Coal, transportation and storage

See also Coal, Production of Coal, Transportation and Storage of Environmental Problems and Energy Use Fossil Fuels. 

PHB Hagler Bailly, Itic., Washington, DC Coal, Transportation and Storage of (with Jamie N. Heller)... 

The examination commences with the environmental issues associated with (1) coal mining (which, by inference includes coal in the seams), (2) coal preparation, (3) coal transportation and storage, and (4) followed by the emission-related environmental issues from commercial use of coal. 

The largest accidents in terms of casualties in the energy field are connected with the collapse of hydro dams. Some 2500 people perished, for example, in a single dam failure in Macchu, India. There are also, as we know, severe accidents connected with the transport and storage of gas, the mining of coal, and the shipping of oil. A gas pipeline explosion in Guadalajara in Mexico killed 200 people in 1992. 

A demonstration unit sponsored by the Environemtal Protection Agency (EPA) to produce RDF at St. Louis proved the basic feasibility of mechanical separation processes, transport and storage techniques, and combustion of fluff RDF to replace 5 to 27 percent of the pulverized coal used in suspension-fired utility boilers. However, the refinement of equipment components and the technical and economic optimization of the basic technology still require a great deal of work. 

Although these liquid products, if treated and sold in a suitable place, might yield a higher revenue than methanol, it may be questionable whether marketing these relatively small quantities of liquid hydrocarbons at the location of large methanol-from-coal plants would make economic sense in view of transportation and storage cost. 

On the other hand, low-rank coals are currently used just as fuels near coal mines because such coals (e.g., brown coal and lignite) contain large amounts of water (up to 60% w/w) and dewatering or drying is essential when brown coals are transported and stored to be utilized. Dewatered brown coals unfortunately tend to have high spontaneous combustion tendency as compared to non-dewatered coals, which causes serious problems for transportation and storage (Xian et al., 2010). 

Lin, S.Y 2009. Hydrogen production from coal. In Hydrogen fuel Production, transport, and storage, 103-125, ed. R.B. Gupta. CRC Press Boca Raton, FL. 

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