TY - GEN
T1 - Measuring CO2 emissions from coal fires in the U.S.
AU - Kolker, Allan
AU - Engle, Mark
AU - Hower, James
AU - O'keefe, Jennifer
AU - Radke, Lawrence
AU - Heffern, Ed
AU - Ter Schure, Arnout
AU - Stracher, Glenn B.
AU - Prakash, Anupma
AU - Román-Colón, Yomayra
AU - Olea, Ricardo
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - Uncontrolled coal fires pose multiple threats to the environment due to the emission of greenhouse gases, mercury, and other toxic or potentially toxic substances. The contribution of coal fires to global atmospheric greenhouse and toxic gas budgets is poorly known, but potentially significant. In an effort to quantify the magnitude of coal-fire emissions, a ground-based approach was developed to calculate fluxes of CO2 from several coal fires in the U.S. This approach combines vent measurements of CO2, CO, CH 4, H2S and Hg emissions with a gridded series of CO 2 soil flux point measurements. This combination was applied in May, 2009 at three active coal fires in the Powder River Basin, Wyoming: the Welch Ranch fire, the Hotchkiss fire, and the Ankney fire. At the Welch Ranch fire, measurements of 12 vents gave a total vent emission of 6.8 ± 2.4 Mg CO2 d-1. An additional 39 soil flux sampling sites were measured, and the results were interpolated using an inverse distance weighting algorithm. When summed, the interpolated results give a preliminary estimate of 1.0 Mg CO2 d-1 or the CO2 diffuse flux , bringing the total CO2 emitted from the Welch Ranch Fire to just under 8 Mg d-1. Similar calculations are underway for the Hotchkiss fire. For the Ankney Fire, access and safety concerns limited measurement coverage so that only partial fluxes were obtained. Ground-based measurements for the three Powder River Basin Coal Fires are being compared to airborne tropospheric CO2 emission estimates and thermal infrared images of the three fires that are contemporaneous with ground sampling. This combined sampling approach follows a reconnaissance investigation of a burning coal waste pile in the town of Mulga, in northern Alabama near Birmingham. Temperature measurement over the Mulga coal fire show localized hot spots in excess of 250 °C. Diffuse fluxes of CO2 vary by three orders of magnitude in four traverses across the burning coal pile. Within these traverses, CO 2 flux shows a moderate, but statistically significant correlation with temperature (r2=0.56; p<0.01) that could potentially be used to estimate CO2 diffuse flux from portions of the fire outside of the traverses, but where soil temperature was determined.
AB - Uncontrolled coal fires pose multiple threats to the environment due to the emission of greenhouse gases, mercury, and other toxic or potentially toxic substances. The contribution of coal fires to global atmospheric greenhouse and toxic gas budgets is poorly known, but potentially significant. In an effort to quantify the magnitude of coal-fire emissions, a ground-based approach was developed to calculate fluxes of CO2 from several coal fires in the U.S. This approach combines vent measurements of CO2, CO, CH 4, H2S and Hg emissions with a gridded series of CO 2 soil flux point measurements. This combination was applied in May, 2009 at three active coal fires in the Powder River Basin, Wyoming: the Welch Ranch fire, the Hotchkiss fire, and the Ankney fire. At the Welch Ranch fire, measurements of 12 vents gave a total vent emission of 6.8 ± 2.4 Mg CO2 d-1. An additional 39 soil flux sampling sites were measured, and the results were interpolated using an inverse distance weighting algorithm. When summed, the interpolated results give a preliminary estimate of 1.0 Mg CO2 d-1 or the CO2 diffuse flux , bringing the total CO2 emitted from the Welch Ranch Fire to just under 8 Mg d-1. Similar calculations are underway for the Hotchkiss fire. For the Ankney Fire, access and safety concerns limited measurement coverage so that only partial fluxes were obtained. Ground-based measurements for the three Powder River Basin Coal Fires are being compared to airborne tropospheric CO2 emission estimates and thermal infrared images of the three fires that are contemporaneous with ground sampling. This combined sampling approach follows a reconnaissance investigation of a burning coal waste pile in the town of Mulga, in northern Alabama near Birmingham. Temperature measurement over the Mulga coal fire show localized hot spots in excess of 250 °C. Diffuse fluxes of CO2 vary by three orders of magnitude in four traverses across the burning coal pile. Within these traverses, CO 2 flux shows a moderate, but statistically significant correlation with temperature (r2=0.56; p<0.01) that could potentially be used to estimate CO2 diffuse flux from portions of the fire outside of the traverses, but where soil temperature was determined.
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M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84877684131
SN - 9781615677979
T3 - 26th Annual International Pittsburgh Coal Conference 2009, PCC 2009
SP - 805
EP - 811
BT - 26th Annual International Pittsburgh Coal Conference 2009, PCC 2009
T2 - 26th Annual International Pittsburgh Coal Conference 2009, PCC 2009
Y2 - 20 September 2009 through 23 September 2009
ER -