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The Woodsmith polyhalite mine. Britain’s first large scale mine in decades. Latest video: By Anglo American. This high tech super mine, once completed, will be the largest and highest grade polyhalite mine in the world. That’s because polyhalite has only been discovered in the UK. A rare commodity that only Britain possesses and thanks to this mine, could see that £100 billion flows into the UK economy over the next 50 years. Before we get into the mine, it’s important to first, briefly talk about what polyhalite is because it’s the new kid on the block in the fertiliser world. Polyhalite is a type of potash which some experts claim to be the Rolls Royce of potash. Potash is a potassium rich, salt based mineral which is commonly used as fertilizer all over the world. The unique advantage of polyhalite over other common forms of potash is that it contains 4 out of the 6 key essential nutrients that all plant life needs to grow. These key nutrients are potassium, magnesium, calcium and sulphur. Under the brand name Poly4, Anglo American will be looking to market it as a multi-nutrient, low chloride, ultra low carbon fertilizer certified for organic use that can increase crop yields as well as improve and protect soil conditions. When compared to the 2 most commonly used potassium fertilizers, Poly4 produces 93% less Co2 than sulphate of potash and 85% less than muriate of potash. I will provide links in the description for those that would like to learn more about Poly4 as it’s too big a topic for me to cover fully in this video. Located in, or should i say under, the North York Moors, National Park in Yorkshire, England. 2 miles south of the town of Whitby. Here is where they found a potential resource of billion tonnes of polyhalite which would give the mine a life span of around 100 years and an identified reserve of 290 million tonnes which gives the mine a lifespan of over 30 years. Originally deposited around 260 million years ago when an ancient sea dried up, the polyhalite was actually discovered by accident. The polyhalite was first discovered back in the 1930’s by oil prospectors who were drilling for oil. Only decades later was it realised to be a valuable mineral thanks to two geologists whom which the mine was fittingly named after. The mine is set to go into production in 2027 and is costing around £6 billion and will create over 2000 jobs for the local area. Over 1000 of which will be long term. The mine near Whitby will be accessed via 2 main shafts. Each of these shafts will be deep. That’s almost 1 mile deep which will make it the deepest mine in Europe. Due to it’s location, a much treasured national park, strict criteria were set in place in order for the mine to be built. In order to not disturb the protected area of natural beauty, the mine had to be designed with minimal impact. In fact, unless you have a helicopter, you would never even know it was there. And even then, it would just look like any other farm buildings. The mine has been designed to be completely invisible to passer-by’s. They even built a curve into the access road so anyone driving by would only see woodland. When constructing a deep mine, you would typically have large winding towers at the surface which would be used for lowering and lifting people, machinery and material. But being located in a national park, Woodsmiths giant winding towers, also known as headframes, will be hidden in 60m deep chambers to minimalize visual impact. A world first in mining. These chambers will be constructed using an engineering method called diaphragm walling. Once finished, the first 60m of the shaft is then excavated which will provide room for the 45m tall winding towers and other infrastructure. The main mine shafts will then be mechanically sunk using an innovative, 3rd generation machine called a Shaft Boring Roadheader, a design inspired by tunnel boring machines. This SBR is faster and safer than traditional drill and blasting methods. Once lowered into the foreshaft, the SBR will then start it’s 1 mile journey down to the polyhalite. Rotating in a star pattern, the cutting head can cut 200 millimetres deep with each pass. Every 5 of these cycles, the shaft becomes 1 meter deeper. Material is then sucked back up the shaft and into skips which are then hoisted to the surface for either re-use or clearance. As it descends, depending on the rock formation, the SBR will line the Crop trials by ICL: Footage in this video has either been obtained with permission from the original copyright owner or used in compliance with section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976 where allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research. No infringement intended.
