Show ID (00:04): This is Power Onward, the podcast that unveils how power technology shapes your everyday life. You are listening to Power Award. What is power in your world on This is Power Onward, the podcast that unveils how power technology shapes your everyday life. Kim (00:34): We all have a general idea of what mining looks like. Maybe a person in a dark cave, like chipping away for gems and diamonds on the surface. That image seems familiar, but the reality is just so much bigger. We're talking about copper, iron and other minerals that power modern life. The phone in your hand, the batteries inside electric vehicles. The data centers driving AI. If it's not grown, it's mind and mining has a global footprint that touches everyone. Welcome back to Power Onward. I'm Kim. Guilherme (01:03): I'm Guilherme. Kim (01:04): Guilherme, today, we're digging into the world of mining. So let's start with perception. When most people think of mining, they think of that person in the cave. Why is that a common misconception? Guilherme (01:15): Yeah, so mining, if you think about mining, mining is not just the underground, just the cave mining. You have open pits as well. So mining, you have the mountains over there, the minerals inside the mountains in the underground and the surface. So mining, we are exploring that environment, that mountains, that big canyons and whatnot and trying to extract what the mine is in there. So mining is huge. It's like a system full of rich richness, materials, like you said, coppers in there, irons in there, silver, gold and whatnot. A lot of metals in there. So the mining business, per se, is the business or a system that explores all of that metals or the material from the nature to convert that into the needs that we have in that daily business or our daily life. Kim (02:06): Given that explanation, it is so evident that you've had an interest in mining for a while. Where did that all begin? Guilherme (02:13): Well, it began probably when I was five, 10 years old, around that I had this metal die cast truck. It was a big truck. It was a kind of crane truck and it was a big wheels, a big rims and whatnot, and it was a huge toy. It was not actually a proper toy for kids. Kim (02:30): I was just going to say I had plastic toys, and you're talking about cast, which is something that I collect as an adult, like die cast balls. Guilherme (02:36): It was a huge one. It was the size of this probably, and it was a big one, bigger than in a shoes box, and I was playing that a little bit. And then joining Cummins throughout my career, at some point I started to work in the mining business as a field service engineer for mining business. And then when that happened, I visited a few mine sites throughout South America and one of the mine signs, the first time I was there seeing the real big truck in front of me, that was something else. It pops everything. And back to my memories when I was a kid, first thing they did was taking a picture with me, a selfie on the trail. Kim (03:14): That's so awesome. Guilherme (03:15): And then send it to the family. Hey, my parents was there over there back home in Brazil. Hey, this is me next to a big hu truck. It was awesome. Kim (03:24): I feel like your parents would have that flashback of you playing with this truck the size of a shoebox as a kid and then going, wow, full circle moment. This is the job that you are in now. Guilherme (03:33): Yeah, yeah. And this job life I love. Yeah. Kim (03:37): So you talk about mining being like a system instantly in my mind, I started picturing the solar system because we think about size and vastness, you talk about the different implications and how integral mining is, but what are some of those applications that make mining relevant? Guilherme (03:51): So you got the whole system of mining. So you got the minerals over there and the dirt. So you have to have, first of all, you have to have blasting an100d you do the blasting to blast all the parts of the mountain over there. And then after that you've got a shovel, excavator, the shovel scoop, all that and put inside haul trucks and the scoop, each scoop is around a hundred tons. Kim (04:13): Hold on, hold on. When you say scoop, for some reason I pictured a sandbox and this tiny handheld shovel of how many, Guilherme (04:20): It's a massive scoop that could take around 75 to 100 tons per scoop. Huge. Kim (04:25): And for those of us who can't picture how much a ton even equates to, because I don't know, we weigh things here and there. I would Guilherme (04:31): Say roughly like 50 sedans that we have cars, Kim (04:36): 50 sedans just in one casual scoop. Guilherme (04:39): It's just a scoop. Yeah. Kim (04:40): Okay. Guilherme (04:41): It's huge. And then you have to have probably four scoops of