Fortescue slashes electric train program but insists zero emissions 'on track'

Three years after Andrew Forrest pressed go to develop an electric "Infinity Train," most of the experienced engineers who joined Fortescue's zero-emissions crusade are laid off as the miner goes back to the drawing board on how to have fossil-fuel-free locomotives by 2030.

The engineers concluded that battery electric locomotives may be able to haul vast amounts of iron ore, eliminating 10 per cent of Fortescue's emissions, but the knock-on effects on its immense $21 billion a year integrated mine to rail to port iron ore business were unacceptable.

On June 3, Fortescue project delivery director Warren Harris told Fortescue's battery electric locomotive (BEL) team the bad news at a "town hall" at their base near Perth Airport.

Harris told the engineers that Fortescue's effort to develop its own BEL was over, as was an agreement to work with Australian engineering firm Downer. They were told to work from home that day and wait for further contact to learn their fate.

Well over 100 staff and contractors - mainly in highly skilled technical roles - supporting the BEL programme were let go, according to numerous people familiar with the programme who are not authorised to talk to the media. Some workers were redeployed elsewhere within the company.

Fortescue now has just a small team investigating the feasibility of battery electric locomotives.

It was a bitter end for many who had left long-term employment to join Fortescue chair Andrew Forrest's crusade for the $59 billion miner to have no carbon emissions by 2030.

Forrest may have had locomotives in mind when he penned his message for Fortescue's annual report released in August.

"Our people have put their hearts and minds into finding solutions," Forrest wrote.
"No new industry or transformational shift has ever been linear – or easy,
"We haven’t always got it right, but we learn every day from advances and setbacks.

Success now depends on Fortescue finding the right solution and then deploying it in the next 5½ years. Otherwise, it will continue to burn 80 million litres of diesel a year on its railways.

Infinity Train hits its limits

Each Fortescue train to Port Hedland, pulled by several locomotives, moves about 34,000 tonnes of iron ore in 244 ore cars stretching over 2.8km of railway.

The iron ore trains of the Pilbara push the boundaries of conventional diesel-electric train technology, which burns fuel to generate electricity that powers electric motors moving the train forward.

Fortescue has investigated two ways to power its locomotives with renewable energy: green ammonia as a fuel instead of diesel, or carrying batteries. The vast majority of the effort has gone towards electrification.

In March 2022, Forrest announced Fortescue would develop what sounded like a perfect solution - a train that charged itself - the Infinity Train.

The idea was not as crazy as some thought: it sought to harness the Pilbara terrain and how electric vehicles - cars and locomotives - brake.

Overall, the heavily-loaded trip from pit to port is downhill - Fortescue's furthest mine, Eliwana, is 500m above sea level - and for much of the trip, the train's brakes are engaged.

Currently, the energy produced from the train rolling downhill is turned into useless heat in the brakes.

However, electric vehicles use regenerative braking, where the motors instead act as generators to produce electricity that a battery can store.

Fortescue and its high-tech new acquisition, Williams Advanced Engineering, were to spend $US50 million ($77 million) over the next two years on the concept.

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Fortescue chief executive at the time, Elizabeth Gaines, hailed the move.

"The regeneration of electricity on the downhill loaded sections will remove the need for the installation of renewable energy generation and recharging infrastructure, making it a capital-efficient solution for eliminating diesel and emissions from our rail operations,” she said.

That was the hope.

The reality - so far - is different.

The engineering studies revealed that insufficient power was generated on the downhill leg to return the train to the mine, according to numerous engineers who have not been authorised to speak to the media and have informed this story.

The team developed two solutions to the problem, but they both had unacceptable implications for Fortescue's core business of shipping vast quantities of iron ore to Asia.

Maybe doable, definitely difficult

Extra locomotives would allow more electrical power to be stored; however some routes required up to nine units and Fortescue wanted no more than two.

There are limits on the length and weight of a so-called consist: the combination of locomotives and the ore cars they pull.

Longer or heavier consists are more at risk of the couplings between ore cars failing from pressure waves that go from car to car up and down the consist, causing derailment. Some sidings are also too short.

These limits meant that Fortescue could only add locomotives if the consist had less ore cars, and on its heavily used railway that would cut total production and hence revenue.

Fortescue also investigated installing a 65km-long stretch of overhead cables on the rail line to Port Hedland to charge the locomotives. However, the gantries to support the cables were large and expensive as they had to be some distance from the rail line for safety reasons and be able to withstand cyclones.

Also, the gantries and overhead lines could not be installed without at times closing the line to Port Hedland, adding massive amounts of lost revenue to the financial burden of the high capital cost.

Still on track?

Fortescue's target to eliminate carbon emissions by 2030 is by far the most ambitious and publicised corporate climate effort in Australia.

A Fortescue spokeswoman said decarbonising heavy haul rail was complex, particularly in remote areas like the Pilbara, and an ambitious effort required new technologies to be developed and tested.

"Any suggestion that we are off-track is simply incorrect," she said.

"Our trials and studies to date have confirmed that zero-emissions rail is technically feasible – it is now a matter of delivering it in a way that maintains productivity and cost-efficiency."

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The spokeswoman said Fortescue had already identified solutions to profitably eliminate the majority of emissions from its Pilbara operation and is actively working on the remainder.

"As with any ambitious decarbonisation effort, it is normal to encounter areas where new technologies are still being developed or tested," she said.

"We have not yet settled on a single rail decarbonisation solution – and that is by design,

"To date, we have progressed several pathways in parallel, including extensive work to assess and trial both battery and green ammonia options."

More than three years ago Fortescue and the three other major Pilbara iron ore miners Rio Tinto, BHP and Hancock, all ordered battery electric locomotives to trial in the Pilbara.

However, the established manufacturers Progress Rail and Wabtec, have struggled to deliver the novel technology.

In June, Fortescue shipped a prototype battery electric locomotive developed with Downer to the Pilbara and plans to test it on its railway by December.

However, according to engineers familiar with the Fortescue BEL program, there is still work to be done on the locomotive and a safety case must be developed and then approved by regulators before it can operate.