Challenges and Opportunities for End-of-Life Coal Mine Sites: Black-to-Green Energy Approach

Aleksander Frejowski, Jan Bondaruk and Adam Duda
Additional contact information
Aleksander Frejowski: Department of Risk Assessment and Industrial Safety, Central Mining Institute, Plac Gwarków 1, 40-166 Katowice, Poland
Jan Bondaruk: Deputy Director for Environmental Engineering, Central Mining Institute, Plac Gwarków 1, 40-166 Katowice, Poland
Adam Duda: Department of Risk Assessment and Industrial Safety, Central Mining Institute, Plac Gwarków 1, 40-166 Katowice, Poland

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 5, 1-18

Abstract: This paper presents the possibilities of adapting active mines to generate green energy after their closure using their resources and/or infrastructure. For this purpose, firstly, the temporal horizon of selected mines in Poland was determined, its basic assumption being the analysis of the current state. In the research, 18 mining plants operating within 12 mines in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin (USCB) were analyzed. The analyzed mines belong to three of the five largest hard coal producers in Poland, and the main object of exploitation is hard coal of energy types. Severe restrictions or even abandonment of further investments in the development of the coal mining industry were taken into consideration (regarding the construction of new shafts or the development of new exploitation levels). When determining the temporal horizon, the challenges that hamper the exploitation based at the levels of natural hazards and depth of exploitation in each mine were considered. Secondly, the criteria for the adaptation of active mines to generate energy are presented. The possibility of using the resources and infrastructural potential of active mines to produce geothermal energy from water, extracting coalbed methane (CBM), and processes of underground coal gasification (UCG) are analyzed. Finally, for a selected example—generating energy from underground coal gasification in Polish mine conditions—a structural analysis of the criteria was performed using the MICMAC method, as the Central Mining Institute has an extensive experience in the development of underground coal gasification trials in coal mines. Based on expert analysis and using structural analysis, the criteria important for UCG were selected. As demonstrated in the article, the MICMAC method can be applied in other scenarios with different criteria to implement new technologies in coal mines.

Keywords: temporal horizon of coal mines; challenges that hamper exploitation; renewable energy; MICMAC method; underground coal gasification (UCG); geothermal energy; coalbed methane (CBM); Upper Silesian Coal Basin (USCB) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/5/1385/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/5/1385/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:5:p:1385-:d:509640

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().