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Coal Slurry Impoundment
Coal slurry is a mixture of solids (mined coal or coal waste) and liquids (water or organic) produced by a coal preparation plant. Preparation To transform the coal ash into a slurry, coal is separated from non-combustible components and can be fractionated by particle size as well. Coal slurry can be transferred by pipeline or with specialized pumps such as a progressive cavity pump to pump the highly abrasive, corrosive and viscous coal slurry. More than 7 billion tons of coal are mined per year (2010), using approximately 200 litres of water per ton. However, the amount of water required hinges on the surface characteristics of the coal being used. Most coal slurries require the addition of a surfactant to reduce the viscosity, ergo reduce the stress on pipelines and pumps. Recent studies have employed new methods of slurry preparation, like using ultrasonic irradiation and a mixture of natural and synthetic surfactants to improve the stability and rheological properties o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when dead plant matter decays into peat and is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous ( Pennsylvanian) and Permian times. Many significant coal deposits are younger than this and originate from the Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Coal is used primarily as a fuel. While coal has been known and used for thousands of years, its usage was limited until the Industrial Revolution. With the invention of the steam engine, coal consumption increased. In 2020, coal supplied about a quarter of the world's primary energy and over a third of its electricity. Some iron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Blue Run Lake
Little Blue Run Lake or Little Blue Run is the largest coal ash impound in the United States. FirstEnergy owns the site, located in Western Pennsylvania and parts of the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia, and has disposed of billions of gallons of coal waste into the body of water. Several court cases have been brought against the company as a result of the damage caused by the company's practices at the site. Description The artificial lake was completed in 1975 and is located in both Beaver County, Pennsylvania and Hancock County, West Virginia and is owned by FirstEnergy, a publicly traded company with assets worth $48 billion in 2010. Before Little Blue Run Lake was created, the power company told local residents that the project would create a local recreational and boating area. The lake covers 1,900 acres and the waste in the lake is prevented from escaping thanks to a 400-foot tall, 2,200-foot wide rock-and-earth dam. The dam containing Little Blue Run Lake has been give ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmental Impact Of The Coal Industry
The health and environmental impact of the coal industry includes issues such as land use, waste management, water and air pollution, caused by the coal mining, processing and the use of its products. In addition to atmospheric pollution, coal burning produces hundreds of millions of tons of solid waste products annually, including fly ash, bottom ash, and flue-gas desulfurization sludge, that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other heavy metals. Coal is the largest contributor to the human-made increase of carbon dioxide in Earth's atmosphere. There are severe health effects caused by burning coal. According to a report by the World Health Organization in 2008, coal particulates pollution are estimated to shorten approximately 10,000 lives annually worldwide. A 2004 study commissioned by environmental groups, but contested by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, concluded that coal burning costs 24,000 lives a year in the United States. More re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waste
Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste product may become a by-product, joint product or resource through an invention that raises a waste product's value above zero. Examples include municipal solid waste (household trash/refuse), hazardous waste, wastewater (such as sewage, which contains bodily wastes ( feces and urine) and surface runoff), radioactive waste, and others. Definitions What constitutes waste depends on the eye of the beholder; one person's waste can be a resource for another person. Though waste is a physical object, its generation is a physical and psychological process. The definitions used by various agencies are as below. United Nations Environment Program According to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coal Mining
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United Kingdom and South Africa, a coal mine and its structures are a colliery, a coal mine is called a 'pit', and the above-ground structures are a 'pit head'. In Australia, "colliery" generally refers to an underground coal mine. Coal mining has had many developments in recent years, from the early days of men tunneling, digging and manually extracting the coal on carts to large open-cut and longwall mines. Mining at this scale requires the use of draglines, trucks, conveyors, hydraulic jacks and shearers. The coal mining industry has a long history of significant negative environmental impacts on local ecosystems, health impacts on local communities and workers, and contributes heavily to th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tailings Dam
A tailings dam is typically an earth-fill embankment dam used to store byproducts of mining operations after separating the ore from the gangue. Tailings can be liquid, solid, or a slurry of fine particles, and are usually highly toxic and potentially radioactive. Solid tailings are often used as part of the structure itself. Tailings dams rank among the largest engineered structures on earth. The Syncrude Mildred Lake Tailings Dyke in Alberta, Canada, is an embankment dam about long and from high. It is the largest dam structure on earth by volume, and as of 2001 it was believed to be the largest earth structure in the world by volume of fill. There are key differences between tailings dams and the more familiar hydroelectric dams. Tailings dams are designed for permanent containment, meaning they are intended to "remain there forever". Copper, gold, uranium and other mining operations produce varied kinds of waste, much of it toxic, which pose varied challenges for long-term ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sludge (film)
