About 35 trucks are still driven by drivers.
And another 7 is coming. Driven by drivers that is.
How or why does it work for it sometimes but other times too? Does it need an injunction or herp? Could also be the caravanning? Conclusions
Tal como veo los alemanes y franceses que estan en sant pera y l escala durara poco toda la industria europea sea del tipo de sea ..incluso Bayer y similar
Карьерные самосвалы всегда ездили на электромоторах. Конечно они зеленые! И всегда такими были!
Mining dump trucks have always driven electric motors. Of course they are green! And they always have been!
A ton of the info is wrong