Content area
Full Text
ABSTRACT
Coal is the one of the most known energy resource in the whole world. In Poland bituminous coal occurs in the three main coal basins: Upper Silesian Coal Basin (USCB) , Lublin Coal Basin (LCB) and Lower Silesian Coal Basin (LSCB). USCB and LCB still produce 65 million tonnes coal per year from the underground mining. At LSCB the exploitation was ended in 2000. Lignite deposits are located in the middle part of Poland except one deposit - Turow which is situated in the south-west part of the country. Total resources of lignite are about 23516 million tonnes and production is about 63 million tonnes per year.
There are two exploitation methods applied. The opencast mining, is used for lignite and the underground exploitation is used for bituminous coal extraction. Possibility of underground gasification - the newest and innovative method of coal exploitation (UCG) is considered. So far it was applied in the pilot-demonstration mode, parallel to the conventional underground mining.
The choice of one of the three mentioned exploitation methods depends on geological factors such as e.g. depth of coal location, seam thickness etc. as well as the mining safety conditions, possibilities of coal resources extraction and environmental impact of coal mining and utilization. The environmental impact of coal extraction method may be the crucial for the selection of one of them.
Keywords: coal, underground coal gasification, exploitation methods, energy, resources
INTRODUCTION
Bituminous (black) coal and lignite (brown coal) are the main fossil fuels used in Poland for electricity production. Their underground and opencast mining and combustion is considered oppressing to environment. It stimulates the search for the coal recovery and utilization methods more environmental friendly. The underground coal gasification is proposed as such method. The comparison off coal deposits conventional underground and opencast mining and UCG allow to analyze and compare their advantages and disadvantages.
GEOLOGICAL SETTING OF BITUMINOUS COAL AND LIGNITE DEPOSITS IN POLAND [9]
Bituminous (black, hard) coal deposits of Upper Carboniferous age occur in Poland within three basins: Upper Silesian, Lower Silesian and Lublin (fig. 1). Their common feature is the great thickness of coalbearing formation and multiple coal seams of varied thickness and aerial extent. Coal rank varies from the lowest rank bituminous to high rank bituminous...