SUSTAINABILITY

Fortescue’ s Turner River solar farm and Cloudbreak battery, now under construction

diesel Fortescue aims to eliminate from its Pilbara operations by 2030

The hardest target Fortescue’ s goal is not net zero, the accountant’ s version softened by offsets bought elsewhere. It is“ Real Zero” by 2030, the actual elimination of fossil fuels from its Pilbara mines, including the roughly one billion litres of diesel it burns each year. No rival has set the bar so near. Most of the industry still points at 2050; Fortescue has dragged the finish line two decades closer. Turner River will lift Fortescue’ s solar capacity past 1.4GW, enough for half a million homes; batteries at Cloudbreak firm the supply; 16 electric excavators, plus the first battery-electric haul trucks, are running or arriving, fed by an in-house 6MW charger that refills a truck in half an hour.

The heavy machines come from China’ s XCMG, the loaders and dozers a Western miner would once have run on diesel.

miningdigital. com 99