China attempts to shake its dependence on coal by turning to shale gas

Once an exciting prospect on the international energy scene, China’s long-awaited shale gas boom has failed to materialise, with interest waning as oil prices fall. Eventually, however, the country’s hunger for energy will trump all other concerns

Prior to its use with oil, the technique of fracking was actually pioneered for use in shale gas extraction; Mitchell Energy produced the first shale gas in the north of Texas in 2000. The technological process behind fracking involves extracting gas from sedimentary rocks, through a mixture of horizontal drilling and hydraulically fracturing rocks – hence the name ‘fracking’. Since 2000, natural gas production has surged, lowering the cost of the energy source around the world. Increasingly, it is now favoured over other cheap sources of energy such as coal. However, despite a crash in prices – as happened with the fracking revolution in petroleum oil – production has not fallen in a major way. Rather, shale gas is set for a continued boom.

Air sampling smoke detection on mobile mining equipment

Very early warning air sampling smoke detection (ASD) has traditionally been thought of as a technology only suited for clean environments. Many fire industry professionals believe that factors such as dirt, dust, moisture, vibration and other harsh conditions preclude the use of air sampling smoke detection because of nuisance alarms and detector maintenance issues. This is unfortunate because harsh industrial environments have a much greater risk of fire than the standard clean environment.

Industrial facilities also tend to have on-going maintenance activities such as welding and metal cutting that can set in motion smoldering and a possible fire situation well after the work has been completed. For these reasons and others, very early warning air sampling smoke detection serves to provide increased value to any industrial facility, including mining.

In terms of possible fire hazards relative to heavy machinery, these include very high voltage electrical cabinets, large motors, conveyor belts, lubricants, flammable liquids, moving parts causing friction, and less than ideal housekeeping.

Because of a worldwide risk audit of major mobile mining equipment, an international mining company was interested in evaluating secondary smoke detection options in one of their P&H 4100 electric rope shovels. The company was subsequently introduced to VESDA ASD.

This type of equipment has both very high voltage and hydraulic/lubricant potential fire hazards. It also has all the aforementioned operational challenges for air sampling smoke detection. The electric rope shovels are the beginning of the ore processing supply chain and any disruption at this point would cause problems throughout the production process. As in most mining facilities, the cost of lost production would be much greater than the cost of the lost equipment. Whilst heavy machinery fire risks exist globally, a recent fire at a Canadian gold mine’s processing facility caused the stock exchange listed company to issue guidance regarding their 2012 production and the stock price dropped 25%.

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