Where is coal mined? Where is coal mined in Russia?

Coal mining as an industrial sector became widespread at the beginning of the twentieth century and to this day continues to be one of the most profitable types extraction of mineral deposits. Coal is mined on an industrial scale throughout the world.

Contrary to popular belief, this fossil is used not only as a quality fuel. In the mid-twentieth century, the coal industry gave a powerful impetus to development scientific research on the extraction of hydrocarbons from minerals.

Where is mining taking place?

The largest mining countries coal– China, USA, India. ranks 6th in the world ranking for its production, although it is among the top three in terms of reserves.

In Russia, brown coal, hard coal (including coking coal) and anthracite are mined. The main coal mining areas in Russia are the Kemerovo region, Krasnoyarsk region, Irkutsk region, Chita, Buryatia, and the Komi Republic. There is coal in the Urals, Far East, in Kamchatka, Yakutia, Tula and Kaluga regions. There are 16 coal basins in Russia. One of the largest - more than half of Russia's coal is mined there.

How is coal mined?

Depending on the depth of the coal seam, its area, shape, thickness, various geographical and environmental factors, a specific coal mining method is selected. The main methods include the following:

• mine;
• developments in a coal mine;
• hydraulic.

In addition, there is coal mining open method, provided that the coal seam lies at a depth of no more than one hundred meters. But this method is very similar in form to open-pit coal mining.

Mine method

This method is used at great depths and has an undeniable advantage over open coal mining methods: coal at great depths is of higher quality and practically does not contain impurities.

To access coal seams, horizontal or vertical tunnels (adits and shafts) are drilled. There are known cases of coal mining at depths of up to 1500 meters (Gvardeiskaya, Shakhterskaya-Glubokaya mines).

Underground coal mining is considered one of the most difficult specializations due to a number of dangers:

1. There is a constant threat of groundwater breaking into the mine shaft.
2. There is a constant threat of associated gases breaking into the mine shaft. In addition to possible suffocation, explosions and fires are a particular danger.
3. Accidents due to high temperatures at great depths (up to 60 degrees), careless handling of equipment, etc.

Using this method, approximately 36% of the world's coal reserves are extracted from the earth's interior, which amounts to 2625.7 million tons.

Open way

Developments in a coal quarry are classified as open-pit coal mining, since they do not require drilling mines and adits to great depths.

This mining method involves blasting and removing overburden (a layer of excess rock above coal deposits) from the mining site. After this, with the help of excavators, water cannons, bulldozers, crushers, draglines and conveyors, the rock is crushed and transferred further.

This method of coal mining is considered less safe than closed (mine) mining. But it also has certain risk factors associated with careless handling of equipment and large vehicles, the possibility of poisoning from exhaust gases and substances accompanying machine activity.

A significant disadvantage of this method is that it causes great harm environment due to the removal of a large area of ​​the earth layer and accompanying natural elements.

The open-pit method is considered one of the most widespread in the world - it is used to extract more than 55% of coal per year, which amounts to 4102.1 million tons.

It was first used in the Soviet Union in the 30s of the twentieth century. It involves mining coal in deep mines, while transporting coal rock to the surface using energized water jets. This method allowed us to use the disadvantage of underground coal mining - groundwater - for our benefit.

IN Lately hydraulic coal mining is considered one of the most respectable methods. It can replace the labor-intensive and dangerous process of coal mining by miners, instead of which water will act as a destructive and lifting force.

The disadvantages of this method of coal mining include the following:

• constant contact of working tools and mechanisms with water and rock;
• certain difficulties when replacing or repairing work equipment;
• the dependence of the coal mining process on the thickness, angle of inclination and hardness of the rock.

Approximately 7.5% of coal is produced annually using this method, which amounts to 545.5 million tons.

The coal mining industry is the largest segment of the fuel industry. Throughout the world, it surpasses any other in terms of the number of workers and the amount of equipment.

What is the coal industry

The coal mining industry involves the extraction of coal and its subsequent processing. Work is being carried out both on the surface and underground.

If the deposits are located at a depth of no more than 100 meters, work is carried out career way. Mines are used to develop deposits at great depths.

