Mining.com highlights Arizona mining innovation consortium
A U of A student uses Freeport-McMoRan’s haul truck simulator at a university event. The company is a collaborator in a regional plan to improve the mining industry and the communities that support it. In addition to mining and manufacturing companies, the public-private partnership includes government and educational organizations and technology commercialization partners.
Mining.com, the world's leading mining news and opinion site, highlighted a University of Arizona-led domestic mining initiative in a storypublished on March 21.
The story recognized the university's Sustainable Mining Innovation and Lifestyle Enhancement Regional Innovation Engine (SMILE) proposal– which emerged as a finalist in the NSF Regional Innovation Engine Program. If it wins the program, it would secure up to $160 million over 10 years to advance environmentally responsible mining and manufacturing in Arizona.
The consortium's SMILE plan unites stakeholders to promote responsible mining practices, prioritize environmental sustainability, develop askilled workforce, and foster economic development. The collaborators form one of 71 teams in the running. Having cleared the preliminarystage, SMILE Engine partners will submit a full proposal in February. NSF will announce the grantees around one year later.
"It’s a $160 million opportunity over 10 years – and it's different than most NSF proposals in that you really have to demonstrate that you're driving economic development in the region, and that your region is the place to do this," Kray Luxbacher, U of A's Gregory H. and Lisa S. Boyce Leadership Chair of Mining and Geological Engineering and lead on the initiative, told Mining.com in an interview.
Luxbacher, who also serves as MGE's department head, said that by educating a workforce for automation and mining "we believe that their skillswill be transferable to the chips industry and to other manufacturing in Arizona, which is attractive to young people to know that they have a skill they can pick up and carry elsewhere."