India is home to abundant natural mineral resource and is one of the top ten producers of several minerals (Fig. 1). With a contribution of 1.53 per cent of gross domestic product in 2017-18, mining is an important sector for the Indian economy.
There is growing realisation that the mining industry can significantly bolster growth in India over the next decade as it will directly impact a wide-array of industries including automobile, cement, etc., impacting crucial infrastructure needs, such as development of road networks among others. As per a 2014 report of McKinsey, the mining industry can contribute USD 47 billion to India’s GDP by 2025.
However, mining is plagued with multiple challenges. For instance, to produce a kg of aluminium, 5 kg of bauxite is needed along with 13 l of water. The extraction process itself will demand 15.7 Kwh of electrical energy. Thus mining aluminium not only requires bauxite but also makes significant demands on other resources. Often such demands take a heavy toll on the environment as well. To achieve the full potential of mining it is thus important that regulatory policies, available technologies and human capital work in tandem. The mining industry is usually characterised by several phases:
Exploration—Identifying precise geographical locations where there are significant ore concentrations;
Development—Building infrastructure to aid in the extraction of minerals;
Extraction—Recovering raw minerals, processing and transporting them; and
Closure and Reclamation—Minimising adverse impacts on environment to ensure that the land returns to its original state once the mine is closed, when the mineral reserves are substantially depleted.
The importance of improving the efficiency involved in the various stages of mining cannot be overstated and companies world over are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to solve these vexing problems. The transformative potential of AI in delivering technological solutions to complex industrial and societal problems is spurring governments around the globe to formulate national policies on its usage. This article illustratively outlines how AI can help address mining concerns in exploration and extraction phases.
AI for Mineral Exploration
The most critical stage in mining is to identify places which has significant exploitable mineral reserves. It is estimated that India may have large reserves of resources that is yet to be discovered with accounts claiming that the volume of remaining reserves could perhaps be twice that of the current estimates (FICCI, 2013) (Fig. 2). Identifying these reserves would require significant investments in technology and several reports have identified this to be a key for improved efficiency of mineral exploration in India (FICCI, 2013; FICCI, 2018; Mckinsey, 2014). The potential of AI in improving the process of mineral exploration is huge and the point is illustrated through a couple of examples.
Finding gold reserves and Kriging: Data analysis is the cornerstone of AI and has a long history in aiding the identification of mineral reserves. Geostatistics, the application of mathematical statistics to spatiotemporal datasets in various branches of geology has played a stellar role in mineral exploration. The first such application of geostatistics goes back to the 1950’s when Danie Krige invented a technique called Kriging, more commonly known as Gaussian process (Krige, 1951) and used it to accurately predict the value of gold reserves in a nearby mine.
Since its introduction it has been successfully applied to mineral exploration and still remains a tool of choice. In recent years the ability to collect and process data from a single drill-hole easily exceeds hundreds of mega-bytes. Mining in an area will involve several such drill-holes and analysis of associated data will require tools for data analysis developed in the broad field of AI. Gold Spot Discoveries Inc., was in fact able to predict 86 per cent of the existing gold deposits in the Abitibi gold belt region of Canada by fusing heterogeneous data-sources including geological, topography, and mineralogy from just 4 per cent of total surface area. This is a significant development which demonstrates the promise of AI in mineral exploration (Holmes, 2019).
Ore fragment assessment: Usually ore fragment assessment, an important aspect of mining, is conducted manually. A data science company, PETRA developed an AI algorithm for ore fragment assessment which is fully automated. Globally there are ongoing efforts in leveraging such data analysis techniques for mineral exploration.
Autonomous systems to improve mining operations
Apart from mineral exploration, AI can also help in impacting the various processes involved in mining. Robots, drones, unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are examples of autonomous systems which can play a significant role in mines. An Australian mining company Rio Tinto, announced at the beginning of 2019 the introduction of Auto Haul, a fully autonomous train that will help transport iron between various ports owned by the company. The project uses about 200 locomotives over 1,700 km of track to transport ore from 16 mines to four port terminals in the Pilbara region in Australia. Rio-Tinto is in the process of completely automating their processes which would include autonomous loaders that excavate dirt and autonomous blast-hole drillers.
