61,000 yards per day

I was in Hibbing, MN and I ran by the taconite mine you can view.  

The retired guy explaining everything said they are hard in tires so they carefully maintain the roads or if careless you can wear a set of tires out in a day.  

I saw 6 trucks moving product.  
 

In reply to DrBoost :

It's a manufacturing facility we will all enjoy. 

(Respectfully avoiding corporate names and city now)

Use your Google Fu

The only mine I've ever been to is the Morenci Mine in Arizona. It gives you a weird tingle once you figure out some scale of what you're looking it.

"Rip rap" is decent sized rocks about 8-12" in diameter. It's used for stabilizing banks and outfalls for soil erosion. 
 

We don't buy it. We make our own. 
 

I'd spend every lunch break playing with RC cars if that was my job site.

In reply to slefain :

Don't need RC cars. I've got a Polaris 1000 I can get inside and run up and down any slope I want. 

...but I do get to play with a drone. 

I ran heavy machinery for 3 years when I was in my late 20s. Backhoes, excavators, front-end loaders, and cranes. I really enjoyed it. 

I think I would enjoy driving a huge dump truck around a mine or running the excavator that fills them. 

I used to make the kaboom stuff to do this....

Hello. Cool stuff!

Im currently working at a refinery in Bradford PA... no internet (or phone) where I'm staying out in the country, but saw this on break.

I did work in Morenci a few years back. Although just doing I&C, so don't have numbers to compare, but can agree that at the several magnitudes of increase in size... its hard to describe! There ain't enough open land in GA to even fit a place like that open pit mine in!!!

I had heard how much those massive dumps held, but don't recall. When your in a pickup, on the road around the top of one of the "open pits" they look like little toys running around the bottom. And more than a half dozen of 'em moving around in your view...  Its absolutely mind blowing!!!

Keep the cool info coming for us, Paul... we've come a long way from  tonka trucks in the neighbors sand box!!

In reply to SV reX :

I was in some of Michelins training classes a few years ago, and met guys that worked at the big tire plant. That is a LOT of rubber!

In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :

Got to see some, while working at the mine... but I've never had to chance to participate! Wold love to blow stuff that big up!!!

Anyone driving up I-65 between Bowling Green and Louisville can see the new battery plant getting built. It's big, really big.  

The amount of large equipment available in the this country is ridiculous.

In reply to 03Panther :

When I worked in the copper mine I saw a picture of six full-sized pickups parked in the scoop of the drag line shovel, and the shovel could fill a haul truck with one scoop. Everything was so big. We would load explosives in bore holes for three weeks and then set it off one afternoon. The mine trucks would load and haul for the next three weeks while we prepped another blast.

In reply to DeadSkunk (Warren) :

I worked on the instrument commissioning of their new processing - Jan '10. for about 5 months. The big trucks bring boulders the size of cars to a crusher. They were down to the size of a watermelon by the time "my" process got them... after several miles of conveyor belts. A few mills later, and its down to talcum powder, then pored into a vat, and they float the copper off. Cool stuff.

The miles and miles of conveyor belts, some WAY overhead, is unbelievable in itself.

In reply to SV reX :

We got a bit off topic, but kinda sorta ok 

In reply to SV reX :

Fascinating post. Thanks for sharing with us!

OHSCrifle said:

Every time I drive up 85 in NE Georgia past the SK battery facility I am blown away at the size.. yet [this project] will dwarf it. 
367 acres is a metric crap ton. 

hey pal, you watch your mouth.  there's no metric here.  SVreX even went so far in his metric avoidance as to use "weight of challenge car" as unit of measure for dumptruck capacity.

SV reX said:

Diesel...

We are burning 8-12,000 gallons per day. 

at the risk of patio-ing myself, can i say i hope this is to build an EV plant.

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

SV reX said:

Diesel...

We are burning 8-12,000 gallons per day. 

at the risk of patio-ing myself, can i say i hope this is to build an EV plant.

It is!

Industrial projects have just exploded in size over the last 5-10 years. In my industry, we considered a $500M project a big job previously. Now it's mid-Cap. Large jobs are now all in the Billions. If you like to build stuff, large industrial construction projects are a neat place to work. In some industries like semiconductor fabs, TICs of $20B plus are out there (of course this includes the cost of tools). 
 

The challenge of all this work is qualified craft labor. Please help by not pushing your kids into four year programs when they really should go in the trades. College should not be for everyone.  Making six figures is not out of the question at all with a little OT on your tools. They can go spend $250k on a degree in European art history of the 1520s and then make $25k. Or go into the trades with no debt and have a good career. 

In reply to wake74 :

Mike Roe, is that you? ;)

I agree, we need skilled tradespeople.

In reply to 03Panther :

Dude. Welcome back. 

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Now that's funny. 

AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:

SV reX said:

Diesel...

We are burning 8-12,000 gallons per day. 

at the risk of patio-ing myself, can i say i hope this is to build an EV plant.

The irony is glorious, isn't it??

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :

Oh the irony.   Gotta break some eggs to make the omelet. (Damn, that's a lot of diesel even at offroad prices.)