AI 2023. Meet ChatGPT. - page 213
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*Note: The material presented below is partially taken from various Internet sources: Google search pages, Wikipedia, sites of equipment suppliers for companies working in the mining industry, sites with statistical and economic information. The material is abridged and edited by me for the convenience of readers and to extract the essence of interest.
*Often I will summarise or summarise numerical, logical or general sense data, results or conclusions under the information given from the sites. In doing so, I will mark the information as a quote /(c), cite the source or provide a link, or mark it with an asterisk /(*) indicating that it is my thoughts, calculations, findings, or conclusions.
Definition:
Mining is a set of branches of production engaged in the exploration and extraction of minerals, as well as their primary processing and the obtaining of semi-finished products. /Wikipedia(c).
Groups of mining industries:(source: Wikipedia, abbreviated for convenience)
1) Mineral energy raw material industries:Petroleum, Gas, Coal, Peat, Shale, Uranium.
2) Ferrous and alloying metal ores mining and processing industries:Iron Ore, Manganese Ore, Chromite Ore, Tungsten Ore, Molybdenum Ore, Vanadium Ore, Lithium Ore.
3) Non-ferrous metal ores mining and processing industries for non-ferrous metallurgy:Aluminium, Copper, Nickel, Tin, Lead-zinc, Antimony.
4) Mining and chemical industry:extraction of apatite, nepheline, potassium salts, nitrate, pyrite, borates, phosphorite.
5) Mining of non-metallic industrial raw materials and raw materials for production of construction materials:graphite, asbestos, gypsum, clay, granite, dolomite, limestone, quartz, kaolin, marl, chalk, feldspar.
6) Mining of precious and ornamental stones:diamond industry, semi-coloured stones, hydro-mineral industry.
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(*my conclusion)Bottom line: in this way we can count 6 key mining industries with over 40 major groups of target minerals, types of raw materials or processing areas.
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/Wikipedia(c):
Mining is the process of extracting solid, liquid and gaseous minerals from the Earth's interior by technical means. Mining refers to the primary sector of the economy.
The process of mineral extraction consists in the development of mineral deposits. During the development of deposits, the mineral is excavated and transported to places of further processing or useful use.
Interesting facts about mining (source: Wikipedia, abridged and edited for convenience by me)
Interesting statistics about mineral extraction:(source: Wikipedia, abridged and edited for convenience by me)
Dynamics of the world production of the most important types of minerals:
With the development of scientific and technological progress, the volume of mineral extraction and the number of types of minerals have continuously increased. According to the calculations of Academician V. I. Vernadsky, made in 1915, mankind in the ancient era extracted and used only 19 elements, in the XVIII century - 28, in the XIX century - 50, at the beginning of the XX century - 60. At present, all 89 chemical elements contained in the Earth's crust are used.
The rate of growth of mineral extraction has been constantly increasing. Of the total volume of minerals extracted from the bowels of the earth throughout the history of mankind, the predominant amount was extracted in the XX century: oil - 99.5%, coal - 90%, iron ore - 87%, copper ore - 80%, gold - 70%. The search for and development of new deposits covered practically the entire near-surface part of the Earth's crust, including the coastal shelf and the bottom of the World Ocean.
At the same time, the structure of volumes of extraction of various minerals changes with the development of scientific and technological progress:
Some minerals are influenced by recyclability. For example, the amount of ferrous scrap metal accumulated in the world already by the early 1900s was a significant part of the raw materialbase of metallurgy,and in the 2010s the share of scrap metal in the raw materialbase exceeds 40%. For some non-ferrous metals, such as lead, the share of scrap metal in the raw materialbase is even higher. Theshare of recycled raw materials in the production of plastics and glass products iscontinuously growing.
Historical retrospective:
The importance of some minerals is finally being lost as technology advances. For example, natural monocrystalline quartz was mined in significant quantities as a piezo-optical raw material from the 1830s to the 1970s. With the development of technologies for the production of complex optical glasses, piezoceramics and the growth of artificial crystals, the importance of natural quartz for optics and electronics has been lost: in optics it has been replaced by better performing heavy glasses and synthetic crystals, and in electronics by piezoceramics, whose piezoelectric characteristics are several orders of magnitude better than those of quartz. Therefore, natural quartz is currently used only by jewellers. A similar situation occurred with the varieties of corundum: with sapphire and ruby, as well as with diamonds - natural stones are used only in jewellery, while synthetic stones are used in technology. It should be noted that these natural stones are rare and expensive, while their artificial production is a relatively cheap process that does not require scarce raw materials.
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*My preliminary summary:
1) Minerals are extractedby surface, underground, combined and underwater ( from the seabed) mining.
2) Recycling ofmetals, plastics and other materials is growing and replacing industrial extraction from the bowels of the earth. But technologically, - it's a very different process. (c)Wikipedia: For example, the amount of ferrous scrap metal accumulated in the world already by the early 1900s was a significant part of the raw material base of metallurgy, and in the 2010s the share of scrap metal in the raw material base exceeds 40%. For some non-ferrous metals, such as lead, the share of scrap metal in the raw material base is even higher.
3) With thedevelopment of scientific and technological progress, the proportions of the extraction of various minerals change.
