The latest story on the launch of the world’s largest zero-emission haul truck comes from Interesting Engineering, who interviewed First Mode CEO Chris Voorhees for a story published today about the innovative clean tech developed by First Mode to power the giant vehicle.
Article excerpt:
The world’s largest zero-emission haul truck, the nuGen, was recently revealed to the world by mining giant Anglo American.
The enormous hydrogen fuel cell and lithium-ion battery powerplant that powers the truck was designed and developed by First Mode, a creative engineering company based in Seattle, whose mission is to help the world transition to cleaner solutions. …
Paradoxically, mining, with its poor environmental track record, will be vital in the fight against climate change.
According to the World Economic Forum, the transition to clean energy, required to avert the most disastrous effects of climate change, may need as much as 3 billion tons of metals for the development of batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and other machinery.
First Mode’s Voorhees highlighted this point to IE. Though mining is a “pretty dirty industry with a pretty checkered past that has had a lot of problems and has done a lot of environmental damage in history, it is also vital to society,” he explained.
“And so from a standpoint of decarbonization, you need to start at the source. If you cannot get material in a sustainable way and in a zero-emission fashion, then to some extent it’s fruit from a poison tree,” Voorhees explained, referring to electric vehicles that require materials that are sometimes mined unethically or in a way that is damaging to the environment.
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