The Biggest Machines on Earth

I'm about to show you the world's biggest earth moving machines. From monster dozers capable of pushing a house, to trucks so big they can run over a pickup truck and not even notice, to shovels that move mountains. When most people hear the word mining, they think of something that used to happen. Workers with coal dust on their faces, descending beneath the earth to toil away with picks and shovels. But in reality, mining is more important than ever. Where does it happen? All over the world. From iron ore in the deserts of Western Australia, to diamonds under frozen Canadian lakes, to quarries in your own neighborhood. For this video, we're focused on surface mining. Everything happening above ground, where the biggest machines live. They dig up blasted earth and move it to a processing area, where science separates the valuable stuff from the rock. Once an area is depleted, it gets reclaimed. But you're not here for the details. You're here for the big machines, so let's dig in. Sorry, I had to. We're starting with a machine most people have never even heard of. One that looks like it's straight out of a movie. Meet the Reclaimer, and it's only job is to transfer and mix mined material as efficiently as possible. The first problem it solves is moving finished commodities. Mines and plants produce products non-stop, but ships and railcars only arrive occasionally. While loading isn't happening, the mines deposit finished goods in stockpiles. Then, once a ship arrives, they can turn on the Reclaimer, which quickly picks up thousands of tons per hour and transfers it all by conveyor to whatever cargo hold is waiting. The second challenge is that the earth isn't consistent, so raw material varies by grade. But the eventual customer doesn't want almost what they need, they want an exact recipe. This is again where the Reclaimer shines, capable of pulling material from various stockpiles, mixing it, and creating perfect blends. These things mean business, but we're just getting started. Our next machine is one you've likely heard of and seen, but not at this size. The Mighty Mining Bulldozer. Mines use dozers of all shapes and brands for everything from uncovering ore to building roads. But there's one dozer that mines rely on more than any other, and that's the Caterpillar D11, the largest dozer CAT offers. The roughly quarter million pound tractor uses its 850 horsepower C32 engine to push whatever is in its way, out of the way. Typical D11s can push about 35 cubic yards of earth per pass, but some coal variants can push over 100 cubic yards of lighter weight material. And hold on to your hard hats, this is where it gets really wild. Some operations even run D11s from on-site offices, where only a few people control entire fleets. Systems like this allow the dozers to run almost all day and night without stopping, keeping operations as efficient as ever. After talking pushing, let's talk digging. Hydraulic excavators are a mining staple, with their ability to shift huge volumes of earth, dig in various conditions, and move as needed to shape operations. Mining excavators start at roughly 100 tons and work their way up to behemoths weighing over 800 tons. Excavators come in two configurations, backhoe or face shovel, depending on the commodity they're after. Face shovels work in large pits, after metals like copper, while backhoes work in mines with larger, shallower footprints, like iron ore. The biggest hydraulic excavators are now the CAT 6090 and Komatsu PC9000, with only a few of each worldwide. But more common, yet almost equally large excavator is the Liebherr 9800, which we've seen working across Australia. Depending on the material, this machine can wield a bucket of up to 55 cubic meters, or 70 cubic yards. That's a swimming pool scoop every minute. Everything is big on these machines, with single cylinders weighing more than several family cars. Why so big? The more earth moved, the more money made. Believe it or not, these aren't the biggest digging machines. Excavators dig, shovels also dig. Rope shovels have been the earth mover of choice for over a century, mining every commodity in existence, and even digging famous infrastructure like the Panama Canal. Nowadays, they're a bit bigger, but their function is roughly the same. Motors raise and lower cables, which raise and lower their enormous buckets, called dippers. Starting at the bottom of the face, the dipper lifts through the blasted material, filling as it reaches the top. Then the shovel swings to an awaiting truck, releasing the huge volume of earth as a giant steel door opens. While some shovels are small, most are the biggest earth movers in town, made by Bucyrus, now Caterpillar, or P&H, now Komatsu. Being so big, the most efficient way to power them isn't by onboard diesel engines, but by giant extension cords as thick as soda cans, running between 7,000 and 14,000 volts. The electricity drives onboard electric motors for hoisting and lowering, while the rack and pinion crowd system keeps the dipper straight. The largest shovels can move about 120 tons of earth per scoop, enough to fill ultra-class mining trucks in only three passes, with over 10,000 tons of material headed out of the pit hourly. Operators switch every 12 hours, managing the machine from a cab over three stories up. While slow to move, rope shovels are among the world's most efficient earth movers, as they can load trucks on both sides, theoretically never stopping. All the machines in this video make modern life possible. The TV or computer you're watching this on couldn't work without copper, your home or apartment, no concrete, no foundation, and your car, steel, aluminum, gold, all mines to get you from A to B. More people living better means more mining needed, and more mining means more big machines. Let's take a look at how all that dirt and rock from the excavators and shovels gets to where it needs to be, the mining industry's beast of burden, the haul truck. While dwarfed by the pits they occupy and help excavate, don't be fooled. The biggest mining trucks today can haul the weight of 10 family houses at impressive speeds. 