Underground mining may have become a bit safer with the completion this March of a mining automation project in Copper Cliff, Ontario. A consortium including Toronto-based nickel producer Inco and equipment manufacturer Sandvik Tamrock launched the project five years ago; its goal was remote control, from the surface, of the machinery essential to hard-rock mining. Success means that for the first time workers would venture underground only to assemble the machinery and, occasionally, for maintenance work. Uninhabited tunnels would be smaller, and miners wouldn't have to hike a kilometer every morning just to reach equipment-advances that would mean higher productivity.

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