ReThink Mining (previously known as the Canada Mining Innovation Council (CMIC)), cannot be accused of conservatism when it comes to the development and application of new technology in the mining space.
Its goal is to reduce the mining industry’s energy use, water use and environmental footprint by 50% by 2027, from a 2020 baseline. This is a step-up from the majority of mining companies 2030 interim goals, and, importantly, is being facilitated by the creation of the tools to actually meet these challenging targets, it says.
To achieve this, ReThink Mining has been working with major global players and innovators in the move toward zero waste mining, striving to develop technologies and innovations that will reduce waste, lower costs and mitigate environmental impacts across all aspects of mining.
Some of the sector’s most innovative technologies have Rethink Mining’s DNA on them: think of Komatsu’s MC51 and Sandvik’s MX650 mechanical cutting technologies; Novamera’s Surgical Mining™ technology for an alternative to the traditional narrow-vein mining process; or the RIINO zero-emission material movement solution.
It has also – in less than four years – come up with a 50 t/h prototype of the Conjugate Anvil Hammer Mill (CAHM) and a 2 t/h MonoRoll prototype (pictured above), in the process surpassing its target of achieving technology that is 50% more efficient and uses 50% less energy than the traditional technologies on the market – SAG mills and high pressure grinding rolls. Rethink Mining’s experts have helped spin this technology out as a promising start-up company.
“We work in a very narrow niche of identifying technologies that can’t really be advanced by a single company, then advancing them towards commercialisation. These technologies are typically too complicated, too big, too expensive or too risky for one company to undertake on their own. When something is brought to us that one of our member companies wishes to pursue, we put it in front of the right individuals from our entire membership which includes 20 of the largest and most innovative mining companies in the world. We then help those companies that are interested in advancing it to rally together the people, resources, cash and government support necessary to allow the technology to progress using a consortium approach,” Don Toporowski, CEO of ReThink Mining, told IM on the sidelines of Resourcing Tomorrow event, in London, late last year.
“What we do is ask the mining companies what problems they are looking to solve, and which of these problems they are willing to work with others on,” Toporowski says. “At the same time as obtaining that data, we’re scanning the world for all the different technologies that are up and coming, trying to match them and build a consortium around these platform technologies. The number of participants in each consortium can range from two to a dozen miners from around the world.”
This is unique, according to Toporowski.
“No one else does that,” he says. “There are incubators, accelerators, creative labs, etc doing this on a smaller scale, but we’re the only ones that have such a broad number of companies and industry challenges to choose from, as well as a constantly-expanding list of technology platforms to match them with.”
It’s fair to say that, in the mechanical cutting space, especially, the two aforementioned technologies would not have progressed to where they are today without the tireless help of ReThink Mining and its Mining Innovation Manager, Trevor Kelly.
The Valley of Death
Every capital-intensive industry deals with the commercialisation Valley of Death, and mining is no different in this regard. This matchmaking process – which normally sees technologies move up the technology readiness levels to a point where a working prototype is forthcoming – is very important, but is by no means a silver bullet for mining technology industry adoption.
“What tends to happen in all these projects is the consortium progresses over a number of years, but eventually that reaches a point where the miners say to themselves, ‘Okay, well, we put in $2 million each. That’s kind of enough. What’s next?’,” Toporowski says.
This question normally arises in what both Toporowski and his predecessor Carl Weatherell refer to as the technology development ‘Valley of Death’.
“A lot of these innovation projects we have coached through are now languishing,” Toporowski says. “There is no more money and, even though you’ve had the attention of your biggest customers in the world, there is no obvious progression point.”
In many other sectors, the way to avoid this trough on the graph is to tap the venture capital markets, with the thought process that these funds are always looking to ‘get in early’ ahead of innovation going commercial.
The consortium approach that ReThink Mining offers, one would think, would stand these innovators and start-ups in good stead to obtain further finance on the way to commercialisation.
That has not proven to be the case.
Weatherell explains: “Mining accounts for about 10% of the global GDP, yet less than 1% of all venture capital in the world goes into mining – it’s a 10-fold gap.”
