Rio Tinto will invest $1.5 billion through its Kennecott Utah Copper subsidiary to extend mining of copper and other metals at Utah’s Bingham Canyon Mine through to 2032. Rio had previously planned to retire the mine in 2026.
Rio considered an improving outlook for copper as the basis for the move to extend mining operations at Bingham, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. Demand for copper is likely to grow strongly due to increasing use in renewable power technologies and electric vehicles.
Rio will likely power its copper mining operations using renewable energy to meet its goal to become carbon neutral by 2050.
To that end, Rio retired three of its four coal-fired power-generation units in Magna in 2016 after agreeing on a deal to purchase power from Rocky Mountain Power.
It moth-balled the last unit in May this year. “Kennecott will pair 1.5 million megawatt-hours of electricity with Green-e Energy certified carbon-free renewable energy certificates, primarily from Rocky Mountain Power’s growing portfolio of wind and solar resources,” the company said in a statement at the time.
The closure of the plant and acquisition of renewable energy certificates will remove more than 1 million tons of CO2 from Kennecott’s Wasatch Front operations. It will also reduce its annual carbon footprint by as much as 65%.
Read the Salt Lake Tribune article on Kennecott’s life extension HERE.
Read the Salt Lake Tribune article on the Magna coal plant closure HERE.
Image Source: Wikimedia