that to put in the hot truck. The hot truck is, we're talking about the 400-ton truck. Speaker 4 (04:50): Whoa. Guilherme (04:50): Massive. It's one of those trucks that if we're staying just beside the wheel like I did before, it's like I'm six foot tall, so my height will probably had a half of the wheel over there, half of the tire. Kim (05:04): So you're saying the tire is probably closer to 12 feet and that's just one singular tire for this vehicle. Guilherme (05:09): Exactly, yeah. And that hot truck uses two six tires, so it's massive. Kim (05:16): This feels like the size of my apartment building. That's what I'm visualizing right now. Guilherme (05:20): And replacing that tire, right, It's complicated as well. Yeah. Kim (05:23): I can't imagine. My brother works in cars, he's always done automotive things. I'm going to tell him what you've just told me. Then I'd be like, how would you tackle that? How would you change this tire? Mr. Know-it-all? Guilherme (05:32): Yeah, yeah. There's a whole system over that to replace. And then that truck will take that mineral to the machines over there in the mine site because the mine site itself is like a city. The mine site will feel like 5,000 people working over there, 6,000 people working over there. It's a city. They have to have the dorms, they have to have kitchens and whatnot. Food for everyone, any who. So the operation goes when that truck goes to the machines over there in the mine, that property for the mine side and that material gets processed, gets processed, a lot of chemical involved, some process of exploring that material, extracting the raw, and then the copper itself, it's extracted from that, which is the copper that goes to the exportations throughout the world. Kim (06:15): That is a crazy journey for something that we seem that may be so little like the copper and the batteries. When you exchange your batteries, you look at it.Okay, cool. But the journey that it takes to get to that point is truly magnificent. Guilherme (06:27): It is huge. It's a full circle and the copper is everywhere. The copper in this room is in the wires that we're using here on those headphones, Kim (06:35): In our microphones. Guilherme (06:36): In our microphone, in your cell. Everybody has a cell phone right now in their hand, in their pocket. Some as even too. So Kim (06:42): Tablets, computers, you think about. Guilherme (06:44): Everywhere, their laptops. Kim (06:44): That's kind of why I wanted to lean into that. We frequently talk about AI. We frequently use AI. Everyone's tapping into AI for different things, generate this type of photo, turn my dog into a cartoon or something like that. But without the copper and the minerals that you're talking about, this expansion wouldn't even be possible, Guilherme (07:02): Right? All the minerals that we have in the nature right now, they're necessary for our lives as well as the food that we grow as well. We're using the minerals from the earth basically from the nature everywhere we go. And the hopper itself, I mean AI as you said, massive. So you see a huge grow in the mining business nowadays because of that necessity, that demand. And I like to say that the full circle of corporate, so you got the mining going over there, so you got the trucks shovels, the excavators, exploring that raw copper. The copper gets processed and gets shipped to all industries, puts on your phone, use your phone or puts in your data center like you said, and the generators will power or provide power to the internet or to a data center that we also need to, Kim (07:50): Of course. Guilherme (07:51): Through a daily business or daily lives, Kim (07:52): Think about storing our documents or even managing pictures. Yes, your photos, your documents, and we think about payments and transfers. Data centers are behind all of these things. So the everyday conveniences are kind of made possible through that mining industry as well. Guilherme (08:08): And for Cummins, you have the two business sites together. So you have the mining business in Cummins and you have the power gen business in Cummins as well because you also provide engines to power the machines that extract the minerals. And you also provide power generation or engine set or generators to the data centers to provide that power as well that we use the copper destructive from the mine. So we got full circle of the thing. Kim (08:32): Full circle and truly a global business too. Guilherme (08:35): Yes. Kim (08:36): With mining. Have you been able to travel to different places? What's it like mining in different parts of the world? Guilherme (08:42): It's different. So one of the biggest regions, you've got a huge concentration of copper in South America, actually got the biggest producer of copper in South America