Weatherell is being kind here: his numbers show only 0.23% of global venture capital went into mining in 2023.
There are a few companies that have been successful in bucking that trend – in exploration think KoBold Metals and Fleet Space Technologies; in ore control and preconcentration think MineSense; in direct lithium extraction think Lithios; in green steel, think Boston Metals.
Yet, when it comes to more of the ‘mining-focused’ innovations, the only venture capital fund of note to consistently back such technology is RCF Jolimont, hence why the Valley of Death is so well established.
Platform technologies
“There’s some really cool technology the industry wants deployed, and both the miners and the innovators need some help to do this,” Weatherell says. “ReThink Mining Ventures have been looking to solve the really big problems here; it’s not about incremental change, it is about complete transformation to achieve the industry’s big targets.”
The new integrated flowsheets that ReThink Mining envisages does away with the drill-charge-blast-load-haul-ground support-crush-transport cycle seen in pretty much every mine globally and replaces it with mechanical cutting, bolting and conveying in step one; ore sorting in step two; and separate conveyance of ore and waste to transport operations in step three.
“The industry has acknowledged that new platform technologies are required; not tweaks to the existing processes, but new platform technologies,” Weatherell says. “The problem, the industry says, is that the technologies don’t exist, is not readily adaptable to existing flowsheets, or the cultural barriers around industry adoption are too great to overcome.”
Weatherell argues this is simply not the case.
These new technologies do, however, require a complete re-think of how mining and processing of ore and waste is carried out.
“It (the technology) does exist, but the fact is: it can’t be successfully adapted to fit existing processes,” he says. “These are processes blueprinted from 20 years ago, which, the industry says has not changed because every mine is ‘unique’.
“These mines are not unique; they all tick the same basic boxes with some tweaking in between. It’s like a bicycle. A bicycle is a bicycle, but how you customise your own bicycle is down to you. That’s the whole point of a platform, right?”
In comminution, Toporowski, Weatherell and Gillian Holcroft, CEO of ReThink Milling – the CAHM and MonoRoll focused spinoff of ReThink Mining – think they have already achieved this platform technology shift.
MineTech Ventures
As acknowledged, the financing for scaling and achieving widespread adoption of these technologies is still lacking.
This is where the wider ReThink Mining ecosystem is looking to help by extending its remit beyond the technology development and application phase to the adoption phase.
Enter ReThink Mining Ventures, originally spun off from the not-for-profit ReThink Mining in early 2022.
“Since what we are talking about here is commercial, the not for profit can’t do that,” Weatherell explains. “A major activity of ReThink Mining Ventures is the creation of a new venture capital fund for mining, by mining now known as MineTech Ventures.”
There is significant difference here to other mining-focused and clean tech venture capital firms.
First off, ReThink Mining – the not-for-profit organisation – effectively acts as a technology incubator, identifying market pull for these solutions early. It is carrying out this due diligence process with the 20-or-so mining companies it has within the organisation.
Second, a key aspect of the MineTech Ventures investment thesis is market pull where the technology companies have been identified by mining companies and they have invested in the early development in consortia like ReThink Mining. However, MineTech Ventures does not limit itself to only ReThink Mining and to source investments, and is working with other organisations around the world that are nurturing technology companies with miners at the table. Additionally, this isn’t just technology readiness, it’s also company readiness. Venture capitalists invest in companies, not just a technology or a product.
Third, it is getting both the miners and other venture capital firms to tip money into the technology acceleration pot.
And fourth, and unlike these mining company venture funds, this fund is being run by experienced venture capitalists and company builders; not miners.
“We’ve had other funds including CVCs and clean tech fund, tell us, ‘If you create this fund and you get the miners to go in first, we’ll follow,’” Weatherell said.
That is exactly what MineTech Ventures is planning, with Weatherell saying the team is in advanced talks with mining companies that could put in $100 million each of seed funding.
“We have venture capitalists from California who are willing to put $20 to $50 million each, providing the mining companies are there first,” Weatherell says, explaining that a bank of $500 million could easily be reached if the firms he and his team have been in touch with put actions behind their words.