When I was just a small kid, our school class was taken on a field trip to the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Being the snotty cynic I was then (and probably still am) I was unimpressed. I could not fathom the potential benefit of looking at alternative wheat strains, or new electronic equipment to classify, register, and control people.
At university, I looked with some askance at the venerated mining research unit that occupied grand buildings north of the campus. Earlier this year I was in South Africa, where an old consultant confided to me that in the early years some innovative stuff had come out of the research group, but over the years their productivity dropped and the staff mired down in politics and platitudes. Apparently they were disbanded and blended in with another group at the CSIR. Today on their website they still appear to undertake mining-related research. I particularly liked this innovative work:
The magnitude 5.3 seismic event in March 2005 in Klerksdorp could be ascribed to past mining. While the Klerksdorp and Free State gold mining districts are incorporating the risks of seismicity in their disaster management plans, Johannesburg is urged to do likewise.
What would we do without such warnings from independent researchers? Maybe we can make more money with this idea:
Witwatersrand gold mines consist of enormous near-horizontal tabular excavations. In order to support the roof of the excavation, large stabilizing pillars are left behind. It has been suggested that it may be possible to remove the stabilizing pillars, particularly at depth, because the roof has closed to the floor between the pillars, and partially relieved the pillars of the stress of support. This revolutionary idea would open up substantial reserves of gold. Anglogold Ashanti alone estimates that it has more than ten million ounces locked up in stabilizing pillars in the Witwatersrand, valued today at more than thirty billion rand. To create a viable strategy for mining pillars, a focussed research programme is required on how the stress has changed with time, and how to mitigate the stresses that remain to safely remove the pillars. Impact: Liberating the thirty billion rand that currently sits locked in stability pillars would extend the life of the key Witwatersrand gold mines by ten to twenty years, securing thousands of jobs.
Yesterday, I chatted with a professor at a local university who is about to take up a post at a distant university to lead a group in undertaking “practical oriented research” for the country’s mining industry. I almost pity him. His role will be to encourage local students to take up the study of mining and maybe join the local mining industry. He is enthused as he will have to do less research to produce technical publications and can focus more on teaching and student development. That sounds like a fine idea.
But I began to wonder about the benefits of mining research institutes in general. Should the mining industry in various places and countries support research operations? Would they not be better served by having but a very small management staff and farming the research –always needed–out to consultants by competitive research?
When I look over the advances in mining of which I am aware that have affected the way and the things I consult about, I recognize that almost none of it has come out of researchers. Most has come out of practical miners and their consultants solving real-time, real-life problems at operating mines. To test this thesis in your area of practice, undertake this experiment: count the papers in the most recent volume of proceedings from your favorite conference, and tally up those by consultants doing timely work as compared to the papers by researchers climbing the university or research institute career ladder. As a consultant, I had better get back to work, and leave you to the research. Let us know the results.
