CanMIND Associates

This underground coal mining project addressed emissions of the greenhouse gas methane from the mining process and opportunities to improve the efficiency of energy use and hence secondary carbon dioxide emissions. Following extensive underpinning research into the specified problems, a methane reserves assessment for a mine and a study of low emission methane utilisation were carried out, while work on coal properties from Polish mines has provided detailed results, with a comparative study of Slovenian coal.

Computer simulation was used to plan in-mine pre-mining drainage tests, while indicators for outburst prediction have been specified and tests with ground penetrating radar to detect methane in seams carried out. For ventilation of air methane, work has been undertaken on oxidation technologies, including scientific analysis of the catalytic version of the process, and computer models have been developed for the major options. Tri-generation potential and gas cleaning and concentration techniques have been studied. An analysis of mine electricity use for profiling loads led to simulation to enable optimisation strategies. A ventilation improvement initiative at a complex mine improved understanding of gas movements and air flows, linked to software development, while a mine simulator for pumping efficiency provided the basis for actual pump and fan measurements. An energy storage study and work on compressed air systems and the geotechnical potential of abandoned shafts was applied to a theoretical case study and heat storage studies supported several technological areas. A techno-economic analysis was applied to selected processes. Only the energy efficiency initiatives are genuinely viable in the current economic circumstances

The partners include research institutions and coal-mining companies based in the United Kingdom, Poland, Spain and Slovenia. My work resulted in the design of a methane mitigation technology, the VamTurBurner©, published in Fuel, presented at the World Mining Congress 2013 Montreal, Quebec and the Canadian Association of Physicists Congress 2014 Sudbury, Ontario. The final report is attached as a sample; however, several deliverables are also available for those with a deeper interest.