Environmental Situation Due to the Influence of Activities in the Coal Industry

* Some major coal mines in the world

a. 3 mines in the Illawarra and Wollondilly regions (Australia)

Australia is the world's largest coal exporter. At the end of 2003, the country exported over 207 million tons of hard coal out of a total of more than 274 million tons of coal mined in the country. This is one of the country's most valuable export goods. Although three-quarters of Australia's exports go to the Asian market, its coal is consumed worldwide, including Europe, the Americas and Africa. Opened in 1962, Appin Colliery mine was one of the first mines in Australia to apply long column mining technology at a depth of 550 m, exploiting high quality, hard coking coal from the Bulli coal vein. BHP Billiton's Illawarra Coal Company operates underground at three mines in the Illawarra and Wollondilly regions, nearly 80 km south of Sydney. Iilawarra Company has three mines: Appin, Appin/West, West Cliff and Dendrobium – and two mines ready to go into production – West Cliff and Port Kembla. The company employs 1,300 direct workers to exploit high quality coking coal. However, currently the management company has applied measures to combine exploitation with sustainable development. Sydney lacks water and people here must follow regulations to conserve water use. Appin mine uses a large amount of water

tell, about 1,600 m 3 per day. The company must find ways to minimize water use.

As part of the strategy to reduce water consumption, a reverse osmosis filtration plant worth AUD 6 million was built to treat and reuse 2300 m 3 of water per day. In November 2007, Sydney Water Company recognized this achievement of reducing 660 m 3 of fresh water per day and awarded IIlawarra Company the award for highest water volume reduction. By converting lightly salted groundwater for reuse on site and supply to nearby mines, the plant can reduce the amount of fresh water taken from Sydney Water by up to 2300 m 3 of water per day . Currently the factory operates with a capacity of 1,450-1,800 m 3 /day.

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The plant also improved the quality and reduced the salinity of mine water and released it into the Nepean River. The brine is currently sent to a discharge point, however the plant plans to make salt as its byproduct for sale. Factory

The Company's state-of-the-art water filtration plant is the first of its kind in IIlawarra, applying modern technology and processes that deliver long-term benefits to the company's mining operations, the community and the surrounding environment. The company will continue to increase the amount of water recycled and recovered, and will also look for technologies to save water at this coal mine. Throughout the 20th century, coal mining technology in this area was mainly open-cast mining, however in recent years the problem of environmental pollution has seriously affected human life, so mining technologies have changed. gradually into the pit.

b. Large Chinese coal mine

China is the country that produces the most coal and has the third largest coal reserves in the world. The country's coal reserves are currently about 128 billion tons, equivalent to 13% of global reserves and ranked third in the world after the US and Russia. Coal is being mined in 27 provinces in China. Some of China's large coal mines were exploited very early, such as Banxihu coal mine, which was first exploited in 1905. In addition, some coal mines in southern China such as Nanning, Sichuan... , however, it is mainly underground mining so it is often dangerous. Accidents during mining often occur such as tunnel collapse, water bag collapse, gas asphyxiation...

1.2.2. Current status of coal mining in Vietnam

1.2.2.1. Current environmental situation due to the influence of activities in the coal industry

a. Overview of coal types in Vietnam

Coal reserves are assessed at 3.5 billion tons, of which over 3.3 billion tons are in Quang Ninh region (up to a depth of -300m); The remaining nearly 200 million tons are scattered in Thai provinces

Quang Ninh coal basin was discovered and exploited very early, starting over 170 years ago during the French colonial period. Currently, coal output is mined from the

Mines in the Quang Ninh coal basin account for over 90% of the country's coal output. In the coal-bearing stratigraphy of the Quang Ninh coal basin, there are many coal seams: The Northern strip (Uong Bi - Bao Dai) has from 1 to 15 seams, of which 6 to 8 seams have industrial value; The southern strip (Hon Gai, Cam Pha) has from 2 to 45 seams, with industrial value of 10-15 seams.

The typical properties of anthracite coal in the Quang Ninh coal basin deposits are very complex tectonics, the coal-bearing layer is narrow, interrupted strips along the direction of the seam, the slope angle of the seam varies from gentle slope to steep slope. (9 0 -51 0 ). Coal mines have many seams, with the seam's structure and thickness changing suddenly.

Regarding coal mining in the Quang Ninh basin in the past, there was a time when open-cast output accounted for 80%, this ratio has gradually changed, now it is 60%, and in the future it will be even lower. Because large open pit mines have and will reduce their output, by the end of the 2015-2020 period, some mines will no longer produce; There will be no new large open pit mines, if there are some mines with output of less than 0.5-1 million tons. The rate of underground coal output increased, indicating increased difficulty in mining conditions, increased construction and exploitation investment costs, leading to increased production costs. Therefore, although the geological reserves of the Quang Ninh coal basin are over 3 billion tons, the economic reserves are 1.2 billion tons and the industrial reserves are included in the construction planning for the period from now to 2010-2020. at 500-600 million tons. The depth of exploitation is -150m. From - 150m to -300m, it is necessary to conduct geological exploration,

Besides, anthracite coal is also scattered in the provinces: Hai Duong, Bac Giang, Thai Nguyen, Son La, Quang Nam, with reserves ranging from several hundred thousand tons to several tens of million tons. In these places, the scale of exploitation usually ranges from a few thousand tons to 100-200 thousand tons/year.

Khe Bo (Nghe An). In addition, coking coal is also available in the provinces of Son La, Lai Chau, Hoa Binh, but with small reserves.

Coking coal is used mainly for the metallurgical industry with huge demand after 2000, but coking coal reserves in our country are very small and exploitation conditions are very difficult. Coking coal output is unlikely to be higher than 0.2-0.3 million tons/year, while demand will increase to 5-6 million tons/year in the period 2010-2020.

