Iowa Coal: Black Dust or Black Gold

the following program was produced by students in telecommunicator arts department of speech at Iowa State University Ames Iowa coal-black dust or black gold with Marv Ross mines and minerals division of the Iowa soil conservation commission the subject of energy has become quite a topic of discussion these days announcements of natural gas supply interruptions oil shortages nuclear waste disposal problems which would have been unheard of five years ago are all a reality today people around the nation are looking for old ways both old and new to meet our needs for energy in Iowa a number of researchers are looking at an old way to solve a relatively new problem they're looking at coal the coal industry in Iowa dates back to the railroads expansion across the state however in the 1920s and 30s railroads were converting their locomotives to diesel fuel and electricity and as a result I was cold industry declined in 1974 the iowa state legislature appropriated funds for the energy mineral resource research institute at Iowa State University to do research into the possible revival of Iowa's coal industry the Iowa coal project was born here with me are three researchers from the Iowa coal research project they'll be discussing several aspects of the project's work dr. Lisle San Lang assistant division chief of mining and restoration group mr. Jim delivered the safety officer and assistant ecologist also with the mining and restoration group and mr. Ray Fischer assistant division chief of the cold beneficiation group we'll be back to talk about the Iowa coal research project research and mining and restoration after this message good again are you once it was against the law in some states to teach a black child to read or write but the law didn't stop them from learning and the law didn't change till 1863 for the past 30 years the United Negro College Fund has helped half a million black students change the course of their lives at UNCF colleges thousands have become doctors engineers and teachers perhaps changing the course of your life but today there just isn't enough money and tomorrow we're sorry but this course has been cancelled please don't let this happen support the United Negro College Fund a mind is a terrible thing to waste dr. Sun Lane how does one get started in coal mining what are some of the things they have to know in order to to get into the coal mining business well there's a lot of things that one has to know in fact mining in the past in Iowa has been pretty much a one-man business or a family type business but for mining to expand in the state we're going to have to develop a much more methodical way of looking at the coal resources of course one has to know how to find coal one once the coal has been found one has to know how to evaluate the size of the deposit to know if the quality of the coal is good enough what the sulfur content is what's the BTU content of the coal after after you have this taken care of of course you have already taken care of land and tied up the the land and the mineral rights for the for the deposit but then other things that sure would be interested in will be in the future will be interested in a supply of water so that we will have water to wash the cold I think these are just sort of a general idea of the things that that are required to get one prepared for the coal business I think the thing that I would would emphasize is that the the the business requires quite a large block of time to get things started in other words you just don't get started in the business in just a matter of a few a few months but there has to be a lot of planning that goes into the development of a mine now that you've you've gathered the information you've you've probably drilled a bunch of holes you know how thick the coal is and what kind of material is on top of it we could call overburden once you've collected this information what's the next step what do you would do after that well as you know mark the the important thing is to now develop a plan and of course the mining plan has to has to be set up so that we will remove the the coal but to do it in such a manner so that the land surface can be restored to as good or better condition when when we're finished with mining the main problem that we've had with mining in the state and then in the country has been the development of acid conditions as a result of the mining process now the acid conditions come about because associated with the coal deposits are shale layers that have a lot of pyrite included within them and these small minerals of pyrite are very susceptible to chemical change they change as a result of being exposed to oxygen and so once these these minerals are brought to the Earth's surface it's turned over by the mining mining method oxygen gets to them and oxidation takes place and a very acid condition develops and this acid material then is a very detrimental to streams if it's left laying on the surface nothing will grow on this material and so it's very critical than in the mining plan that we learn how to put this material in a place where it will not interfere with with the with with with future mining or with future plant let's say what use of the land surface whether it be growing plants are are just I presume now that we've done this with Iowa stages number one demonstration mining and how are you executing that particular plan on this particular mine and while you're explaining that we'll be looking at some pictures that have been taken down at that time well you know in setting up the a mining plan this of course was the first for us we were not miners and we we got involved in in the actual mining business but we did put together a plan and our plan was one that went through several changes because in working