Old Mines May Be a Place to Dispose of Ash

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-other/2006/mar/01/030103759.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - Using old mines may be an acceptable way to dispose of the ash from burning coal, but the process needs better monitoring, according to an analysis released Wednesday.

Burning coal produces enough ash to fill one million railroad cars annually in the United States, according to the study by the National Research Council.

Some 38 percent of this ash is used to make cement, wallboard and other products, but the rest is disposed of in landfills and other locations, and increasingly it has been used to refill old mines.

There may be some advantages to this, the report says, such as providing filler for mine reclamation efforts that restore land-use conditions. In addition, the residues may neutralize acid mine drainage, lessening the potential for some contaminants from mines to enter the environment, the report said.

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[HereSince1628]

1. Just how caustic is coal ash?

[spag68]

2. coal ash

when you are talking about burning,coal understand any facility making ash shound not be allowed to. that said it's expensive to clean it out of thestack. the right method is to extract the chemicals as us steel does at it's coke works.Of course i support solar and wind, but coal to gas can be done now cleanly as a bridge to the future. and the coal is here!

[HereSince1628]

3. What I want to know is the pH of coal ash dissolved in water.

I don't care whether or not it should be made. It's made in the millions of train cars per year.

The little phrase about neutralizing acids in coal mines set off my bullshit radar

[Dead_Parrot]

4. But if we fill the mines with ash...

...where will we hide the CO2? :shrug: