China is eager to address one of the primary culprits behind its alarming coal mining fatalities, as evidenced by the Pre-Mining Degasification Symposium held in South China’s Guizhou province on March 31st and April 1st. Sponsored by the province’s Coal Mines Administration Bureau and the Coal Mine Safety Inspection and Supervision Bureau, coal mining executives gathered in Guiyang, a modest-sized city (by China’s standards) of more than three million people, to discuss how the latest foreign technologies could help degasify China’s 2,000 coal mines, both improving mine safety and reducing China’s global output of air pollution. More than 80 representatives from 40 coal mines attended in China’s second largest coal-producing province to find out about the latest foreign technology transfers, which might help reduce coal mining deaths.
Over the centuries as organic matter is converted to coal, methane, also known as CH4 and the primary constituent in natural gas, is produced during this process and stored in pockets within a coal seam. For every ton of coal produced, during the “coalification” process, more than 5000 cubic feet of methane is created. Coal mining releases this methane into the atmosphere. Over 90 percent of methane emissions come from underground coal mining. Because gas content is greater with depth, safety hazards increase during the underground coal mining process. Degasifying coal mines has been proven to help make those underground coal mines safer for miners.
Volatile gases produced during the coal mining process reportedly kill more than 15 miners every day in China, about 80 percent of the world’s coal mining deaths. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, a mining engineer by training, has demanded China improve conditions for Chinese coal miners. Critics, such as the Chinaworker.org, say the “underlying cause is a lack of investment in degasification equipment.” The website claims, “Managers calculate that it’s cheaper to pay out meager death benefits to miners’ families than (to) raise investment.” The Economist magazine reported that Chinese coal miners make as little as $60/monthly.
China is also concerned about its air emissions from coal mining. Worldwide, the coal mining industry released over 436 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents in 2000. That accounted for about 8 percent of the total industrial methane emissions that year. China, Russia, Poland and the United States account for over 77 percent of coal mining methane emissions. Through the year 2020, China’s share of worldwide emissions will jump to 45 percent. These emissions could be severely reduced if Chinese coal mines captured the methane gas for use in meeting its soaring energy needs, rather than vented into the atmosphere each time a new coal tunnel is opened.
One of the major draws at the Guiyang Pre-Mining Degasification Symposium were presentations about the latest coalbed methane drilling innovation by Tunaye Sai, Director of China Operations for Pacific Asia China Energy (TSX: PCE; Other OTC: PCEEF), and Nathan Mitchell of Mitchell Drilling Company (MDC) in Brisbane, Australia. Coal mining companies opened discussions with PCE after their presentation. “Executives from fifty mines showed interest in the Dymaxion