Also, Volvo announced in 2018 that autonomous trucks will be used for transporting limestone from a mine in Norway to nearby ports. Trucks operating on the surface can access the Global Positioning Systems (GPS) which can be used to guide such autonomous vehicles. However, the underground operation of such trucks remains a technological challenge.
Recently an Indian company, ATI Motors, have made remarkable strides in developing a cargo vehicle which can navigate autonomously without GPS to provide logistic support in challenging environments such as mining. The driverless vehicle has been built from scratch and is simple and sturdy. For instance, unlike traditional vehicles retrofitted with autonomy, it does away with the cabin for a driver and hence saves on both space and the ergonomics that goes with it. It uses novel algorithms which can operate on Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) and images from camera, combined with inertial measurement units (IMU). It also does not need any augmentation of the external world with beacons etc., to navigate. Unlike traditional automated guided vehicle (AGVs) that operate on fixed routes, the routes on this vehicle can be dynamic which is ideal for mining.
Apart from UGVs, drones are also used in the mining industry. Though in its early days but it is already seen that surveying can be easily done by deploying drones.
Asteroid Mining: Going Beyond Earth
Based on current reserves on the earth and the growing consumption, it is estimated that the raw materials needed for sustaining human civilization would be exhausted within next half a century . It is conjectured that in the not so distant future we will have colonies in outer space. Building such colonies would not be viable if items have to be transported from earth. It is believed that extraction of raw materials from asteroids and other minor planets, could be the key to creating such colonies.
It is no longer in the realm of imagination and there are several start-ups trying to design technologies for asteroid mining. Planetary resources, an American Company, plans to create a Fuel Depot in Space in 2020 for refuelling rockets with liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen obtained by splitting water harvested from asteroids. Though the potential of asteroid mining is enormous, crucial to this endeavour would be the ability to execute the mining process efficiently in space. Development of sophisticated robots suited for these tasks will be thus key to the success of this programme.
Way Forward
It is clear from the illustrations above that the potential of AI in transforming mining industry is huge. Acknowledging the transformative role of AI, governments around the world are now formulating policies on how best to take advantage of technologies arising from the field of AI for betterment of society. The Indian government through NITI-Aayog has come out with a broad strategy plan on how to foster AI to develop technological solutions which can address the needs of the nation. It would be very helpful if all stakeholders in mining industry can come together to devise a similar plan which can specifically leverage AI technologies for more efficient mining.
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The United Nations has shaped so much of global co-operation and regulation that we wouldn’t recognise our world today without the UN’s pervasive role in it. So many small details of our lives – such as postage and copyright laws – are subject to international co-operation nurtured by the UN.
In its 75th year, however, the UN is in a difficult moment as the world faces climate crisis, a global pandemic, great power competition, trade wars, economic depression and a wider breakdown in international co-operation.
Still, the UN has faced tough times before – over many decades during the Cold War, the Security Council was crippled by deep tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. The UN is not as sidelined or divided today as it was then. However, as the relationship between China and the US sours, the achievements of global co-operation are being eroded.
The way in which people speak about the UN often implies a level of coherence and bureaucratic independence that the UN rarely possesses. A failure of the UN is normally better understood as a failure of international co-operation.
We see this recently in the UN’s inability to deal with crises from the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, to civil conflict in Syria, and the failure of the Security Council to adopt a COVID-19 resolution calling for ceasefires in conflict zones and a co-operative international response to the pandemic.
The UN administration is not primarily to blame for these failures; rather, the problem is the great powers – in the case of COVID-19, China and the US – refusing to co-operate.
Where states fail to agree, the UN is powerless to act.
Marking the 75th anniversary of the official formation of the UN, when 50 founding nations signed the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, we look at some of its key triumphs and resounding failures.
