Other Mining and Safety Terms hard to find in 2022 Queensland Mining Industry Safety Conference Program
Grosvenor is not the only word hard to find in the Queensland Mining Industry Health and Safety Conference Presentation Program.
Other words associated with the industry in the last 3 years since the last conference, with the ever continuing fatalities, the Grosvenor Explosion and its Inquiry are also equally hard to find in any of the presentation topics.
- FATALITY/DEATH . No matches
- DISASTER or CATASTROPHIC. No matches
- LABOUR HIRE or CONTRACTORS No matches
- METHANE, No matches
- METHANE EXPLOSION No matches
- GAS DRAINAGE No matches.
- VENTILATION No matches
- TARP (Trigger Action Response Point) No Matches
- LEGISLATION No matches
- PROSECUTION No matches
- RECOMMENDATION No matches.
11) RSHQ got at least 9 Recommendations to action from the Grosvenor Inquiry that I have compiled in the link below
RSHQ Recommendations Grosvenor
Why isn’t there a specific Presentation about that topic?
Surely the progress or otherwise RSHQ has made would be relevant a year later at the Safety Conference.
12) SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION 1 match
Wednesday 1.20 – 1.45pm
Post-Incident Learnings from a Major Spontaneous Combustion Event
Laurie Crisp, Mines Inspector, Resources Safety and Health Queensland
Still no mention of Grosvenor the 2022 Conference Voldemort.
It could be about North Goonyella in 2018, who knows.
Why the Safety Conference Organizing Committee is so shy about looking at what has happened with the most serious spontaneous combustion incidents since Moura No 2 in 1994 is utterly beyond me?
Nothing about how both Industry and the Regulator should Design, Construct, Develop, Manage and Regulate a Thick (and/or Multi) Seam Methane Rich Spontaneous Combustion Prone Coal Mines.
At least those in charge at North Goonyella in 2018 actually realized they had detected Ethylene. The Mines Department then decided there were serious spontaneous combustion problems underground that the existing TARPS did not adequately address.
Workers were withdrawn from the Mine and no one was hurt when the uncontrolled spontaneous combustion inevitably led to methane ignitions then the sealing of the mine at the surface.
At Grosvenor we learned that the gas monitoring system such as it was set up, detected Ethylene in the Weeks and Months preceding the 6th of May 2020.
The Mines Inspectorate were not informed of any detection of Ethylene and did not recognise problems with the TARPS.
Workers were never withdrawn when spontaneous combustion ignited methane
It was the system and people in charge of analyzing and interpreting the information about the detected presence of Ethylene that failed?
What are those attending going to be told?
The biggest insight surely will not be that “Ethylene when detected in an underground coal mine is bad, very, very bad situation and you have lost control of the spontaneous combustion process?”
We have known that for decades.
13) ETHYLENE 1 Match
Wednesday 3.20 – 3.45pm
Ethylene Contamination from Green Timber Supports
Sean Muller, Principal Scientist – MST, Resources Safety and Health Queensland, Simtars
I do not know if green timber curing in a goaf area generates Ethylene or not and honestly do not have not one bit of interest if it does.
Call me old fashioned , but can I ask what idiots in Underground Coal Mine Management would ever allow green timber supports to be even unloaded from the semi-trailer on the surface? (In case you do not know green timber shrinks.)
Let alone then taken down and then used for passive roof support in an underground mine?
All that will result in any efforts of research on this topic will be that every time Ethylene is detected will be that all the deniers who should know better will say
“Nothing to worry about. We must have put up some green timber supports in the goaf area somewhere”
Again call me old fashioned why not just make it illegal in some form to use green timber supports.
GOAF 1 Match
Atmosphere Management Using Coal Foam
Dr Basil Beamish, Managing Director, B3 Mining Services Pty Ltd
This Post Has One Comment
Stuart, since my time in the industry started in the early 80’s I believe the industry improved overall in productivity, safety and catastrophic events over 25 odd years. for some reason over the past 10 to 15 years things of seemed to regress, deteriorate, call it what you will.
Underground coal mining should be getting easier, the basics of underground coal mining, of ventilation, gas and spontaneous combustion have not changed, technology has certainly improved, the industry is smaller now than it has ever been since the 80’s so there should be a concentration of knowledge with coal mine management and inspectors. There has been multiple combustion events in thick seams in qld over that time, most of which were successfully managed. so the industry must have some knowledge in locations across the industry. Spon comb is a complex problem, and personally I learnt not from text books but from engineers and managers who experienced it. Carbon monoxide is a good indicator of oxidation, however diesel engines interfere with this parameter, hydrogen use to be a good delineator until chromatographs improved and we thought galvanised steel gave off hydrogen. Ethylene is the only trigger that when you detect it you know there is combustion not just oxidation happening. after that it is a lucky dip risking temperature and flammable gas levels don’t coincide. Goaf management practices are the problem – noone knows how to balance a goaf to create inert zones and how to move it forward to minimise the risk.
Keep up the vigil – the industry needs to keep talking and criticism even though it is hard to listen to is needed to improve performance