20-cylinder quad-turbocharged engines producing over 4,000 horsepower propel the biggest trucks, moving them around the clock anywhere from high in the South American Andes to the frozen tundra in Alberta, Canada. The tires alone are taller than a house, costing over $100,000 each. Then comes technology. Some trucks are mechanically driven, while others are now electrically driven. Using enormous diesel engines, they generate electricity with an on-board generator powering electric motors at the rear axle. And in the future, maybe these trucks will become the world's biggest battery vehicles, with trials already underway. And odds are you've heard of self-driving cars. But most people don't know there are fleets of hundreds strong mining trucks driving themselves too, and have been for decades. The only time they stop? For fuel. And the biggest trucks, like the 797, drink 1,000 gallons in a single sitting. But the most shocking thing about these trucks? All the drivers who use them need is no different than your everyday car, only a steering wheel and a set of pedals. Excavators do the heavy lifting, but giant loaders can be equally important. Their biggest benefit? They're a lot more flexible, thanks to their enormous rubber tires. But these tires are the world's most expensive, so much so that many mines wrap them in steel chains to prevent excess wear. An excavator sits in one spot, with relocation across a mine sometimes taking days, thanks to its slow tracking speed and the need to stop to let the tracks cool down. But loaders? They can load from a face one minute, clean up rocks from haul roads the next, and then be off to feed the plant. The king of loaders is the Komatsu 2350, with a bucket capable of moving 53 cubic yards of earth and rock per pass. Matched with 220 to 320 ton trucks, a loader at this scale can fill them in only minutes. Everything we've seen so far has been small potatoes. Now let's get to the biggest machine in mining. This is the drag one, and there aren't many left in the world. Drag lines like this have been in continuous operation for over 40 years at some sites, still running decade after decade. In a single 12-hour shift, a machine like this moves 60 to 70,000 tons of rock per pass. Record shifts push close to 90,000. And it happens twice a day, every day, 365 days a year, with no off-season. The bucket alone can carry over 215 tons in a single pass, dragging up to 100 cubic yards at a time. It digs using four massive cables, two drag cables to pull the bucket in and out, two hoist cables to lift it up and down. The whole machine swings on a gear so large, it takes four separate motors just to rotate the house. And here's the part that surprises most people. It doesn't run on diesel. It's also fully electric, powered by a cable thick enough it needs a tractor to move. And in some operations, this machine is mining the very coal that generates the electricity running it. And somehow, this multi-million-pound structure moves. It's called a walking drag line for a reason. It has two massive feet, and it genuinely walks, scooting forward about eight feet every 45 seconds. Crossing from one side of the pit to the other can take up to 12 hours of nonstop walking. It takes a three-person crew to keep one of these running around the clock, one managing the power cable, one handling mechanical upkeep, and one operating from the cab. All three know how to run it, so the machine never has to stop. Everything on this list is enormous, but this machine is what enormous answers to. And after seeing that enormous machine, it's time to talk about a machine that's even bigger and better than the drag line. That's right. I don't think it's supposed to look like this. Okay, well, maybe not the mightiest. And maybe I'm not the best person to operate it. But you can never go wrong with a skid steer. And there you have it. From dozers pushing dirt with nobody inside, to a machine so big it has to walk to get to where it's going. Every one of these machines exists for the same reason. Because somewhere, deep underground, there's something the world cannot live without. Copper for your lights. Coal for your power plant. Iron ore for the steel holding up the building you're sitting in right now. None of it moves without machines like these. If there's one thing I hope you take away, big isn't just for show. Every ton of iron, every extra horsepower, exists because someone ran the math and decided bigger was cheaper, safer, and faster. Nothing here is oversized for fun. It's oversized on purpose. Thanks for coming along. Please like, comment, and subscribe. And I'll see you on the next one. Stay dirty, everybody.