Katelyn Kepka
Hayungs
APES
Coal Research
Technology used in mining coal:
There are two ways to mine coal, surface mining and underground mining. Surface mining
requires a lot of large equipment such as draglines (remove overburden), power shovels,
heavy duty trucks, conveyors, and bucket wheel excavators. Explosives are also used to
remove overburden and any formation that gets in the way of the mining. Underground
mining consists of two main methods,longwall and pillar mining they use basically the
same technology. New coal mining technology has reduced the amount of deaths related to
the profession.
With new mining technology being developed, clean coal technology is also being
developed. It has to do with how the energy is being processes. The current method of
producing energy with coal causes large emissions of CO2 that has an impact on global
warming as well as other environmental problems. One of the clean coal technologies
being developed to reduce these harmful effects is Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).
This method consists of captures the carbon emissions before they enter the environment
and storing it underground or reusing it. Gasification is another option. In this process the
coal is converted into a gas and the impurities removed before it is combusted and
converted into energy. Continued combustion research is also a big part of clean coal
especially the development of circulating fluidized-bed (CFB) technology which has to do