<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/we-dont-doubt-ourselves-fortescues-race-to-real-zero-and-the-radical-rethink-behind-it/>
"Iron ore giant Fortescue has just four years left to meet its real zero
emissions by 2030 target, a mammoth task that will require it to fundamentally
change how it operates. But the iron ore giant’s CEO Dino Otranto still
believes it will meet and beat the target.
“That’s absolutely the aim,” he told
Renew Economy, as the company seeks to
completely remove fossil fuels from its Pilbara operations.
“We don’t even doubt ourselves… If you doubt, doubt creeps in, then you start
slowing down and kidding yourself. Just got to build it. Is it going to fail?
Sometimes. Are you going to get critics? Yep.
“A diesel two stroke engine is remarkably efficient and we need to compete with
it, and that technology has been evolving and iterating for 150 years. So for
us to come in a relatively short amount of time to then compete economically
and technically with it [for trains]… what we now need to focus our attention
on is the continued build out of lower cost electronics to charge it.”
The size of the project, to use no fossil fuels across the entire mining
operation by 2030, does require a little bit of faith.
The company runs five mines, 760 kilometres of railways and a port.
To electrify these, it must replace 70 locomotives, and likely add more, with
battery alternatives.
It must build another 5 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy projects in the
Pilbara alone, according to data on planning applications from RenewMap, and an
as yet unknown number of large scale batteries.
And while deliveries of electric versions of everything from excavators to
water carts and front-end loaders do start this year, the company does have to
replace everything by 2030.
Then it must change how it does mining."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
