Rio Tinto is scoping out options for up to 4 gigawatts of solar and wind power to supply its Queensland aluminium assets, after soliciting for proposals last June.

In December, the company commissioned a 34 megawatt solar power plant for its Gudai-Darri iron ore mine.

It also pledged $600 million for two 100 MW solar power facilities and a 200 MWh on-grid battery storage plant in the Pilbara iron-ore region, which will be built by 2026.

This forms part of a $3 billion planned investment program to power its Pilbara operations with 1 gigawatt of green energy this decade.

Rio Tinto’s head of technology and development, Mark Davies, told investors in November that it made sense for the company to develop its own renewables in the Pilbara, “as we own much of the infrastructure and operate the grid as part of our integrated operations”.

But elsewhere the company might go for power purchase agreements because “other investors focused on renewables can develop large solutions at a more attractive cost of capital, offering us real operating cost savings”.

Rio Tinto said it was still discussing the 2026 phase-one Pilbara plan, which will involve about 225,000 solar panels, with state and local governments and the traditional landowners.

#"It’s not that easy"

CEO Mr Stausholm raised some issues however, saying Rio Tinto’s effort to shift to large-scale renewable energy sources at its Australian aluminium smelters was “not that easy, and it actually takes a lot of time”.

“People say, ‘Oh Australia, perfect, lots of sun, lots of space’. It’s not that easy,” he said.

“You actually first have to acquire the land, you have to get working with Indigenous people, you have to go through the cultural clearance of sites, etcetera.

“We’re used to big sites in mining, but quite frankly mining sites are small compared to the scale of these parks; and the world has not really done this at scale yet.

“That’s why I think sometimes we’re fooling ourselves a little bit on the timeline. It’s going to take time.”

Mr Stausholm was asked whether governments should try to cut red and green tape to get mining and green energy projects onstream more quickly. His response was cautious.

“We cannot compromise on other things. You’ve got to bring along your local communities, Indigenous populations. It takes the time it takes,” he said.

“There is something about bureaucratic procedure and permitting you can break down. But the whole process of environmental impact assessment is a proven thing, it works well. Obviously, we should try to speed it up.”

Many embodied CO2 studies rely on outdated data which does not acknowledge the constant greening of the supply chain. 1/3 of Gudai-Darri iron ore mine's energy needs for example is met from solar energy. It is likely that the benefits of moving to renewable energy will compound much more rapidly than anticipated.

The following submission statement was provided by /u/Surur:

Rio Tinto is scoping out options for up to 4 gigawatts of solar and wind power to supply its Queensland aluminium assets, after soliciting for proposals last June.

In December, the company commissioned a 34 megawatt solar power plant for its Gudai-Darri iron ore mine.

It also pledged $600 million for two 100 MW solar power facilities and a 200 MWh on-grid battery storage plant in the Pilbara iron-ore region, which will be built by 2026.

This forms part of a $3 billion planned investment program to power its Pilbara operations with 1 gigawatt of green energy this decade.

Rio Tinto’s head of technology and development, Mark Davies, told investors in November that it made sense for the company to develop its own renewables in the Pilbara, “as we own much of the infrastructure and operate the grid as part of our integrated operations”.

But elsewhere the company might go for power purchase agreements because “other investors focused on renewables can develop large solutions at a more attractive cost of capital, offering us real operating cost savings”.

Rio Tinto said it was still discussing the 2026 phase-one Pilbara plan, which will involve about 225,000 solar panels, with state and local governments and the traditional landowners.

#"It’s not that easy"

CEO Mr Stausholm raised some issues however, saying Rio Tinto’s effort to shift to large-scale renewable energy sources at its Australian aluminium smelters was “not that easy, and it actually takes a lot of time”.

“People say, ‘Oh Australia, perfect, lots of sun, lots of space’. It’s not that easy,” he said.

“You actually first have to acquire the land, you have to get working with Indigenous people, you have to go through the cultural clearance of sites, etcetera.

“We’re used to big sites in mining, but quite frankly mining sites are small compared to the scale of these parks; and the world has not really done this at scale yet.

“That’s why I think sometimes we’re fooling ourselves a little bit on the timeline. It’s going to take time.”

Mr Stausholm was asked whether governments should try to cut red and green tape to get mining and green energy projects onstream more quickly. His response was cautious.

“We cannot compromise on other things. You’ve got to bring along your local communities, Indigenous populations. It takes the time it takes,” he said.

“There is something about bureaucratic procedure and permitting you can break down. But the whole process of environmental impact assessment is a proven thing, it works well. Obviously, we should try to speed it up.”

Many embodied CO2 studies rely on outdated data which does not acknowledge the constant greening of the supply chain. 1/3 of Gudai-Darri iron ore mine's energy needs for example is met from solar energy. It is likely that the benefits of moving to renewable energy will compound much more rapidly than anticipated.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/10gv1h4/rio_tinto_to_invest_3_billion_in_solar_energy_for/j54slyd/

I seriously wonder how extremely cheap solar will change Australia and its economy. I envision the Sun Cable project with Singapore being replicated with countless other countries, powering the emerging economies of SEA. It will probably also move up the mining chain, smelting and refining all the ore they now just directly export.

In my opinion, Australia is predestined to become a future energy superpower, supplying Asia, where most of humanity lives, replacing imports from the Middle East.

Rio Tinto is switching to renewables is about as big an endorsement as you can get.

Even outside of western China there are India, myanmar, vietnam, cambodia, nepal and mongolia which all have substantial renewable resources. It's not clear that the cost of export is lower than the cost of local production and overland transmission.

Indonesia and PNG are good candidates though.

I hope rio becomes a pioneer in green mining and it does big things for their share price, because I'm holding a big and growing bag of RIO.

I think one thing about this, if Australia decides to invest heavily into making itself a power superpower.

We'll most likely to see a huge revolution when it comes to infrastructure and habitability of the continent overall. Possibly more than likely to push the country into a actual superpower status.

Considering the fact that the whole country is just mostly wilderness, with fair amount of country-sized farms across the land. But since everything is so far apart, we'll likely to see some new development of existing settlements situated in hot arid outback, turning into bigger towns or cities to supply the demand that the solar farms require for their maintenance. And we could easily grow things in the outback with enclosed farming, allowing for plants to be grown in climate controlled rooms in often considered impossible, outback with the advent of limitless clean energy.

It'd probably make sense too considering the fact that Middle East is already crumbling, due to the dominant alt-right movements destroying the countries inside out despite the facade that they put up.

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