with a contractor he gave us some experience his experience and asked us that we we we change our plans and once we did we found that it was relatively easy to to work with the the the main thing that that one has to do is is to develop the kind of machinery that you're going to use now in our mind we're using scrapers now the scraper is is a road building equipment they're a piece of equipment that is very useful for for moving overburden we've also are using bulldozers with rippers which are used to to rip the overburden however we've we've actually used this and ripping coal however here we see that we're not ripping the coal but we're actually going to use dynamite to blast it once the coal has been blasted we then load this out with our front end loader into trucks which are carried over to to our crushing plant and then in flexure is the truck that we're loading it into its carried over to the crushing plant its crushed and it's put in a tipple of ready for shipment to a customer the the the real key in our project has been the the use of these scrapers and to determine the cost effectiveness of the scrapers as opposed to the other techniques that are used in the industry when I'm using these scrapers how effective had they been and as far as enabling you to make surface mining for coal more socially acceptable well the real key is the fact of now getting this acid material in a place where where it will not do any harm in the future and in order to do that you've got to be able to you see we've got the overburden material then we've got the shales and then the coal now the shales let's say are the bad the bad actors they have the pyrite in them and in order to to to get at the coal we're going to have to overturn this system now what we do is we pick the the overburden up and we'll put it in one pile then we pick the clay the bad shale up with the pirate and put it in another pile then we take the coal out now once we have our pit then we can start the system whereby we keep we will remove now the overburden off the next cut will have to stockpile it but then we'll take the shale and we'll put that back into the pit okay now the next pit will pick the shale are the good material off the surface put it on top of the shale in the first pit and now we've got a system which keeps continuing up to the up the slope as we as we mind now this is actually a very good way of controlling the placement of the acid spoils and this is what the scraper does where it's very difficult to do this with a with a straight drag line that's real interesting now this let's talk a little bit about the the question of safety both those as it relates to the environment and as well as to the operators what are some of the potential areas of concern environmentally as far as strip mining is concerned yeah well there are great many areas of environmental concern one of what a particular importance might be the water problems that of mine you have problems of erosion during mining sedimentation as the soil is loosened and removed every time it rains the soil can be carried into the watershed of your mind there are problems of leaching through these toxic overburdens that dr. sand line was referring to these could bring out trace elements harmful harmful elements into your water system and downstream everywhere from you and there's other problems of dust and soil changes as long as as long as you do get these good top soils back on top of your mining when you're done then these problems can be avoided what steps are we taking to avoid these problems well Iowa State has developed a interesting set of water control measures at our mind whereby all of them water that comes onto our area onto our land surface is kept on our land surfaces we have developed dikes Anna siltation pond at the bottom of our mind at the lowest point in our mind to prevent loss of siltation loss of silt during rain from the mine we've we've also done been very careful to segregate these acid materials from these non-toxic materials as dr. Salinas mentioned and this will prevent these mixing and the toxic material appearing on the surface and affecting the land for years to come how about the health and safety of the miners surface mining is a hazardous to the to the miners as deep deep mining in Iowa this the whole mining industry and I was developed what we would call a very safe program the chef's mining in Iowa is assisted by the fact that no methane gas has ever been detected underground in iowa mines this is one of the biggest potential dangers in mining underground the safety might the safety of a surface mine is of course a different problem because we don't have to worry about new Falls and things like that here we're very concerned with dust problems the miners as they work these heavy equipment out of doors they are exposed to dust from shale from from the soil and these are very serious problems for the miners so it's important to develop a good safety program with the miners so that you're able to determine when they feel it's something that they're doing is unsafe for their health or in an accident situation and so that they can come to you and explain the problems as they see them and you can do your make make your effort to correct these problems in - and to think about their health and take care of them are you doing some specific things experimentally as far as dust and exposure miners to dust your concern we've found dust to be probably the biggest problem safety-wise health-wise at our mind and so we've not only tried to prepare for this by issuing respirators to the men on very dusty days but we've also have things like a water wagon to watch this watch the dust off of the haul roads we've we're looking into different types of equipment in a water wedding process on the coal itself after it's been