The Financial Post reports in its Tuesday edition that mining companies are digging into renewable energy as a way to reduce costs and offset the impact of volatile conventional fuel prices. The Post's Sunny Freeman writes that industry executives gathered last week at the Energy and Mines World Congress in Toronto to look at how innovation in energy can make mines more cost-effective and environmentally sustainable. "I think we will be surprised at the speed at which mining companies will start to adopt these things," said Deloitte's mining chief Adriaan Davidse. Amid rapid improvements in renewable technologies, wind and solar prices have fallen dramatically in recent years and are expected to keep dropping. In many parts of the world alternative energy is becoming cheaper than conventional sources. About $6-trillion (U.S.) of investment capital is expected to be spent on renewable energy by 2035. Some of the world's biggest miners, including Barrick Gold and Gold Fields, are early adopters, experimenting in locations where renewable power makes the most sense, such as in sub-Saharan Africa, where both communities and miners are all too familiar with rolling blackouts, especially in rural areas.