Classic methods of coal mining

Work for coal mines and underground are the main methods of mineral extraction. Most of the work in Russia and in the world is carried out using open-pit mining. This is due to financial benefits and high speed production

The process is as follows:

• Using special equipment, the top layer of earth covering the deposit is removed. A few years ago the depth open works was limited to 30 meters, the latest technologies have made it possible to increase it by 3 times. If the top layer is soft and small, it is removed using an excavator. A thick and dense layer of earth is pre-crushed.
• Coal deposits are broken off and taken away using special equipment to the enterprise for further processing.
• Workers are restoring the natural topography to avoid harm to the environment.

The disadvantage of this method is that coal deposits located at shallow depths contain impurities of dirt and other rocks.

Coal mined underground is considered cleaner and of higher quality.

The main objective of this method is to transport coal from great depths to the surface. For this purpose, passages are created: an adit (horizontal) and a shaft (inclined or vertical).

In the tunnels, special combines are used to cut layers of coal and load them onto a conveyor that lifts them to the surface.

The underground method allows you to extract a large amount of minerals, but it has significant disadvantages: high price And increased danger for workers.

Unconventional methods of coal mining

These methods are effective, but are not widespread - on this moment There are no technologies that allow you to clearly establish the process:

• Hydraulic. Mining is carried out in a mine at great depth. The coal seam is crushed and delivered to the surface under strong water pressure.
• Compressed air energy. It acts as both a destructive and lifting force; the compressed air is under strong pressure.
• Vibration pulse. The layers are destroyed under the influence of powerful vibrations generated by the equipment.

These methods were used back in the Soviet Union, but did not become popular due to the need for large financial investments. Only a few coal mining companies continue to use unconventional methods.

Their main advantage is the absence of workers in potentially life-threatening areas.

Leading countries in coal production

According to world energy statistics, a ranking of countries occupying leading positions in coal production in the world has been compiled:

1. India.
2. Australia.
3. Indonesia.
4. Russia.
5. Germany.
6. Poland.
7. Kazakhstan.

For many years, China has been the leader in coal production. In China, only 1/7 of the available deposits are being developed, this is due to the fact that coal is not exported outside the country, and the existing reserves will last for at least 70 years.

In the United States, deposits are evenly scattered across the country. They will provide the country with their reserves for at least 300 years.

Coal deposits in India are very rich, but almost all of what is mined is used in the energy industry, since the available reserves are of very low quality. Despite the fact that India occupies one of the leading positions, artisanal methods of coal mining are progressing in this country.

Australia's coal reserves will last approximately 240 years. The mined coal is of the highest quality, and a significant part of it is intended for export.

In Indonesia, the level of coal production is growing every year. A few years ago, most of what was produced was exported to other countries; now the country is gradually abandoning the use of oil, and therefore the demand for coal for domestic consumption is growing.

Russia has 1/3 of the world's coal reserves, but not all of the country's lands have been explored yet.

Germany, Poland and Kazakhstan are gradually reducing their coal production volumes due to the uncompetitive cost of raw materials. Most of the coal is intended for domestic consumption.

Main coal mining sites in Russia

Let's figure it out. Coal mining in Russia is carried out mainly by open-pit mining. The deposits are scattered unevenly throughout the country - most of them are located in the eastern region.

The most significant coal deposits in Russia are:

• Kuznetskoe (Kuzbass). It is considered the largest not only in Russia, but throughout the world, located in Western Siberia. Coking and hard coal are mined here.
• Kansko-Achinskoe. Mining is carried out here. The deposit is located along the Trans-Siberian Railway, occupying part of the territories of the Irkutsk and Kemerovo regions, Krasnoyarsk Territory.
• Tunguska coal basin. Represented by brown and hard coal. It covers part of the territory of the Republic of Sakha and the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
• Pechora coal basin. Mining is carried out at this deposit. Work is carried out in mines, which allows the extraction of high-quality coal. It is located in the territories of the Komi Republic and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
• Irkutsk-Cheremkhovo coal basin. Located on the territory of the Upper Sayan. Provides coal only to nearby enterprises and settlements.

Today, 5 more deposits are being developed that can increase the annual volume of coal production in Russia by 70 million tons.

Prospects for the coal mining industry

Most of the world's coal deposits have already been explored; from an economic point of view, the most promising ones belong to 70 countries. The level of coal production is growing rapidly: technologies are being improved and equipment is being modernized. Due to this, the profitability of the industry increases.

Coal is a type of fossil fuel formed from parts of ancient plants underground without oxygen. Today we will visit one of the oldest enterprises in Kuzbass, where mining work The mines have been mining coal in the subsoil area since 1917.