and Chile and Peru as well. And you got a huge polo of mining, huge power source of mining in Australia and you've got some really power source of mining in North America and you have rising in Africa as well, a lot of other metals over there and the northern Europe tourist towards Russia, Kim (09:08): Everywhere. Truly everywhere. Guilherme (09:09): Basically everywhere, right? Yeah, because you got whatever, you got the mines, I'm sorry, the mountains. You got the mines over there and I visited a few ones in Peru. I've been to probably by now over 15 different sites over there. And you see the workforce, like I said, it's a city, so you got a huge amount of people over there working and you got men and you got women as well. (09:34): Because right now, the mining business is an expansion of trying to take that stereotype. It's a male job. That stereotype is just, men can work on that. It's not, it's expanding to women. There's a lot of talent, women for multiple roles over there. So see that increasing every year that passes, which it should be for everyone. Kim (09:56): I know you got to get that picture of that rugged looking man in the cave and to expanding it into these open pits like you said with women working in mining. I think you mentioned a really interesting fact about women building something. What was that? Guilherme (10:09): Yeah, that was really cool. So there is a mine in Peru and there is an OEM which makes a lot of haul trucks over there and provided a lot of trucks over there. And one of the first haul trucks was actually the biggest one that we have powered with our engine. So our QSK95 powers massive that truck, that haul truck. (10:31): And the first production truck of scale over there in that mine site was one of the biggest mine sites in Peru. That truck was built a hundred percent by women. Kim (10:42): That is incredible. Guilherme (10:43): A hundred percent from scratch. I mean obviously, the engines over there, the part train over there parts, but putting that all together Kim (10:51): Was all women. Guilherme (10:51): Percent. That was fantastic. Kim (10:53): I love that. Guilherme (10:53): That was fantastic. Kim (10:54): That is a great fact to know. I'll have to find if there's pictures of this, I would love to see it. Guilherme (10:58): Yeah, I think there is an article on LinkedIn for that company over there. Yeah. Kim (11:01): Great. I'll be sure to find it. Maybe we'll plug it in the show notes so that we can see more. Guilherme (11:05): Yeah, very cool. Kim (11:06): So, alongside with seeing trends and more women working in mining, what other trends are shaping the future of mining and how does Cummins play a role in that? Guilherme (11:17): Yeah, I think everyone is trying to go implement new solutions or develop new solutions to be cleaner. Cleaner and the emissions per se, all over the world. The mining business is not one of the cleanest at all because all harsh in environment per se, are happening and throughout the world, different mine sites, but some trucks are powered with diesel, but using a kind of electricity to move Kim (11:32): Right? Extreme climates and environments. Guilherme (11:34): Exactly. And that all our chemical involved. So trying to not put into the atmosphere more polluting gases. We're trying to go cleaner and cleaner. There's a lot of projects going on right now. One of the things that we can mention is the dual fuel that we got. So it's a 60 liter engine, dual fuel, diesel and ethanol and it's a prototype yet it's not into production. And that will go, will be working in a mine site in Brazil, one of the biggest ones over there. And that is going to a route that we're still got the diesel, but we're going to cleaner fuel with the lower emissions and then that probably will be even better for the environment per se. Also, we got some solutions that happening and throughout the world, different mine sites, but some trucks power with the diesel but using kind of electricity over there to be moving. That's what we call the trolley system over here. (12:26): So we got wires in the mine side and the trucks are running over there like a poles of mine with the wires and the truck has kind of a hack in the top and then it's using the electricity over there to move on the roads over there. It's kind of on that avenue right now. (12:42): The hybrid solutions is also multiple avenues being explored right now, even within in Cummins. We've got a few solutions here to underdevelopment per se and more to common that stay in tuned, but Kim (12:53): They'll be in the show notes. We'll hint to them. Guilherme (12:55): There you go. Kim (12:56): I never thought about these mining sites being like cities. You mentioned dorms and kitchens and things that we need. How are those sites being