Five successes
1. Peacekeeping
The United Nations was created with the goal of being a collective security organisation. The UN Charter establishes that the use of force is only lawful either in self-defence or if authorised by the UN Security Council. The Security Council’s five permanent members, being China, US, UK, Russia and France, can veto any such resolution.
The UN’s consistent role in seeking to manage conflict is one of its greatest successes.
A key component of this role is peacekeeping. The UN under its second secretary-general, the Swedish statesman Dag Hammarskjöld – who was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace prize after he died in a suspicious plane crash – created the concept of peacekeeping. Hammarskjöld was responding to the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which the US opposed the invasion of Egypt by its allies Israel, France and the UK.
UN peacekeeping missions involve the use of impartial and armed UN forces, drawn from member states, to stabilise fragile situations. “The essence of peacekeeping is the use of soldiers as a catalyst for peace rather than as the instruments of war,” said then UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, when the forces won the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize following missions in conflict zones in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Central America and Europe.
However, peacekeeping also counts among the UN’s major failures.
2. Law of the Sea
Negotiated between 1973 and 1982, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) set up the current international law of the seas. It defines states’ rights and creates concepts such as exclusive economic zones, as well as procedures for the settling of disputes, new arrangements for governing deep sea bed mining, and importantly, new provisions for the protection of marine resources and ocean conservation.
Mostly, countries have abided by the convention. There are various disputes that China has over the East and South China Seas which present a conflict between power and law, in that although UNCLOS creates mechanisms for resolving disputes, a powerful state isn’t necessarily going to submit to those mechanisms.
Secondly, on the conservation front, although UNCLOS is a huge step forward, it has failed to adequately protect oceans that are outside any state’s control. Ocean ecosystems have been dramatically transformed through overfishing. This is an ecological catastrophe that UNCLOS has slowed, but failed to address comprehensively.
3. Decolonisation
The idea of racial equality and of a people’s right to self-determination was discussed in the wake of World War I and rejected. After World War II, however, those principles were endorsed within the UN system, and the Trusteeship Council, which monitored the process of decolonisation, was one of the initial bodies of the UN.
Although many national independence movements only won liberation through bloody conflicts, the UN has overseen a process of decolonisation that has transformed international politics. In 1945, around one third of the world’s population lived under colonial rule. Today, there are less than 2 million people living in colonies.
When it comes to the world’s First Nations, however, the UN generally has done little to address their concerns, aside from the non-binding UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007.
4. Human rights
The Human Rights Declaration of 1948 for the first time set out fundamental human rights to be universally protected, recognising that the “inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”.
Since 1948, 10 human rights treaties have been adopted – including conventions on the rights of children and migrant workers, and against torture and discrimination based on gender and race – each monitored by its own committee of independent experts.
The language of human rights has created a new framework for thinking about the relationship between the individual, the state and the international system. Although some people would prefer that political movements focus on ‘liberation’ rather than ‘rights’, the idea of human rights has made the individual person a focus of national and international attention.
5. Free trade
Depending on your politics, you might view the World Trade Organisation as a huge success, or a huge failure.
The WTO creates a near-binding system of international trade law with a clear and efficient dispute resolution process.
The majority Australian consensus is that the WTO is a success because it has been good for Australian famers especially, through its winding back of subsidies and tariffs.
However, the WTO enabled an era of globalisation which is now politically controversial.
Recently, the US has sought to disrupt the system. In addition to the trade war with China, the Trump Administration has also refused to appoint tribunal members to the WTO’s Appellate Body, so it has crippled the dispute resolution process. Of course, the Trump Administration is not the first to take issue with China’s trade strategies, which include subsidises for ‘State Owned Enterprises’ and demands that foreign firms transfer intellectual property in exchange for market access.
The existence of the UN has created a forum where nations can discuss new problems, and climate change is one of them. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 to assess climate science and provide policymakers with assessments and options. In 1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change created a permanent forum for negotiations.