Welcome to the oldest enterprise in Kuzbass - LLC "Mine No. 12", located in a small mining town near Novokuznetsk - Kiselevsk.

Combine:

To form coal abundant accumulation of plant mass is necessary. It forms when decaying plant material accumulates faster than bacterial decomposition occurs. The ideal environment for this is created in swamps, where stagnant water, depleted of oxygen, prevents the activity of bacteria and thereby protects the plant mass from complete destruction.

In ancient peat bogs, starting from the Devonian period (approximately 416 million years ago), the very organic matter from which fossil coals were formed without access to oxygen accumulated. Most commercial fossil coal deposits date from this period, although younger deposits also exist.

Coal mines:

Coal mining methods depend on the depth of its occurrence. Mining is carried out by open-pit mining in open-cast coal mines if the depth of the coal seam does not exceed 100 meters. There are also frequent cases when it is profitable to develop a coal deposit using the underground method. Mines are used to extract coal from great depths. The deepest mines in Russia extract coal from a level of just over 1,200 meters.

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Coal has its own marking. Depending on the degree of conversion and the specific amount of carbon in coal, there are its four types: brown coals (lignites), hard coals, anthracites and graphites. IN Western countries There is a slightly different classification - lignites, subbituminous coals, bituminous coals, anthracites and graphites, respectively.

Russia contains 5.5% of the world's coal reserves, which amounts to more than 200 billion tons. This difference with the percentage of proven coal reserves (19%) is due to the fact that most of it is not suitable for development, as it is located in Siberia in the permafrost region. 70% comes from brown coal reserves.

The uses of coal are varied. It is used as household, energy fuel, raw material for metallurgical and chemical industry, as well as for extracting rare and trace elements from it.

As for the Kuznetsk coal basin, Kuzbass is one of the largest coal deposits peace. Currently, the name “Kuzbass” is the second name of the Kemerovo region.

KOMATSU mining dump truck with a lifting capacity of 90 tons. But as drivers say, sometimes they load more than 90

In total, we were in Kiselevsk for a week, most time we were filming. It can't get boring, it's really interesting.

When exposed to oxygen, coal spontaneously ignites. Or it smokes, as in the photo:

Loading:

Walking mining excavator bucket:

Even in the quarry during restricted hours everything looks prettier. But it’s difficult to shoot, everything is in motion:

Walking excavator:

At night, throughout the quarry you can see coal burning in some areas:

Technique. Everyone has a plan that must be fulfilled. Therefore, the movement in the quarry never stops.

Well, maybe at the end of the shift for half an hour or an hour

Bucket marks:

One such wheel costs 700,000 rubles, so they try to clear the roads of sharp stones:

In the excavator cabin:

50-ton BELAZ and behind it a 90-ton KOMATSU:

IN walking excavator cabin. This is a whole room. There is a couch, a microwave, a samovar, a washbasin and a bunch of posters with naked girls on the walls:

And this is from his arrow. Height 27 meters:

A welder repairs a bucket:

These machines drill the ground, and explosives are poured into dug 12-meter holes, blast the rock. This is done so that the rock becomes looser, large strong layers are broken into small stones, which then become much easier to excavate with an excavator:

Explosive. We were unable to photograph the explosion itself:

And now, when the coal is dug up, it is transported to the enrichment plant. Enrichment- a set of processes for the primary processing of raw materials, namely the separation of coal from waste rock and sorting:

Atmospheric inside:

A place where both coal and rock travel along a conveyor belt, and women (!) separate this rock from the coal, collect it and throw it away. There are pieces that are large enough that women cannot cope alone and throw off pieces of rock together. In the remaining workshops everything is automated:

Car dumper:

Coal warehouse:

Loading coal into wagons that will go to consumers. This was a report from Kuzbass.

Low cost and abundant reserves are the main factors driving the increase in the number of uses of brown coal. This type of fossil solid fuel, the earliest type of coal, has been mined by humans for hundreds of years. Brown coal is a product of peat metamorphism, in a stage between lignite and hard coal. Compared to the last one, this type fuel is less popular, however, due to its low cost, it is quite widely used for the production of electricity, heating and other types of fuel.

