Search

The outbreak of the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict exacerbated the natural gas supply shortage in European countries. European countries restarted coal-fired power plants to maintain economic and social operations. The uneven distribution of coal resources in the world makes coal international trade inevitable. The intricate trade relations between trading countries have formed a coal trade network. When a country's coal exports are limited due to geopolitical factors, it will cause coal supply risks. The risk will spread to more countries along the trade network, eventually leading to the collapse of the trade network. This paper builds a crisis propagation model of the coal supply under the Russia-Ukraine conflict using the cascading failure model. The results showed that the Czech Republic, Ireland, Portugal, and Bulgaria become abnormal as the proportion of coal exports β increases. When the Russian Federation reduced its coal exports by 80% and countries maintained only 10% coal exports against crisis, 23 European countries were the worst. Iceland, Ireland, Turkey and other countries were spread by the indirect risk and became abnormal countries. The Czech Republic and Bulgaria were spread by multiple risk and became abnormal countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The outbreak of the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict exacerbated the natural gas supply shortage in European countries. European countries restarted coal-fired power plants to maintain economic and social operations. The uneven distribution of coal resources in the world makes coal international trade inevitable. The intricate trade relations between trading countries have formed a coal trade network. When a country's coal exports are limited due to geopolitical factors, it will cause coal supply risks. The risk will spread to more countries along the trade network, eventually leading to the collapse of the trade network. This paper builds a crisis propagation model of the coal supply under the Russia-Ukraine conflict using the cascading failure model. The results showed that the Czech Republic, Ireland, Portugal, and Bulgaria become abnormal as the proportion of coal exports β increases. When the Russian Federation reduced its coal exports by 80% and countries maintained only 10% coal exports against crisis, 23 European countries were the worst. Iceland, Ireland, Turkey and other countries were spread by the indirect risk and became abnormal countries. The Czech Republic and Bulgaria were spread by multiple risk and became abnormal countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a review of research devoted to the study of genotoxic and carcinogenic effects of exposure to factors of the production environment of the coal mining and coal processing industries. The first part of the review analyzes mutagenic effects: chromosomal aberrations (CA), sister chromatid exchanges (SCE), micronuclei (MN), and DNA comets in coal mining workers (mines) and workers in coal processing (coal heating plants, coking plants) enterprises. The second part is devoted to the study of cancer incidence in workers employed in the coal industry. The third part deals with works that carried out a comprehensive analysis of the mutagenic and carcinogenic effects in miners and workers at coal-fired power plants and coking plants. In general, the analysis of the literature confirmed the high genotoxic and carcinogenic danger of the working conditions for workers employed in the coal mining and coal processing industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s coal production and consumption levels rank first in the world. Coal-fired power plants currently account for 65.5% of the total electricity output of China’s power grid. Coal-fired thermal power is the main industry consuming coal in China and the main source of atmospheric pollutants. To alleviate environmental pollution, the Chinese government recently released stringent flue gas emission standards for coal-fired power units. These standards require that the emission of dust, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides does not exceed 10 mg/m³, 35 mg/m³, and 50 mg/m³, respectively, to achieve ultra-clean emissions. Life-cycle assessment and life cycle costing methods are combined to analyze and compare the environmental and economic effects before and after ultra-clean emission retrofit in a 315 MW unit. The environmental impact of flue gas processing for 1000 kWh power plants decreased from 0.1529 to 0.1295 after ultra-clean emission retrofit. Desulfurization and discharged flue gas after treatment are the key processes examined in this case study, while power consumption during desulfurization and residual mercury in flue gas are key substances. Therefore, looking ahead, decreasing power consumption in desulfurization and using mercury removal technology are important aspects for decreasing the environmental impact of flue gas treatment systems in coal power units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Yellow River Basin (YRB) is the most important coal-producing area in China. In the context of climate change, the water-intensive coal industry chain is becoming an increasingly serious competitor for the region's scarce water resources. To better understand the coal-water nexus in the YRB, this study established a comprehensive geodatabase of the production facilities of the coal industry chain, including coal mines, coal-fired power plants, and various coal-chemical plants. The total water withdrawal by the coal industry chain was estimated at 2.765 billion m³ in 2018, of which coal-fired power generation accounted for 48%, followed by coal chemical production (28%) and coal mining (24%). Approximately 88% of the water withdrawal comes from catchments in which the withdrawal-to-availability ratio is higher than 0.4, indicating an extremely high or high water stress. The spatial distribution of water withdrawal is highly concentrated in a few areas with rich coal resources and have been developed as coal industry hubs. Water stress exerted by the coal industry is most significant in the eastern part of the 'Hetao' area, which covers the intersections of Shanxi, Shaanxi and Inner Mongolia. • A facility-level geodatabase for coal industry in Yellow River Basin is compiled. • Water withdrawal by coal industry in the YRB was 2.765 billion m³ in 2018. • 88% of the water withdrawal comes from catchments under high water stress. • East part of 'Hetao' area has the highest water stress exerted by coal industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal and gas outbursts are extremely violent dynamic disasters. Geological structure is the primary factor for controlling outbursts, and dome-basin structure is one of the most dangerous structural types that are prone to cause outbursts. This study reveals the reasons for and characteristics of coal and gas outbursts in a dome-basin structure. According to the analysis of the features and the formation mechanism of a dome-basin structure, combining gas geology theory and gas geology parameters, coal seam characteristics of stress and strain, coal-body structure, and coal seam gas occurrences in a dome-basin structure were studied. Based on the change laws of the above three aspects, the influences of domebasin structure on coal and gas outburst was also further analyzed. The results show that the dome-basin structure can be divided into three parts: dome structure, basin structure, and saddle structure. In the saddle structure, the surrounding rock was greatly damaged and the elasticity of the rock strata increased. It is easy to incur tectonic stress concentration. The type of coal-body structure