http://www.psmag.com/environment/the-new-bronze-age-entering-the-era-of-tough-ore-60868/
In 2001, the giant mining firm Rio Tinto
made a momentous decision: Its Bingham Canyon Mine—the oldest and
richest open-pit copper mine in the world, in operation since 1906 and
the largest man-made excavation in history—would be shut down.
Since the early 1980s, the copper industry had been in a prolonged
slump. As Europe and North America shifted from manufacturing to service
economies, demand for copper flatlined and its price stagnated. Mine
operators were making cents on the dollar. Bingham—a huge crater in the
heart of the Oquirrh Mountains, 20 miles from Salt Lake City—was at a
tipping point. To keep producing, the pit would have to keep expanding,
and each expansion would be more expensive than the last. Eventually,
the costs would outweigh the returns. Closure of the pit was slated for
2013. It would be the end of an era.
That end did not come. If you visit Bingham Canyon today, you’ll find
a fleet of house-size dump trucks descending into the pit, loading up
on rock, and climbing back up and out, around the clock. The pit is
being widened and deepened to expose new ore, even as current mining
operations continue.
But the pit is not the whole story. Rio Tinto is planning to build a
second mine on—or rather, under—the site. The aboveground operation will
now be shut down around 2029. But Bingham Canyon is likely to go on.
According to the current plan, the giant pit will give way to a giant
underground mine, already in the early stages of construction, 2,000
feet beneath the pit’s floor.
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