powered? Guilherme (13:05): Well, that's a good question. When you got those big mine sites, they work like probably cities and you've got multiple people living in over thousands and thousands of people. So you have to have food for everyone. You have to be dorms for everyone, you have to be transportation for everyone because the dorms are usually located in a position that is not close to the mine side is happening for safety reasons. (13:27): Obviously there's blasting one eye and majority of the times it's in a remote area. It's far away from big cities, from big urban areas. So what happen is you have to provide power to that and the mine site's like a company so they don't buy from the grid, from the grid provider. (13:45): So then when it comes our generator solutions, so power generation for Cummins, powers a lot of mines as well. And then you got sets of generators and throughout different mines in the world providing the power that they need. Of course they will get something from the grid, but mainly power generation is small solution, Kim (14:04): Providing your own power. So you brought us a couple of props today for those who can't see, check this out on YouTube, but gee brought a couple of items in. He's got some stories to tell. Guilherme (14:13): Yeah, you guys can see here. So this is actually one of the first items that I brought from my work trips. This is actually from Chile. There's copper over here. You see the copper in its raw face like the statue of liberty. You got the color over there and then this is copper on the side. You can see copper that's made of, and it's a hot truck. So the hot truck is made from materials from the mine where the hot truck is operating. So hot truck is a big symbol of the mines over there in Chile and Peru. Yeah, it's a cool one. Kim (14:44): This one is so cute because it fits in your fingertips. However, how large would you say a haul truck is? Wow. Guilherme (14:51): So a 400 ton truck. If you are standing next to the wheel, next to the tire and I'm six foot tall, you're probably in the half of it. Kim (15:03): That is crazy. Guilherme (15:04): And I got a picture of myself just exemplifying that because it's a half of it's huge. And then the operator would see or sit over here inside the cabin, you wouldn't even see there's an operator over there. Kim (15:14): I was raised on power rangers and they had megazord and when they would sit in the Zs themselves, it was so funny, you could never see them or they would look like these toy dolls. Guilherme (15:23): That's right. So you cannot never see it. Those operators, they have a unique talent. Oh, fun fact. There's a lot of mine sites that the truck operators are women. Kim (15:34): See again, that didn't come to mind as soon as you said operator. I envisioned a man shame on me. Guilherme (15:44): And they say because they conduct the trucks lighter as mood. Sometimes save even do some saving a fuel consumption. Yeah. Yeah. Kim (15:50): That is a fun fact. It's cool. What else have you got for us today? Guilherme (15:53): If you see this, -16 diesel- Kim (15:56): What is that? Guilherme (15:57): It's a hedgehog. And the hedgehog was the marketing name that our marketing friends within Cummins developers for. This seems tiny, but it's a huge engine. That's our QSK95 engine. It's a V-16 diesel powered and actually powers these trucks over here. So you'll see this is a hot truck phone one and one of the biggest models of this haul truck, which our customer uses. They use QSK95 engine, a V sixteen, four hundred and forty four hundred horsepower to power that baby truck over there. Kim (16:37): So with this truck that is so massive, how does this compare to an elephant? Because sometimes that's easier for me to visualize. Guilherme (16:44): So in the truck bed, if we're talking about a 400-ton truck payload capacity, it will feed a hundred African elephants. Considering African, African live elephant weigh edge of a four ton per elephant, you will do a hundred elephants in this truck bed. Kim (17:04): Now I have this silly visual of 400 elephants on top Guilherme (17:08): On the bed. Yes, Kim (17:09): That is insane. But again, for size, for scale and to help paint the picture. Yes, that is the visual. I absolutely need it. Guilherme (17:16): Exactly. Kim (17:17): You've mentioned that people live near the sites that they work on. That means it must be a pretty rigorous work schedule. Guilherme (17:23): Yeah, that's right. Kim (17:23): Can you tell me a little bit more about what that would be like if you're working on these sites? Guilherme (17:27): What happens is 10 days in, 10 days off, so no matter off, so you have 365 days in the year. So if your shift is 10 days in, 10 days off, meaning your kid's birthday will fall under the 10 days in