However, despite an international scientific body in the IPCC, and 165 signatory nations to the climate treaty, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase.
Under the Paris Agreement, even if every country meets its greenhouse gas emission targets we are still on track for ‘dangerous warming’. Yet, no major country is even on track to meet its targets; while emissions will probably decline this year as a result of COVID-19, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will still increase.
This illustrates a core conundrum of the UN in that it opens the possibility of global cooperation, but is unable to constrain states from pursuing their narrowly conceived self-interests. Deep co-operation remains challenging.
Five failures of the UN
1. Peacekeeping
During the Bosnian War, Dutch peacekeeping forces stationed in the town of Srebrenica, declared a ‘safe area’ by the UN in 1993, failed in 1995 to stop the massacre of more than 8000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. This is one of the most widely discussed examples of the failures of international peacekeeping operations.
On the massacre’s 10th anniversary, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote that the UN had “made serious errors of judgement, rooted in a philosophy of impartiality”, contributing to a mass murder that would “haunt our history forever”.
If you look at some of the other infamous failures of peacekeeping missions – in places such as Rwanda, Somalia and Angola – it is the limited powers given to peacekeeping operations that have resulted in those failures.
2. The invasion of Iraq
The invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, which was unlawful and without Security Council authorisation, reflects the fact that the UN is has very limited capacity to constrain the actions of great powers.
The Security Council designers created the veto power so that any of the five permanent members could reject a Council resolution, so in that way it is programmed to fail when a great power really wants to do something that the international community generally condemns.
In the case of the Iraq invasion, the US didn’t veto a resolution, but rather sought authorisation that it did not get. The UN, if you go by the idea of collective security, should have responded by defending Iraq against this unlawful use of force.
The invasion proved a humanitarian disaster with the loss of more than 400,000 lives, and many believe that it led to the emergence of the terrorist Islamic State.
3. Refugee crises
The UN brokered the 1951 Refugee Convention to address the plight of people displaced in Europe due to World War II; years later, the 1967 Protocol removed time and geographical restrictions so that the Convention can now apply universally (although many countries in Asia have refused to sign it, owing in part to its Eurocentric origins).
Despite these treaties, and the work of the UN High Commission for Refugees, there is somewhere between 30 and 40 million refugees, many of them, such as many Palestinians, living for decades outside their homelands. This is in addition to more than 40 million people displaced within their own countries.
While for a long time refugee numbers were reducing, in recent years, particularly driven by the Syrian conflict, there have been increases in the number of people being displaced.
During the COVID-19 crisis, boatloads of Rohingya refugees were turned away by port after port. This tragedy has echoes of pre-World War II when ships of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany were refused entry by multiple countries.
And as a catastrophe of a different kind looms, there is no international framework in place for responding to people who will be displaced by rising seas and other effects of climate change.
4. Conflicts without end
Across the world, there is a shopping list of unresolved civil conflicts and disputed territories.
Palestine and Kashmir are two of the longest-running failures of the UN to resolve disputed lands. More recent, ongoing conflicts include the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
The common denominator of unresolved conflicts is either division among the great powers, or a lack of international interest due to the geopolitical stakes not being sufficiently high. For instance, the inaction during the Rwandan civil war in the 1990s was not due to a division among great powers, but rather a lack of political will to engage.
In Syria, by contrast, Russia and the US have opposing interests and back opposing sides: Russia backs the government of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whereas the US does not.
5. Acting like it’s 1945
The UN is increasingly out of step with the reality of geopolitics today.
The permanent members of the Security Council reflect the division of power internationally at the end of World War II. The continuing exclusion of Germany, Japan, and rising powers such as India and Indonesia, reflects the failure to reflect the changing balance of power.
Also, bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank, which are part of the UN system, continue to be dominated by the West. In response, China has created potential rival institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Western domination of UN institutions undermines their credibility. However, a more fundamental problem is that institutions designed in 1945 are a poor fit with the systemic global challenges – of which climate change is foremost – that we face today.