Harmony Cuts Energy Consumption, Ushering in Solar, Mulling Biofuels

(Mining Weekly) Gold mining and exploration company Harmony Gold is intensifying its efforts to cut electricity consumption to a minimum while also looking at introducing solar power and biofuel energy.

But what the company has not done yet is to self-generate its own power supply, but that may be about to change – although its big underground mines will always be Eskom dependent.

It is working on a project to grow crops for biofuels in some of the mined-out areas now under rehabilitation.

The growing of crops for biofuels has been twinned with its rehabilitation initiative.

“There certainly is merit in converting mine-impacted land to energy crop land. That we’ve successfully done. Getting the technology in place to translate that bio into energy has been a little more challenging and I think it’s simply because South Africa does not have sufficient capability, so we’ve been looking afield for expertise to support us.

“We’re very close to cracking this one and once we do that and finesse this pilot initiative, then we’ll look at opportunities for extending it,” Naidoo-Vermaak added to Mining Weekly Online. READ MORE