and then they're going to lose it or a national holiday or even Christmas. It's really the shift that we got. And those applications over here on the mine side, they work 24 7. Most of the mines would do even 22 7, sometimes 27 depends on the application per se. But at sanger's mine mining stays. While we're talking here, you and I, there's workers over there, a lot of mine sites over the world doing mining to explore the materials that we need to use on these devices already here. Kim (18:12): That is so crazy. We hear about New York, the city that never sleeps, but mining sites, Guilherme (18:16): Mine sites never sleeps. Kim (18:17): They never sleep. Within these mining sites. It must be difficult to navigate where they're supposed to go next or what location they need to be on. How do they do that? How does that work? Guilherme (18:27): That's a good question. So the shovels, the excavator will stay fixed at some point after the blasting, the excavator will scoop all the material to dump on the haul trucks. So the operator of the haul truck have a navigation system and a lot of multiple telematics system over there. So the mine site operations group have a dispatch and the dispatch sends the information to the screen of that hot truck. You would imagine that inside of a hot truck cabin, sometimes it's more luxurious than a fancy car on the road. There's so many things over there. So the person, the operator will see device on screen where he or she needs to go and grab that material. So the route will be set. So what they have operator have to do, just foot on throttle, foot on the brake and instead the wheel. Kim (19:18): Wow. Very impressive and more luxurious than the fanciest cars on the road. I didn't imagine that either. Guilherme (19:24): Sometimes, yeah, depending on the model of the truck. Yeah, it could be. Kim (19:30): Alright, gee, before we wrap, we've had a lot of different stories, a lot of conversations that help with size and scale of these mining sites, but are there any other fun facts you want to leave our listeners with? Guilherme (19:40): Yeah, so how about talking fuel consumption? Kim (19:44): Oh, we haven't touched that yet. Guilherme (19:45): Yeah, so a big hot truck for a hundred ton would probably have a few consumption around 190 gallons per hour. Kim (19:54): Wow. Per Hour. Guilherme (19:56): Per hour. So to put that on scale, a compact car in a city will have a fuel consumption of one to two gallons per hour. One to two against 190 per hour. That's massive. Kim (20:11): That's crazy. It's so hard for me to even fathom that much fuel consumption. But then if you think about the size comparisons you gave with these large haul trucks, it does make sense. Guilherme (20:21): The engine is huge, right? We're talking about a 4,400 horsepower engines a V 16. It's huge. It's huge. Another fun fact within Cummins is that for a q, SK 95 mining engine that we got in each power cylinder, so in each of the cylinder liner there is equivalent to a 5.9 B engine that we power the RAM trucks in the past. So the RAM trucks in the past used to use the five nine, the 5.9 liter engine. So it's equivalent to every engine of that in displacement. It's inside a power center of the QSK95. So you got 65.9 engines that are there working. Kim (21:04): Crazy. Guilherme (21:04): Yeah, it's a cool one. Kim (21:07): Well gee, thanks so much for stopping by and showing us how mining powers the materials that build our world and how mining can turn natural resources into a lot of global progress as well. Guilherme (21:16): It was my pleasure. Hope you be here. Thank you. Kim (21:18): Thank you. Alright, so what's the big idea for this episode? Mining might happen far from view, but its impact is everywhere. Copper, iron and other minerals come out of the ground and become the materials that power our cities, our technology, and our future. It's more than just extraction. It's about innovation, impact, and inclusion. And companies like Cummins play a role here too by leading in cleaner technology, building inclusive teams, and turning natural resources into global progress. Show ID (21:58): Power Onward. Thank you for listening to Power Onward. Your support means the world to us. If you enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to subscribe, rate and review on your favorite podcast platform. If you want to dig deeper on what we covered today, check out the show notes for additional links or go to cummins.com/podcast. Until next time, Power Onward. (22:24): We are from Cummins, the company that's been innovating toward the future for more than a hundred years. We're no strangers to rapid change, global shifts and economic uncertainty. We want to be your constant during the energy transition. Whenever, wherever, forever Power Onward.