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When coal is compared to solar photovoltaic generation, the latter could save 51,999 American lives per year if solar were to replace coal-based energy generation in the U.S. [33] [34] Due to the decline of jobs related to coal mining a study found that approximately one American suffers a premature death from coal pollution for every job ...
The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) is the primary federal law that regulates the environmental effects of coal mining in the United States. SMCRA created two programs: one for regulating active coal mines and a second for reclaiming abandoned mine lands.
Mining impacts biodiversity across various spatial dimensions. Locally, the immediate effects are seen through direct habitat destruction at the mining sites. On a broader scale, mining activities contribute to significant environmental problems such as pollution and climate change, which have regional and global repercussions.
In the decade 2005–2014, US coal mining fatalities averaged 28 per year. [45] The most fatalities during the 2005–2014 decade were 48 in 2010, the year of the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in West Virginia, which killed 29 miners. [81] 2016 was the first year in U.S. coal mining history that had no fatalities due to coal mine roof falls. [82]
Coal mining is considered much more hazardous than hard rock mining due to flat-lying rock strata, generally incompetent rock, the presence of methane gas, and coal dust. Most of the deaths these days occur in developing countries, and rural parts of developed countries where safety measures are not practiced as fully. A mining disaster is an ...
Machinery trying to mine the coal may not be able to reach the displaced seam, if the displacement is too large. Coal mines use a combination of boreholes and high-resolution seismic reflection data to identify the larger faults and avoid the most faulted areas at the mine planning stage. [1]
Coal mining accidents resulted in 5,938 immediate deaths in 2005, and 4746 immediate deaths in 2006 in China alone according to the World Wildlife Fund. [10] Coal mining is the most dangerous occupation in China, the death rate for every 100 tons of coal mined is 100 times that of the death rate in the US and 30 times that achieved in South Africa.
Burning the Future: Coal in America is a 2008 documentary film produced and directed by David Novack.The film focuses on the impacts of mountaintop mining in the Appalachians, where mountain ridges are scraped away by heavy machinery to access coal seams below, a process that is cheaper and faster than traditional mining methods but is damaging to the environment.