Mining is an essential need for humans to access coal which produce rich resource to generate electricity. Mining comes as simplistic image of just people in hard hats with a pickaxe repeatedly pounding onto rocks until they gather desired materials. However, mining requires a trade cost in order to get reliable energy resource, as coal mining influences and infatuated the environment around it. In particular, surface mines, also known as strip mines, is a practice mining commonly used to access coal by removing layers of overlying soil and rock. Additionally, strip mining requires heavy used of machines, such as bulldozers, power shovels, and trucks in order to extract the resources from the ground. Surface mining is arguably the most effective type of mining, as 60 percent of the world’s materialistic coal comes from the practice of this type of mining. Thus tactics of surface mining at such fast and furious pace is in not an efficient method for gathering resources, and will result in pollution and negligent on the land, forests and soil, and water that environment provides naturally.
Surface mining, also known as strip mining, is a mining practice defined as “very shallow ore seam is first exposed by removing all of the overlying soil and rock, otherwise known as the overburden. The ore is then excavated and removed from the surface.” (Gates & Blauvelt, Mining and Pollution) Alternatively, surface mining utilizes and removes the soil in order to yield high amounts of
The process to mine the coal is quite complex. First, surveyors are called on site to document the layout of the land so that in can be restored to
Strip mining is a process where layers of surface soil and rock are removed and exposed. The overlaying soil called, overburden is set aside while the resource is extracted. Once completed, the overburden is then refilled, and the process begins again on another strip of land. Strip mining
The thought of expanding the U.S. more made the citizens somewhat nervous. Nervous of what lays ahead, the dangers, unknown animals, different weather, and some of the unfriendly natives who roamed the west. Excited, to know that there is an opportunity of a new start in life, and the rumored gold. The point of my paper is to give you an idea of what it was like for these brave people to migrate west. What they went through, what they found, and if they accomplished.
The next step is the processing of the coal by chemically treating it. After the miners see the coal, they start remove it using huge coal-moving machines and take it to a coal processing plant. After the coal is chemically treated, the company is required to, by law, build on the flattened land. This way the land will not be wasted. Though it is said that mountaintop removal is the most effective and most cost effective way to operate, many people say it is harmful to the environment.
A controversial topic commonly debated among society is the construction of coal mines. Although they potentially contain great economic promise and access to more resources, they also harm the surrounding environment and increase carbon dioxide emissions.
Surface mining began to replace traditional underground mining around WWII (Bozzi 116). Rather than digging into the mountain to extract the coal, strip mining involves removing the overlying soil and rock that covers the coal deposits (Lutz 1). It seemed appealing at first because the previous known dangers of black-lung disease and cave-ins were now limited with the surface mining method (Bozzi 116). However, surface mining came with it’s own problems, a lot of them being more serious and irreversible than underground mining (Allen 182). This method of surface mining was the spark that created the trend of mountaintop removal (Bozzi 117). Mountaintop removal is the complete destruction of the mountain peak in order to reach coal
Coal mining, in particular, strip mining has become the latest casualty of the growing green movement in the United States. What is strip mining? Encyclopædia Britannica Online defines strip mining as the removal of vegetation, soil, and rock above a layer of coal, followed by the removal of the coal itself (“strip”). Most Americans don’t realize the impact this material of biological origin that can be used as a source of energy (“fossil”), or fossil fuel, has on their everyday lives or the nation’s economy. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the mining industry directly employs some fifty thousand Americans with nearly half that number working in the more specific field of strip mining, or mountain top removal
Things like mining too far into a wall that connects to an older mine, thus increasing the danger of a collapse, is common. Other practices include shoddy dams that contain the slurry, a mixture of water and fine particles of coal, which do not always meet structural regulations that can and have broken and flood nearby communities (Light and Light, 2006). There are other environmental issues that are associated with coal mining. Acid mine drainage is the result of sulfide minerals being exposed to oxygen. This produces sulfuric acid and can dissolve heavy metals from the waste rock, making it bioavailable. Without proper treatment, this will poison the water systems near that mine and will seep into the streams, creeks, and even ground and well water. The water turns orange and is impossible for anything to live off of the water or in it (Kirsch, 2014). Another issue of coal mining is airborne coal dust, which can result in Black Lung disease. This is caused by inhaling too much coal dust and is common in miners, but with surface mining becoming more prevalent, more coal dust is being released into the air and drifting down to the communities. More children and elderly people are having respiratory problems that many believe are because of
Midwest Copper Mining’s (MCM) biggest problem they are facing is that of sustaining supportable profit growth, as the undercurrents of the copper mining industry are changing. In particular, they need to figure out how they are going to increase their capacity to meet demands globally. They also need to figure out how to do this without disrupting the current culture of the business. They have been very successful and have created process and procedures that have kept them sustainable over the years. With the changing of the copper industry, MCM needs to re-evaluate their business strategy, make changes as necessary, in order to continue to be a successful company that is both a cost-leader and a differentiator.
Coal power is the cheapest fuel to power the ever growing population with Australian mining industry still putting in billions of dollars into a vast amount of coal projects never the less coal power is a fossil fuel, a fuel which takes hundreds of year to form so the future of coal is undetermined. Coal is a reliable power source but one of the many concern with coal is the mining process used to remove it from the ground. Ecological effects are developing worries for the industry, with the carbon emissions possibly contributing to global warming.
The mining industry can be considered a valuable asset to the American economy over the course of the nation’s history. Though the field is not necessarily as prevalent today as it once was, the technological advancements in the process of mining are vastly different from those originally implemented by miners decades ago. However, one strategy for successful mining has remained relevant not in its practice, but in its use as an analogy, particularly in reference to the education system today. The idea of the canary in the mine pit discusses the example of when miners would bring canaries with them into the pits in order to detect noxious fumes. When the canary would die in its cage, it meant the air quality was toxic and that the miners needed to get out. This notion is connected to the ideas of those in the field of education like Linda Darling-Hammond, who argue that, similar to the canary, a child who fails in a school is not to blame for the toxic environment in which they are attempting to carve out a future for themselves. In other words, the children are not failing the schools. Rather, the schools are failing the children. This idea thus entails that in efforts to fix the education system, the focus must be exerted on the schools and policies themselves, rather than assuming that a child from a “disadvantaged” socioeconomic background is destined for failure.
Fossil Fuels are extremely harmful to the environment, especially in the ways the fuel is obtained, such as mining or hydraulic fracturing. Coal, a commonly used fossil fuel, can be obtained by strip mining, mountaintop mining, or underground mining (“Coal Explained”). Strip mining has disastrous effects on the environment because of the destructive nature of the process, which removes all soil, rock, trees, and plants above coal deposits. The runoff from this pollutes streams and rivers nearby, which can harm aquatic life and disfigure the body of water,
To recover diamonds, the industry is using modern mining methods and a more clinical approach to sustainability of mining and therefore the impact on the environment is being minimized while the benefits to the communities and countries where they are found are being maximized. These benefits are
In our days, mining for resources is inevitable. The resources we need are valuable in everyday life. Such resources mined up are coal, copper, gold, silver, and sand. However, mining poses environmental risks that can degrade the quality of soil and water, which can end up effecting us humans if not taken care of and many of the damages are irreversible once they have occurred.
According to the Mining Intelligence Database, the mining sector employs over one million people and spends over R78 billion in wages and salaries (The Role of Mining in the South African Economy, 2015), and importantly, it is one of the few sector that employs unskilled and semi-skilled people.