4) In the ancient epochonly 19 elements were extracted and used, in the XVIII century - 28, in the XIX century - 50, in the beginning of the XX century - 60. Nowadays all89 chemical elements contained in the Earth's crust are used.
5) The rate and volume of mineral extraction is growing exponentially: (c)Wikipedia:"Of all the minerals extracted from the bowels of the earth in the history of mankind, the predominant volume of minerals was extracted in the XX century: oil - 99.5%, coal - 90%, iron ore - 87%, copper ore - 80%, gold - 70%. Thesearch for and development of new deposits has covered practically the entire near-surface part of the Earth's crust, including the coastal shelf and the bottom of the World Ocean."
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In continuation my further conclusions from the above information.
While analysing the mining industry, I encountered difficulties in collecting the necessary information. It turned out that there is data on the topic on the Internet, but it is scattered and scattered "in pieces" on the sites. It is difficult to put together an overall picture. There are hundreds of large and medium-sized enterprises, hundreds of small ones, each has its own site and each is engaged in a separate area. I found photos of tables of production volumes of different countries for different years, graphs and diagrams. All this gives a very general idea. I realised that I need world statistics, current macro indicators and global data on the world to build a correct vision of the industry and the vector of immediate development. Probably specialised research institutes and analytical centres do this, and they probably have good sources of up-to-date data. Well, we will have to take what is available in the public domain and try to draw the right conclusions.
Next, I will give examples of tables, graphs and charts as part of the statistical picture of the mining industry in macro terms - processing volumes, number of enterprises and so on. Then we'll look at pictures from mining sites - quarries, mines. Then we'll look at the working equipment - cranes, dump trucks, crushers, machine tools. And the general infrastructure - factories, businesses.
In the end, let's try to find an answer - what is the most likely next step in automation for the mining industry in the near term? Will it be androids or something else?
Then let's move on to the next industry - metallurgy.
We should probably start with geological exploration.
I agree, I will try to include it at least partially. The main thing here is not to forget the essence of the question and not to drown in information).
Material from Wikipedia on mineral exploration:
Mineral deposit exploration
Stages of mineral deposit exploration
The method of deposit exploration depends on the appropriate technical means to obtain the most complete information on the exploration intersection or geological volume of the deposit as a whole.
Inpreliminary exploration,drilling is most often used: percussiondrilling(only inplacer exploration), coredrilling(core and coreless), deepdrilling. In some cases (often when exploring deposits of non-ferrous and rare metal ores) deeppits, shallowshafts,adits are used. Their purpose is to confirm exploration drilling data, clarify the structure of the most complex areas of the deposit, and take technological samples.
Detailed exploration and additional exploration of deposits also involves extensive use of drilling. On some properties, deep exploration and exploration-exploitation shafts are also penetrated. In'developmental exploration' ( at a mined mineral deposit) the main type of work is the sinking of special mine workings ( horizontal, vertical and inclined) and the drilling of wells, bothcore ( to obtaincore) andperforator ( coreless). In order to obtain maximum information on the structure of deposits and patterns of mineral resources location at minimum cost, exploration workings are located so that they cross the entire thickness of the prospective zone (horizon, structure), and exploration profiles (groups of exploration intersections) - mainly across the strike of the latter.
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(*) From the point of view of the set task of searching for the nearest automation niches that can be provided by the growing capabilities of neural networks, at first glance geological exploration, as a set of scientific research works aimed at determining the industrial significance of deposits, does not seem to be a successful sphere for human activity automation, because it is connected with the work of human mind, which is poorly amenable to algorithms, more than with the repetitive sequences of physical actions that fit into patterns. But even if the intellectual work of scientists or geological prospecting procedures can be outsourced to AI, it will not give much profit or reconstruction of the mining industry as a whole. That is my preliminary opinion.
Added: it is another matter if the scientific and industrial methods of geological exploration themselves evolve. Then it will change the mining industry. But scientific progress has no direct correlation with automation progress. Or does it?)
I'm gradually forming the idea that in the end of the study of all 7 industries we will find that in each of them there is room to move to the next level with the help of new possibilities of computer vision and robotics. Androids are certainly not a panacea, but in combination with "autopilot" vehicles and the development of special modules for machine tools through which AI can control them, industries will reach a new level of automation. But, we'll see...
there are no machines that can't perform the required functions automatically.
nobody's going to reinvent the wheel.
100%"Machine tools" in this context refers to a wide range of different factory machines, which often consist of several interacting parts. There are various examples and the variety of production machines (machine tools) is great. For example, I personally saw a "machine" similar to a "spider" that took small caps from one conveyor with a tin manipulator and glued them onto packs of napkins running on another conveyor. Having a complex structure, it fulfilled the simplest function. At the same time it would often break down, get out of rhythm or glue past, forcing the operator to intervene, fix or adjust parameters. I remember large machines/stations that simply cut or pressed cardboard at marked locations creating folds for future boxes. The operator was always around and constantly watching the process, running along the line 20 - 30 metres and up and down the ladder.
In general, remembering this, it is not very believable in the threat of an AI uprising))).
Continued today.
When you get acquainted with industry and see how machines, machines and operators really work, the Muscovite illusions quickly fade away. But that's just for the record.
Here are some photos of mining enterprises from the outside and inside:
Here are pictures of the mining processes: