NMA-TV Mining Minute 5-29-2025

A Chinese equipment manufacturer has delivered 100 autonomous, all-electric mining trucks to a mine in Inner Mongolia. The company says the delivery marks the world's first mining site to operate a fleet of 100 zero-carbon, fully autonomous electric haul trucks. The system of trucks reportedly incorporates a mix of unmanned driving, 5G connectivity, A.I.-powered safety management, and photovoltaic-generated electricity.

Here at home, in cutting-edge mining innovation news, Denver-based Endolith is a company that is working to harness the power of microbes and synthetic biology to extract critical minerals from low-grade ore. Last week, the company announced the completion of tests on whether its mix of genetically modified microbes could extract significant amounts of copper from the type of low-grade, hard-to-process ores that are left over in mining waste. The company said the results “outperformed conventional approaches to low-grade heap leaching and revealed new value in mineralized waste that was previously considered uneconomic to process.” The company’s research has been supported by BHP and Rio Tinto.

And at West Virginia University, researchers are working on more efficient ways to recycle electronic waste to recover valuable minerals. Current recycling techniques use magnets and other methods to extract steel, aluminum and copper from waste, but lesser-known materials such as gallium and indium are often left behind. In the new recycling method, they’re using microwaves to heat and extract critical minerals from e-waste. That’s good news because, while we firmly believe that supply chain security begins in US mines, we need all responsible sourcing options available to meet our growing minerals needs – including recycling.

That’s your mining minute for this morning, highlighting some of the mining-related matters that are on our minds here in Washington and beyond. Follow us on the National Mining Association’s channels, as well as on Minerals Make Life and Count on Coal, for more on the latest news and policies impacting mining.