mined and putting the tipple in order to prevent dust which is not only a hazard to health but it's also a loss of product whenever you lose dust from coal this is some of your product that you're losing also this can be taken into the town if you're loading your coal out of a town and in an urban environment dust has to be controlled in these situations also well do you mentioned the tipple once a coal has been removed where does it go and how does it get thick well coal can be shipped to the customer by several methods one method of course would be by truck and the second method would be by rail now we're actually shipping coal from our mind to to one customer by truck these trucks load up at the tip o go up to a Pella way up and then transport the coal onto to the customer this the truck satisfies all the requirements of the state for hauling heavy loads on on state highways the rail head we must try we'd must transport the coal from the from the mine to the rail head and then we load it into coal cars and it shipped by by rail San Francisco 1906 AP Giannini reaches his little bank as flames spread throughout the city he has no fault so he takes the banks $80,000 back home thousands are homeless the big banks call a month-long holidays but Giannini with a couple of planks a bag of money reopens he gives out loans offered on the strength of a man's character alone people respond in six weeks deposits exceed withdrawal AP Giannini spirit and commitment to humanize his business now bill the Bank of America into the largest bank in the United States this has been a presentation of the chamber of commerce of the United States in celebration of America's Bicentennial I guess the first question I should ask you Ray is just what is coal beneficiation well I think it just as the name implies it's at the benefit or to improve the quality of the coal we want to remove the non combustible materials rocks and the shale and the other type of material and in Iowa particular we'd like to remove the sulfur compounds the pyrite and various other for sulfur bearing materials and end up with a good clean product that burns with a minimum of ash you're concerned primarily with mechanical beneficiation and we we have this plant on campus that was dedicated during VEISHEA the governor came up and pushed the button and got things started off what if you'd like to tell us a little bit about this plant while we look at some pictures of it glad you are vut the mechanical beneficiation depends on gravity for separating the material coal is fairly light it weighs about one in three tenths times as much as water the pyrites and the rocks may weigh three to five times as much as water so what we do is make a artificial high gravity liquid and in our particular case we use magnetite which is a very finely divided iron ore and it is so fine it's fine er than the face powder 325 mesh is the grade and it is suspended in water and and we can add as much as we need and so we float the coal at a specific gravity of about 1.5 now that that takes off the good coal let the rocks and the sulfur bearing material sink to the bottom and we scalp the coal and and take off the refuse at the bottom and dispose of it what problems have you run into in billing this particular type of plants well we started out with a real bad problem and that was our site location we didn't get our first choice for locating the plant and it was put in a some low ground and before we could get the ground built up we had a hundred-year high frequency flood and had four feet of water on the area so we had to wait until it drained away and the surface moisture declined enough so that we could bring in clay and and build it up then of course we were new at this business coal processing was but just it just come into our vocabulary and so we had to learn about what kind of materials and what kind of equipment they used to process coal so we visited other areas and looked at equipment and tried to evaluate it one against the other and I tried to find some companies who would manufacture the equipment of the size that we wanted we are building a demonstration or a pilot plant seventy to seventy-five ton per our coal plant and most of the large plants that we visited were over a thousand tons and and many of the companies and back to we were hard-pressed to find any that we're willing to to worry about our little plant so getting that evaluating the equipment and then designing it so that four or five different processes would would mesh together required 150 or 200 sets of plans structural drawings and this sort of thing sounds real interesting you've you've had a few test runs have you found any problems any bugs in the operation so far well pilot plants aren't a new thing to me this is my fifth different pilot plant and they always have bugs when they start out we were quite fortunate in this case I think although we have not shaken it down to the extent I'd like yet but there we had the occurrence of the normal amount of of leaks that had to be welded shut we had a complete stoppage the second day of operation and we couldn't understand why so we had to take the whole plant down and drain the magnetite in the water and we found four pieces of welding rod that had been dropped into the bottom of a cone that were caught up in in the bottom of that cone that you see there in the bottom section and it just served as a as a spiderweb to hold the coal and the refuge and so as soon as we freed that why then we've had no major problem since that except for one and that is that the case of our equipment working - well we specified and installed certain water removing devices because in the process of our coal we have to use water and then we have to dry it afterwards and it removed too much water and so the coal wouldnt flow the picture