Structure

Brown coal is a dense, earthy or fibrous carbonaceous mass of brown or pitch-black color with a high content of volatile bituminous substances. As a rule, the plant structure, conchoidal fractures, and woody masses are well preserved in it. It burns easily, the flame is smoky, and a peculiar unpleasant burning smell is released. Reacting with potassium hydroxide, it forms a dark brown liquid. During dry distillation, brown coal produces ammonia with acetic acid. Chemical composition (on average), excluding ash: carbon - 63%, oxygen - 32%, hydrogen 3-5%, nitrogen 0-2%.

Origin

Brown coal is formed by layers of sedimentary rock deposits - flanges, often of great thickness and extent. The materials for the formation of brown coal are various kinds of hoops, conifers, trees and peat plants. Deposits of these substances gradually decompose without access to air, under water, under a cap of a mixture of clay and sand. The smoldering process is accompanied by the constant release of volatile substances and gradually leads to the enrichment of plant residues with carbon. Brown coal is one of the first stages of metamorphism of such plant deposits, after peat. Further stages are coal, anthracite, graphite. The longer the process, the closer the state is to pure carbon-graphite. Thus, graphite belongs to the Azoic group, coal - to the Paleozoic, brown coal - mainly to the Mesozoic and Cenozoic.

Hard and brown coal: differences

As you can see from the name itself, brown coal differs from stone coal in color (lighter or darker). There are also black varieties, but in powder form the shade of such coal is still brown. The color of stone and anthracite always remains black. The characteristic properties of brown coal are a higher carbon content compared to hard coals and a lower content of bituminous substances. This explains why brown coal burns more easily and produces a lot of smoke. The high carbon content also explains the mentioned reaction with potassium hydroxide and the peculiar unpleasant odor during combustion. The nitrogen content, compared to hard coals, is also significantly lower. When exposed to air for a long time, brown coal rapidly loses moisture, crumbling into powder.

Varieties

There are quite a lot of varieties and varieties of brown coal, among which there are several main ones:

1. Regular brown coal, dense consistency, matte brown color.
2. Brown coal of earthy fracture, easily ground into powder.
3. Resinous, very dense, dark brown, sometimes even bluish-black. When broken, it resembles resin.
4. Lignite, or bituminous wood. Coal with a well-preserved plant structure. Sometimes it is even found in the form of entire tree trunks with roots.
5. Disodil is brown paper coal in the form of decayed thin-layered plant matter. Easily divided into thin sheets.
6. Brown peat coal. Resembling peat, with a lot of foreign impurities, sometimes reminiscent of earth.

The percentage of ash and combustible elements in various types brown coal varies widely, which determines the merits of a particular type of combustible material.

Production

The methods for extracting brown coal are similar for all fossil coals. There are open (career) and closed. The oldest method of closed mining is adits, inclined wells to a coal seam of small thickness and shallow occurrence. It is used in case of financial inefficiency of quarry construction.

A mine is a vertical or inclined hole in the rock from the surface to the coal seam. This method is used in deep coal-bearing seams. It is characterized by the high cost of extracted resources and a high accident rate.

Open-pit mining is carried out at a relatively shallow (up to 100 m) depth of the coal seam. Open or quarry mining the most economical, today approximately 65% ​​of all coal is mined in this way. The main disadvantage of quarrying is the great damage to the environment. Brown coal is mainly mined using open-pit mining due to shallow depth occurrence. Initially, the overburden (the layer of rock above the coal seam) is removed. After this, the coal is broken down using the drilling and blasting method and transported by specialized (quarry) vehicles from the mining site. Stripping operations, depending on the size and composition of the layer, can be carried out by bulldozers (for a loose layer of insignificant thickness) or rotary excavators and draglines (for a thicker and denser layer of rock).

Application

Brown coal is used much less frequently as fuel than hard coal. It is used for heating private houses and small power plants. By the so-called Dry distillation of brown coal produces rock wax for the woodworking, paper and textile industries, creosote, carbolic acid and other similar products. It is also processed into liquid hydrocarbon fuel. Humic acids in brown coal make it possible to use it in agriculture as a fertilizer.

Modern technologies make it possible to produce synthetic gas from brown coal, which is an analogue natural gas. To do this, the coal is heated to 1000 degrees Celsius, resulting in gas formation. In practice it is used quite effective method: through a drilled well, brown coal deposits are supplied through a pipe heat, and the finished gas is already coming out through another pipe - a product of underground processing.