is most of the mylonitic coal of full-layer thickness, and decreased the destruction-resisting ability of a coal seam. Coal seam gas content and pressure are relatively large, and provided beneficial conditions for the coal and gas outburst. Because of these effects, the probability of coal and gas outbursts visibly increased in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determination of spatial distribution of coal quality parameters can ease management of the operations in coal mines. In this study, in order to provide guidance for the excavations, Can coal mine production map showing regions having suitable coal parameters as feed coals for a power plant and also for public sale was prepared using adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system tool. Statistical relationships among calorific value, ash content and sulphur content were evaluated using the data obtained from boreholes opened in the mine between 2006 and 2009. According to the obtained production map, coals of Can mine are not suitable for public sale because of their high sulphur content and hence they should be blended with low sulphur coals to meet the requirements, before sale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large spatial separation of Chinese coal supply and demand regions requires intensified bulk transportation of coal to balance the coal supply and demand. Two options for Chinese bulk energy transportation are investigated. One is investment into a new dedicated heavy haul transportation railway and the other is investment into large-scale High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission lines in combination with mine-mouth coal-fired power plants in the North-Central coal-bearing provinces. This paper setup one base case scenario and two policy scenarios with different assumptions of future Chinese energy transport investment policies for coal in Xinjiang and employ the spatial equilibrium model which includes 29 regions of China is presented to analyze the influences of the different scenarios and welfare spillover. Simulation results show that: i) coal by wire will be more beneficial to the optimization of equilibrium in coal supply and demand as well as the direction and volumes of coal flows than coal by rail; ii) the equilibrium supply and demand prices of coal by wire are lower than coal by rail; iii) coal by wire will produce more total social welfare than coal by rail; iv) the coal in Xinjiang will be more attractive with the coal by wire option than the coal by rail option. Therefore, promoting domestic HVDC transmissions would be a significant option for Chinese future steam coal transportation. The conclusion has practical value for investments of domestic energy transportation infrastructure and optimization of China's energy transport configuration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy sector is increasingly facing water scarcity constraints in many regions around the globe, especially in China, where the unprecedented large-scale construction of coal-fired thermal power plants is taking place in its extremely arid northwest regions. As a response to water scarcity, air-cooled coal power plants have experienced dramatic diffusion in China since the middle 2000s. By the end of 2012, air-cooled coal-fired thermal power plants in China amounted to 112 GW, making up 14% of China's thermal power generation capacity. But the water conservation benefit of air-cooled units is achieved at the cost of lower thermal efficiency and consequently higher carbon emission intensity. We estimate that in 2012 the deployment of air-cooled units contributed an additional 24.3-31.9 million tonnes of C02 emissions (equivalent to 0.7-1.0% of the total CO2 emissions by China's electric power sector), while saving 832-942 million m3 of consumptive water use (about 60% of the total annual water use of Beijing) when compared to a scenario with water-cooled plants. Additional CO2 emissions from air-cooled plants largely offset the CO2 emissions reduction benefits from Chinese policies of retiring small and outdated coal plants. This water-carbon trade-off is poised to become even more significant by 2020, as air-cooled units are expected to grow by a factor of 2-260 GW, accounting for 22% of China's total coal-fired power generation capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2013, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a rule regulating greenhouse gas emissions from newly constructed, coal-fired power plants. Coal industry lawyers immediately began preparing for litigation. Like many industry-led arbitrary and capricious challenges, their goal is to stop the regulations from moving forward. This Note analyzes the new rule, concluding that although the EPA's rule is legally sound, it does have some potential weaknesses. Rather than merely blocking the regulations through litigation, however, this Note proposes that interest groups should instead submit their own solutions during the notice-and-comment rulemaking process, which would reduce regulatory gridlock and encourage meaningful debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coal is the only natural resource and fossil fuel available in abundance in India. Consequently, it is used widely as a thermal energy source and also as fuel for thermal power plants producing electricity. India has about 90,000 MW installed capacity for electricity generation, of which more than 70% is produced by coal-based thermal power plants. Hydro-electricity contributes about 25%, and the remaining is mostly from nuclear power plants (NPPs). The problems associated with the use of coal are low calorific value and very high ash content. The ash content is as high as 55–60%, with an average value of about 35–40%. Further, most of the coal is located in the eastern parts of the country and requires transportation over long distances, mostly by trains, which run on diesel. About 70% oil is imported and is a big drain on India’s hard currency. In the foreseeable future, there is no other option likely to be available, as the nuclear power programme envisages installing 20,000 MWe by the year 2020, when it will still be around 5% of the installed capacity. Hence, attempts are being made to reduce the adverse environmental and ecological impact of coal-fired power plants.The installed electricity generating capacity has to increase very rapidly (at present around 8–10% per annum), as India has one of the lowest per capita electricity consumptions. Therefore, the problems for the future are formidable from ecological, radio-ecological and pollution viewpoints. A similar situation exists in many developing countries of the region, including the People’s Republic of China, where coal is used extensively. The paper highlights some of these problems with the data generated in the author’s laboratory and gives a brief description of the solutions being attempted. The extent of global warming in this century will be determined by how developing countries like India manage their energy generation plans. Some of the recommendations have been implemented for new plants, and the situation in the new plants is much better. A few coal washeries have also been established. It will be quite some time before the steps to improve the environmental releases are implemented in older plants and several coal mines due to resource constraints. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article focuses on the goal of Germany to eliminate coal and transform its energy system. Topics include a debate regarding the closure of coal plants in Germany, negative impact of coal plant closure on job and energy market, and reliance of the country on its reserves of lignite, a soft brown coal.