Anglo American on Friday unveiled the world’s biggest hydrogen-fuelled truck in a pioneering move set to catapult the global mining heavyweight towards its decarbonisation target of neutral emissions by 2050.
With the development of the NuGen load and haul-truck prototype, which uses a combination of green hydrogen, battery and fuel-cell power as a fuel source, Anglo plans to replace a fleet of 40 diesel-fuelled vehicles that each uses almost 1-million litres of the fossil fuel a year.
“The mining industry is playing a considerable role in helping the world decarbonise, both through our own emissions footprint and the metals and minerals that we produce that [are] critical to low-carbon energy and transport systems,” said Anglo CEO Duncan Wanblad.
“NuGen is a tangible demonstration of our FutureSmart Mining programme changing the future of our industry.”
The mining industry is playing a considerable role in helping the world decarbonise
— Anglo CEO Duncan Wanblad
“The diesel trucks emitted a massive amount of carbon emissions when they used the diesel engines before,” said project engineer Carl van den Ordel.
To create the engineering feat, engineers replaced a 2,700 horsepower diesel engine with a power plant made of eight fuel cells and seven lithium batteries providing electricity that outputs 2MW of power, enough to power a thousand homes.
The improved green-energy truck, which is an innovation owing to its size and scale, can carry a 290-tonne payload, requiring 68l of hydrogen to fill up.
Converting the ultra-haul trucks, which consume 3,000l of diesel a day, into a hydrogen-battery hybrid truck, will reduce diesel emissions by an estimated 80%.
Anglo spent R61m for waste disposal, emissions treatment and remediation in 2021, while its budget for pollution prevention and environmental management nearly doubled to R107.9m from R59.1mn in the previous year.
The NuGen project at the Mogalakwena mine — the world’s biggest open-pit platinum group metals mine — is a green ecosystem built into the plant. Consisting of a solar plant, borehole water and the largest electrolyser in Africa, up to 1.4 tonnes of green hydrogen is manufactured on the site, allowing the truck to refuel as often as needed.
Anglo has built a hydrogen storage facility that can store up to a tonne of hydrogen gas at a time. Hydrogen is fourteen times lighter than air, with a high energy capacity.
A global centre for green hydrogen production
Speaking at the launch of the technologically advanced truck, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the proposed hydrogen valley, stretching from Limpopo to Gauteng to KwaZulu-Natal, would position SA as a global centre for green hydrogen production.
He added that developing the hydrogen economy was a critical component of the Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan, launched in 2020 to rebuild the economy in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The green hydrogen value chain that Anglo is playing such an integral part in developing must lead to the creation of new businesses and supply chains,” Ramaphosa said.
To complete the project, Anglo has collaborated with creative engineering and technology companies, such as ENGIE, First Mode, Ballard and NPROXX.
“It was human ingenuity driven by collaboration and purpose to reimagine mining,” said Natascha Viljoen, CEO of Anglo American Platinum, as the group unveiled the advanced mining solution.
The miner of copper, platinum group metals, premium quality iron ore and metallurgical coal for steelmaking, and nickel said the shift towards removing all diesel engines among its fleet would kick off in 2025, estimated to be complete by 2028.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.