you see there before you they're moving the main a heavy media plant in place it's the I was built by the ego ironworks in Des Moines it was modified to our specifications from a aggregate processing plant it is really what we call has been called start with a portable plant but really I would rather call it a movable plant it came to Ames and five truckloads and we could set it up and I think it was set up in under three days so I think an entire plant of this type with the of jewelry equipment once we know what we've know now could be set up in probably 30 days to two months time there's some other options for been officiating Cole besides the mechanical ones that we've been discussing here yes there's a there are a number of them really one of the principal ones that we're studying here at Ames is the chemical beneficiation not only to break up the coal which we call a chemical communion where are the certain chemicals go into the cleavage planes and split the coal apart instead of just crushing it and producing a great deal of fines and some high pressure we're using a technique of various types of gases at high pressures and elevated temperatures and ammonia for one or in certain acids used many of them work most of them are quite expensive and so really to get the gross amount of sulfur out the mechanical process seems to work best one of our big projects that we're going to undertake or and have in the works is the processing of fine coal I think Jim mentioned earlier about not losing this fine coal and we find from most coal washing plants and coal processing operations that a lot of that fine coal is lost and the finer the coal is devided of course it's a here it is to separate it from the sulfur and the other non combustible materials but by the same token you have a problem of recombining it and separating it so we use a froth flotation which is a frothing technique which combines chemistry and physical separation to float the coal on adhering to little bubble they're floating in the water and strangely enough you can add a depressant and you could have the light cold go to the bottom or by adding in other agents you can have it put it on the top and then after you get these tiny particles skimmed off and the coal is separated from the from the refuge it still is very finely divided so we're doing some oil or glom eration work where we add certain types of chemicals and that causes these tiny particles to stick to one another an agglomerate and then we'll put it in a pelletizing device we're sort of like a ball on they all wear this stuff like mud balls will form and and as you rotate it slowly and heat it the coal will form small pellets maybe an inch in diameter so we can have some easy handling of it is it going to be possible to work some of these other options into your mechanical beneficiation plant we're hoping to work all of them in funds are our main drawback right now we have asked the state for additional funds or we're going to officially ask them and in the next session we've gone to the government the two for help both the EPA and the ER da and we're hoping that we'll get some some funds to do this work and then the main object of this plant is to put the various units together and operate one against the other and compare their efficiencies operating efficiencies the cost-benefit ratio and then we'll be able to tell the smaller coal operator that you can take items a C and D and your particular type of coal and that will give you a project that will cost you X number of dollars a tonne to process and it will have so many BTU and certain sulfur content and ash content that's what I was wondering just what are we going to be able to do with this high sulfur coal well it being getting yourselfer out well I think you have their answer there are two parts of this answer in the short-run we expect and our bench scale tests show that we can take out about half the sulfur and I don't think that will give us any real problem doing this by mechanical means if we have to go to a much lower percentage of the sulfur than that will have to go to a chemical or method which will be many more sophisticated would be more expensive so we'll have to just factor that in there may be deposits of coal based on our present technology that we shouldn't mine in process at all until we have developed better techniques and newer techniques we've been talking mr. ray fisheries the assistant division chief of the Iowa coal project project on coal refining Iowa coal it's not the final chapter in the large book on Iowa's energy situation but rather it will by the time that scientists and researchers need to develop new all-inclusive energy systems we got to develop them to the point where they'll be ready to be practical there's a number of these alternatives just down the road but I have a coal is here now it's waiting to be used and in the interim the Iowa coal research project is working to make its use more and more economical and environmentally is sound and acceptable I want to thank mr. Fisher as well as dr. Lyle sin lane assistant chief in charge of mining and restoration Jim Gulliver this safety officer and assisted ecologist from the our coal project all of them for their participation in this iowa coal black dust or black gold I'm Marv Ross thank you for watching Iowa coal black dust for black gold produced and directed by Blake Lewis associate director Dave esselman audio Jim dude cameras Fred Eastman and Mike Wilson floor director Al Rochelle lighting director Mike Wilson assisted by Deanne lugar production assistant Larry mez word projection Jim Farrell and faculty director dr. George P Wilson jr. Iowa coal black dust or black gold the preceding program was produced by students in telecommunicator arts Department of speech at Iowa State University in Ames