Processing plants have the reputation of being energy inefficient, but a recent study has put some hard numbers on their energy usage.
After investigating three industrial grinding mill circuits operated by Agnico Eagle Goldex Division, Mine Canadian Malartic and New Gold New Afton Mine, researchers concluded “on average, 79 per cent of the supplied electrical energy was converted to heat absorbed by the slurry, eight per cent was lost through the drive system and approximately two per cent was transmitted to the ambient air. Only nine per cent of the input energy was actually used for grinding.” In this regard, not much has changed in a very long time.
As the lead author of the paper “Breaking down energy consumption in industrial grinding mills” (published in CIM Journal Volume 10, Number 4, 2019), Jocelyn Bouchard, a Université Laval associate professor of chemical engineering, believes there are easy efficiencies to be gained and energy to be saved. CIM Magazine spoke to Bouchard and asked him about making processing plants more efficient.
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