Bäckblom Göran
Göran Bäckblom received his M. Sc. in mining engineering at the Luleå Univ of Technology in 1977. Since then he has been involved in underground civil engineering, geological disposal of radioactive waste and metal mining business.. Besides his work at LKAB and with the ETPSMR, he is also the Managing Director of the Swedish Mining Research Foundation (MITU) and responsible Programme Director for international mining consortia – like the Mine of the Future. He is a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.
" Mine of the Future – efficient and safe tool to secure access to deeply located raw materials resources for Europe"
The underground metal mining will become the major part of the total mining production in future. When going deeper for mineral resources we should solve problems with an increase in rock pressure with subsequent rock stability problems and occurrence of seismic events . Additionally, the high temperature of rock rising with depth will need better ventilation and dust control. In case of metal mining it requires the solution of work that supports both high productivity and good working and social conditions. Taking the advantages of advance in automation and robotics based on IT and ES technologies, the deep mining will need the wide use of remote monitoring and controlling of all underground operations. The Intelligent Mine will need remote controlled production for unmanned processes, mine-wide information network for all autonomous machines. This is the vision for the Mine of the Future which encompasses:
- removing people from hazardous environments;
- can give Europe the technological leadership in resource-efficient production of raw materials
- design Next Generation machines to operate remotely and autonomously;
- introduce integrated and intelligent monitoring and control systems;
- create future perspectives for extractive industry with newly manufacturing technologies.