Peat in Vietnam is scattered from North to South, but is mainly concentrated in the Mekong Delta (with two large coal mines, U-Minh-Thuong and U-Minh-Ha), specifically: Northern Delta : 1,650 million m3; Central Coast: 490 million m3; Southern Delta: 5,000 million m3. Previously, the Southern Delta region was assessed to have reserves of 1 billion tons and even higher. But forest fires have destroyed a lot of coal reserves.

Up to now, peat has been exploited mainly for domestic fuel (mixed with anthracite coal from Quang Ninh) and as field fertilizer on a small scale, with the main exploitation being manual, the current mining output is is estimated to be less than 10 thousand tons/year. Mining peat as fuel or fertilizer is not very effective. On the other hand, coal mining will affect the environment and ecology in the region, especially in the Mekong Delta. The exploitation, transportation, consumption, processing and use of peat also face many difficulties.

Mainly concentrated in Na Duong mine (Lang Son), with geological reserves of over 100 million tons. Currently, mining is done by opencast method, coal is mainly used for cement production in Hai Phong and Bim Son with an output of around 100 thousand tons/year. But because the Hai Phong Cement Factory will stop operating and move to Thuy Nguyen District, the Bim Son Cement Factory will be renovated with new technology, so Na Duong coal will not be used from 1999 onwards. Na Duong coal is a type of coal with high sulfur content and self-burning properties, so mining

Exploitation, transportation, processing and use are very difficult and limited. Therefore, the Vietnam Coal and Mineral Industries Group has researched and cooperated with foreign countries to build the Na Duong power plant in the mine area to use this type of coal. Because if not exploited, coal will spontaneously burn and destroy resources while causing a worse impact on the environment.

Concentrated mainly in the Northern Delta, reserves are forecast at 100 billion tons. According to preliminary assessment, the coal is of good quality and can be used for electricity production, cement and chemical industry. But to be able to exploit it, it is necessary to conduct exploration in the Binh Minh - Khoai Chau - Hung Yen area, to accurately assess coal reserves, quality, tectonic conditions of the coal seam, and research the technology. design exploitation technology. In general, mining this coal is very difficult in terms of terrain, population in the area and mining methods, etc. According to the assessment of some geological and mining researchers, for brown coal in the delta Red River can be invested in mine construction and exploitation from 2015-2020 onwards. [28]

In our country, the coal mining industry was born and has undergone development for more than 120 years. During the French colonial period from 1883 to March 2001, over 50 million tons of clean coal were exploited, 1041 km of flood roads were dug, and tens of millions of cubic meters of soil and rock were excavated and dumped . From 1995 to 2001, nearly 228 million tons of clean coal were exploited, digging 1,041 km of flood roads, peeling and dumping 795 million m3 of soil and rock on hundreds of hectares of landfill area; using millions of cubic meters of fireproof wood, hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives and millions of tons of fuel of all kinds, of which from 1995 to 2001 alone, 73.4 million tons of clean coal were exploited (equivalent to 26.4% of the total). output of the entire mining industry so far), digging 504.5km of tunnel; peeling and dumping 23.7 million m 3soil and rock (reaching 48.5% of the total number of furnace lines and 29.8% of the total volume of soil and rock of the entire industry from 1995 to 2001).

b. Situation of coal mining in Quang Ninh

Currently, Quang Ninh has 5 large open-pit mines with a mining capacity of around 2 million tons of raw coal/year (Ha Tu, Nui Beo, Cot Sau, Cao Son, Deo Nai); 15

Medium open pit mines and open pit mining sites are managed by underground mining companies with an annual capacity of 100,000 - 700,000 tons of raw coal. There are also a number of exposed seams and small mining sites with annual mining output below

Most open pit mines are opened by a system of open trenches clinging to coal seam walls. The trench digging equipment is a hydraulic backhoe excavator combined with an EKG excavator. Most open pit mines apply a deep mining system along one or two banks, the rock and soil are mainly dumped to the outside dump. In small and medium-sized mines and open-pit mining sites for rock loading and exploitation, small and medium-sized equipment is used synchronously.

Currently, the country has over 30 underground coal mines in operation, of which 8 mines have large reserves, complete technology and infrastructure, with relatively large output: 900-1300 thousand tons/year. year. The remaining mines have an output of less than 500 thousand tons/year.

1.2.2.2. Environmental management situation

It is a specific exploitation and processing industry with the potential to cause negative impacts on the environment, especially the air and water resources. Therefore, in recent years, local authorities and Vinacomin have paid appropriate attention to environmental protection with many specific measures.

In addition, post-mining environmental rehabilitation and restoration activities have also received more attention than before. To date, 35/67 mining areas have had environmental improvement and restoration projects approved with a total cost of 321 billion VND. At the same time, deposits for environmental renovation and restoration projects are also being seriously implemented with 36 projects having been deposited with a total amount of about 143 billion VND.

1.2.3. Overview of environmental issues in the coal industry in Ha Long City, Cam Pha City - Quang Ninh Province

a. Current status of dust and water pollution sources in the coal industry

- Dust: Dust is created in almost all stages of mining technology. Dust affects the external environment mainly in the stages of coal transportation, screening, processing and consumption. Among technological stages, coal transportation is the stage that creates the largest dust and has the widest scope of influence. Next is the screening and consumption stages.

For open-cast mining : The amount of rainwater washing away the surface of the mining site and waste dump in the rainy season is large, carrying away a lot of unmeasured soil, rock, and coal, causing sedimentation in rivers, streams, ponds, and lakes. and coastal areas, causing flooding in neighboring residential areas. This amount of wastewater is still generated even after mining operations have ended, so it has the potential for long-term effects.

b. Management and handling situation