''Sludge'' is a 2005 documentary film by Appalshop filmmaker Robert Salyer chronicling the Martin County Sludge Spill that was an accident that occurred after midnight on October 11, 2000 when a coal sludge impoundment in Martin County, Kentucky, broke through an underground mine below, propelling 306 million gallons of sludge down two tributaries of the Tug Fork River. The movie documents the continuing story of the Martin County disaster, the resulting federal investigation, and the looming threat of coal sludge ponds throughout the coalfield region. In the United States today, coal is the largest single source of fuel for energy production. Annually, the country mines over a billion tons of coal. Coal waste is a consequence of this consumption; the Mine Safety and Health Administration The Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) () is a large agency of the United States Department of Labor which administers the provisions of the Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pulverized Coal
Coal dust is a fine powdered form of which is created by the crushing, grinding, or pulverizing of coal. Because of the brittle nature of coal, coal dust can be created during mining, transportation, or by mechanically handling coal. It is a form of fugitive dust. Grinding coal to dust before combusting it improves the speed and efficiency of burning and makes the coal easier to handle. However, coal dust is hazardous to workers if it is suspended in air outside the controlled environment of grinding and combustion equipment. It poses the acute hazard of forming an explosive mixture in air and the chronic hazard of causing pulmonary illness in people who inhale excessive quantities of it. The distribution of the particle-size of coal dust is frequently measured in mesh. The British slang term for cheap fuel consisting of coal dust (slack) containing small lumps of coal (nuts) is nutty slack. Risks The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has set the legal limit (P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coal-water Slurry Fuel
Coal-water slurry fuel is a combustible mixture of fine coal particles suspended in water. It can be used to power boilers, gas turbines, diesel engines and heating and power stations. Characteristics A coal-water slurry fuel is defined by a number of factors including its viscosity, particle size, rate of sedimentation, ignition temperature (), combustion temperature (), ash content and calorific value (3700–4700 kcal/kg). When coal-water slurry fuel combusts, over ninety-nine percent of its carbon content is consumed. Coal-water slurry fuel is fire-proof and explosion-proof. Ash content of less than ten percent is desirable for boilers. For diesel engines, there is no limit. Production The production of coal-water slurry fuel involves the crushing of coal or coal sludge to particles between 10 and 65 micrometers diameter (standard crushers can be used); wet milling and homogenisation (with additives as required). The resulting product ( coal slurry) is then prepared ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Descended from the ''Pittsburgh Gazette'', established in 1786 as the first newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains, the paper formed under its present title in 1927 from the consolidation of the ''Pittsburgh Gazette Times'' and ''The Pittsburgh Post''. The ''Post-Gazette'' ended daily print publication in 2018 and has cut down to two print editions per week (Sunday and Thursday), going online-only the rest of the week. In the 2010s, the editorial tone of the paper shifted from liberal to conservative, particularly after the editorial pages of the paper were consolidated in 2018 with '' The Blade'' of Toledo, Ohio. After the consolidation, Keith Burris, the pro-Trump editorial page editor of '' The Blade'', directed the editorial pages of both papers. Early history ''Gazette'' The ''Post-Gazette'' began its history as a four-page w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin County Coal Slurry Spill
The Martin County coal slurry spill was a mining accident that occurred after midnight on October 11, 2000, when the bottom of a coal slurry impoundment owned by Massey Energy in Martin County, Kentucky, broke into an abandoned underground mine below. The slurry came out of the mine openings, sending an estimated of slurry down two tributaries of the Tug Fork River. By morning, Wolf Creek was oozing with the black waste; on Coldwater Fork, a stream became a expanse of thick slurry. The spill, which contained arsenic and mercury, killed everything in the water. It was over five feet deep in places and covered nearby residents' yards. The spill polluted hundreds of miles () of the Big Sandy River and its tributaries and the Ohio River. The water supply for over 27,000 residents was contaminated, and all aquatic life in Coldwater Fork and Wolf Creek was killed. The spill was 30 times larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill, spilling . It was one of the worst environmental disast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coal Refuse
Coal refuse (also described as coal waste, rock, slag, coal tailings, waste material, rock bank, culm, boney, or gob) is the material left over from coal mining, usually as tailings piles or spoil tips. For every tonne of hard coal generated by mining, 400 kilograms of waste material remains, which includes some lost coal that is partially economically recoverable. Coal refuse is distinct from the byproducts of burning coal, such as fly ash. Piles of coal refuse can have significant negative environmental consequences, including the leaching of iron, manganese, and aluminum residues into waterways and acid mine drainage. The runoff can create both surface and groundwater contamination. The piles also create a fire hazard, with the potential to spontaneously ignite. Because most coal refuse harbors toxic components, it is not easily reclaimed by replanting with plants like beach grasses. Gob (short for "garbage of bituminous") has about four times as much toxic mercury and more s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
