Estimating Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions for a Surface Coal Mine
Abstract
Coal plays an important role in the energy needs of the World. Given its wide abundance and low cost, coal use is bound to increase with the growing energy demand. Despite its importance, there are growing concerns over coal's environmental burdens, especially its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. to ensure sustainable extraction and use of coal, opportunities for minimizing potential impacts from coal have to be identified and exploited. Whilst extensive work has been done on life cycle assessment of coal use, especially in electricity generation which uses the bulk of coal produced, there has been limited work focusing specifically on coal mining. This study aims to estimate the cradle-to-gate life cycle climate change impacts of coal from a surface coal mine in the United States. the study employs general principles of ISO standards for LCA. for the mine considered, based on the 100 year time horizon Global Warming potentials, climate change impact of producing one ton of coal at the mine gate is 31.7 kg CO2 equivalent, with methane emissions from strata contributing about half. an LCA study can be useful for objectively identifying processes in coal mining that are critical to greenhouse gas emissions potential, so they can be targeted for improvement.
Recommended Citation
O. Ditsele and K. Awuah-Offei, "Estimating Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions for a Surface Coal Mine," SME Annual Meeting and Exhibit 2010, pp. 335 - 340, Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, Jul 2010.
Department(s)
Mining Engineering
International Standard Book Number (ISBN)
978-161738082-2
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2024 Society for Mining, Metallurgy, and Exploration, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
08 Jul 2010
