Around 150 people gathered at the Heartlands Chi-an-Bobel conference centre near Camborne, Cornwall, UK on October 11 to hear presentations by Cornwall-based companies providing products and services to the worldwide mining industry. The event had been organised by the Cornish Institute of Engineers to mark their centenary year and had the title Mining – A Knowledge Cluster in Cornwall. The Institute has always had an interest in current and future developments in all forms of engineering as well as mining, providing a series of lectures, visits and other events each year, but for this special event it had been decided to focus upon the original mining roots. The event displayed how, despite the lower level of actual extractive activity locally, a significant cluster of innovative, entrepreneurial companies is based here, bringing revenue into the county.
The Institute’s founders in 1913 had been mainly managers and engineers from the mines in West Cornwall, with the then manager of South Crofty, Josiah Paull, elected as the first President.
The presentations spanned the whole mining process, from the economic and social planning and the codes and principles governing modern projects through state-of-the-art use of laser surveying, underground tracking of people and vehicles, electrical demand management, the efficiency of pumps and ventilation fans, ore grinding and processing through to dealing with waste tailings and the physical and social legacies of mining. There was also a fascinating insight into real-time remote services provided to the oil industry.
The companies presenting were North Coast Consulting, 3Dmsi, SGS, Kennedy Networks, Williams Mine Electrical, Riventa, Wardell Armstrong International, Patterson & Cooke, Grinding Solutions, Micon International, Applied Geo-Environmental Solutions and Geoscience. Display stands were provided by PR Consultants (with Belzona), G T Jones, Holman-Wilfley and MinAssist. The strong influence of the Camborne School of Mines (now part of the University of Exeter) in maintaining these leading-edge activities was apparent throughout, with most of the companies either founded by or employing graduates from a number of past years.
It is intended to publish the presentations in due course at www.cie100.org.uk .