1991 approximately 33% of operating costs at a Latin American mine (Skrzypczyk, 2024); ICMM decarbonisation targets require a 30% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030 (Gabaldón & Florian, 2024); and deep gaps persist in the training of professionals equipped to operate with the tools that 21st-century mining demands. At the core of this equation lies rock blasting with explosives. Although it consumes only ~2% of total mine energy (Zhang et al., 2022), blasting is the defining operation of the production cycle: its outcomes, fragment size distribution, muckpile geometry, and particle micro-fracturing, directly condition loading, haulage and, above all, comminution (crushing and grinding), which consumes between 37 and 53% of all mine energy and approximately 3% of global electricity (Zhang et al., 2022; McKee et al., 1995). The Mineto-Mill (M2M) approach, developed at the Julius Kruttschnitt Mineral Research Centre (JKMRC) from the 1980s onwards (McKee et al., 1995), systematises this principle: marginal investments in well-designed blasting, using the chemical energy of explosives, significantly cheaper than electrical energy, yield substantially greater savings in energy-intensive downstream stages. Despite this well-established scientific foundation, the implementation of the Mine-to-Mill (M2M) approach, which presupposes the integrated management of the entire production cycle, from blasting to mineral processing, remains limited in Latin American operations. This gap stems largely from structural educational constraints: engineers trained under compartmentalised curricula tend to optimise each unit operation in isolation, without recognising the systemic impact of their decisions on adjacent stages. The central question of this paper is: how can innovative education, combined with modern technical mastery of rock blasting with explosives, constitute the catalyst for the transformation of mining in Latin America and worldwide? Table 1 – Energy consumption distribution across unit operations in open-pit mining Unit Operation % Energy Observation Reference Comminution (crushing + grinding) 37–53% Largest consumer; energy efficiency < 3% in grinding Holmberg et al. (2017); CEEC (2021) Hauling (transport) ~33% Directly influenced by ROM fragment size distribution Holmberg et al. (2017) Ventilation ~9% Greatest impact in underground mining Holmberg et al. (2017) Loading (excavation) ~8% Productivity conditioned by muckpile quality Holmberg et al. (2017) Drilling ~5% Controls positioning and precision of blast design Holmberg et al. (2017) Mineral separation ~4% Flotation, leaching, magnetic separation Holmberg et al. (2017) Blasting with explosives ~2% Chemical energy — lowest unit cost in the chain Holmberg et al. (2017) Sources: Holmberg et al. (2017) [cited in Purhamadani & Bagherpour, 2024]; Coalition for EcoEfficient Comminution – CEEC (2021).
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