Resource Requirements and Economics of the Coal-Mining Process: A Comparative Analysis of Mines in Selected Countries

This report examines the natural resource requirements and economics of the resource extraction process, taking coal-mining activities as an example. Coal was chosen for the study because it is receiving growing attention as the fossil energy resource with the largest potential to contribute to the world's long-term energy supply. As an initial step, the extraction process is described in terms of process analysis, considering first of all the geological characteristics of the deposit to be mined, the resulting mining technology, and the natural and economic resource flows for the construction and operation of a particular mine. The computerized description of the extraction process is stored in the Coal Mines Data Base (CMDB), which was developed within the framework of this study. The data base currently holds information on 70 mines located in different countries. The analytic approach used is the first of its kind to compare resource requirements and economics of coal mines under such a broad range of geological and socioeconomic conditions. The quantitative results of this study constitute a first step in a more detailed consideration of the effects of different deposit characteristics and resource depletion phenomena in energy models