Scenario of needing an additional heat source to cause Spontaneous Combustion Heating in Goonyella Middle Seam Coal
MDG-1006-TR-spontaneous-combustion-management
Are we going to hear from Dr. Beamish about how difficult it is for Goonyella Middle Seam Coal to self heat to the point of a runaway out of control heating without an additional heat source such as PUR.
Well if so how does he explain all the heatings at North Goonyella over the years.
An undermanager and others in 1997 having a suspicion that where they thought they knew exactly where the heating was located, about 100 metres behind the face. (How they came to think they knew the exact location is beyond my knowledge)
This was then linked to “Hey we pumped PUR around that specific area”.
Well I was an ISHR who spent way way too much time over about a 4 to 6 week period at North Goonyella with the 5 Sth heating, including smelling it while on the face.
No one was talking about PUR with that heating.
No one has mentioned PUR in relation to the 7Nth or 9Nth heatings either.
Surely we are not going to be led to believe that Mines in the Goonyella Middle Seam, where the coal seam is too thick to be mined in one pass and up to 2 metres of coal is left in the goaf is a low risk spontaneous combustion mine.
This coal has also lost most of its inherent moisture from methane drainage. It is dry, dusty and crumbly
The seam also has multiple faults .
It falls into the higher risk Mine categories.
MDG 1006 states that by 2011
“There have been in excess of 125 incidents reported in NSW since 1960, most occurring in the Greta seam and Liddell seam. In Queensland, there have been in excess of 68 incidents since 1960. The following are some of the more serious or unusual events that have been documented.” (pg 82 of 114)
We are surely not going to be now led to believe that you need another heat source to get to the stage of generating Ethylene or worse in the Goonyella Middle seam.
PUR was not used at any mines at all in Australia before 1986 causing the fire at Westcliffe in 1986.
Let me tell everyone a little secret.
People first mined coal because it burns.
The reason people first started deep underground coal mines was to provide heat in English Homes during winter as native woodlands were being eradicated in never ending thirst for firewood.
Are we supposed to believe that 2 metres of Goonyella Middle Seam will just lay around in a goaf and never ever catch fire.
Please.
Just to remind people of a few events in Qld since 1975.
Kianga No.1 – Sep 1975
Leichardt Colliery – Dec 1981
Laleham No.1 1982
Moura No.2 – Apr 1986
New Hope – Jun 1989
Collinsville No 2 Mine 1989
Moura No.2 – Aug 1994 – 11 Fatalities
North Goonyella – 1997
Newlands – 1998
Blair Athol – 1999
North Goonyella 5sth 2000
Cook Colliery 2006
Carborough Downs 2012
North Goonyella 7Nth 2014
Ensham Underground 2016
North Goonyella 9Nth 2018
This Post Has 5 Comments
1997 was a long time ago, so my memory is a little faded.
like you I was at North Goonyella when the heating occurred in 5 South longwall which was idled at the time.
My recollection is that it was good luck to pick the leakage path and introduce CO2 to reduce the oxygen content. To prevent a possible explosion. Some people think the mine was 24 hours away from.
Yes, at the time some said it was a pur injection site when the previous panel was extracted. I think more relevant was the steel sets used to secure the roadway opening in the maingate, which after the longwall mines past becomes an ideal leakage path because they do not collapse completely.
My thinking on these types of comments are driven by setting scenarios like being able to claim insurance or site politics (where people are more driven by personal reputation) rather than facts and learning from these to make the industry safer.
I guess todays industry is a result of 25 years of this environment.
CoalHog;
Now that you mention in I now recall talk of the steel sets.
To me all this talk about PUR overlooks a pretty basic fact.
When do coal mines have trouble with spontaneous combustion in most seams but especially in Goonyella Middle Seam?
When they stay in one place for a long time. 5Sth was stopped for months before hand you are right.
The first part of the plan was to get the wall mining again and hopefully bury the heating.
Only problem was the gremlins in the wall were so bad and they did not seem to want to spare the labour to have a proper go.
I remember walking around the pit on the last nightshift before it was sealed talking to men and Deputies about most peoples concern that we had run out of time.
When I got to 5 Sth I had a talk with panel Deputy.
I decided to make the decision about what to do very easy for Management in the morning.
He and I agreed that the best thing to do was cut the conveyor belt and remove the structure around the prep seal in the belt road and he and his small crew proceeded to do so.
5 or 6 hours later when the Senior Management arrived on site in the morning, the belt removal work was already done.
Stuart,
You have a better memory than me.
Working thick seams are challenging, the first thing people need to learn and understand is that no one knows everything, we have to learn from our experiences in a seam. The Goonyella middle seam is a classic example, there have been four mines operating in that seam for some time, and each one of them have different mining environments.
Hope for the best, but plan for the worst, is a motto I heard a lot when I was a younger coal miner, maybe people are forgetting the second part these days.
Keep up the good work, it is interesting to read some of your articles.
There are always two sides to all scenarios, and when it comes to mine safety, I know of no one that goes to work thinking they will be injured or worse.
Bit hard to forget the blokes on shift drifting into the Village during the afternoon as the footy was starting.
They were all very happy that there was cold beer available as the bar was shut for a few more hours. But I had used the Union Credit card for the very first time and about the 2nd last time so the blokes could have a cold beer, without first seeking formal approval. (Last time was at Mt Mulligan Annual gathering on Anniversary Day in late 2000’s).
And all the other things you see with Management at Mines suffering spon com.
Are you sure of what you smelled.
You are an idiot. That was just boiler gas.
As barometer goes up twice and down twice during day and Management would look at it like it was magically getting better and then as barometer dropped their faces would get glummer and glummer.
Look at the long term trends of CO, H2 etc I would say. Each day its higher.
See that gas that is called Ethylene, it is confirmed by a separate Gas Chromatograph.
We have run out of time.
Time to seal it.
You need to move.
I am not a Mines Inspector I cannot Direct You to Seal The Panel
If you leave it any longer I will have to invoke my one and only Directive.
That is to remove all workers from the Mine due to
“My Belief that an unacceptable level of risk to workers exist”.
If you do it yourself then you can evacuate the mine and leave it set up for long term with no workers underground.
Small crew of volunteers in coordination shuts the prep seals, jumps in the PJB’s and heads to the surface as fast as they can.
NRL Grand Final Day it was