Browse

Underground hard coal exploitation is accompanied by a series of natural hazards. Their number and intensity increase along with the growing depth of exploitation. Amongst the most dangerous hazards in the mining industry, one can distinguish the following: methane hazards, seismic hazards (including the rock-burst hazard) and coal dust explosion hazards. They are a common issue in Polish coal mines, thereby making it necessary for coal mines to identify the level of these hazards. It can also be assumed that ther...

Underground hard coal exploitation leads to the formation of granular porous media. These media occur both in the underground parts of mines and on the surface. In the underground areas, these are the caving goaves of longwalls and the caved-in roof rocks in active mine headings. On the surface, these are most commonly the post-mining waste dumps. In both of these cases, a crucial role is played by the knowledge on the resistance of air and gases flowing through these media. In the case of underground exploitation...

The process of underground hard coal exploitation is accompanied by the release of methane. This phenomenon has been present in the majority of Polish hard coal mines, with the intensity of methane release from hard coal seams exhibiting a growing trend on a year-by-year basis. The highest amount of this gas is emitted into the atmosphere, with only a small part being collected by methane drainage systems and subsequently used for industrial purposes. In 2017, all the hard coal mines in Poland released 611.15 mill...

The methane hazard is one of the main natural hazards occurring in underground hard coal mining. This hazard is related to the potential ignition and/or explosion of methane when mixed with air. The underlying cause of this problem is methane release from the body of coal, the goaves with caving and the excavated coal area. The region most vulnerable to this hazard in coal exploitation during longwall ventilation using the U-type system from the exploitation field borders is the intersection of the longwall and th...

The flow of gases through porous media is a common physical phenomenon occurring not only in the natural environment but also in a number of technical applications, including the industry. The flow of gases through rock porous media takes place during exploitation of numerous energy resources ? not only during the excavation of hard coal (the flow of a gas mixture through goaf with caving) but also in the course of exploiting crude oil and natural gas (the flow through shale rocks). The issue of gases flowing thro...

The most crucial factor influencing economic development and social well-being, as well as resulting in the mitigation of the effects of social poverty is electricity and its availability. As a result, a given country?s growing economy generates an increasingly higher demand for energy. Even though the generation of electricity in the Polish power industry is still primarily based on fossil fuels, there is a visible increase in energy produced from renewable sources. In 2016, in Poland the share of renewable energ...