A CSIRO report has found that steps need to be taken to improve emissions measurements in underground coal mining.
The Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP) report was designed to determine whether prescribed methods of fugitive emissions reporting are compatible with methods already in place at mine sites.
CSIRO researcher and co-author, Stuart Day, says coal mines will have to tighten measurement procedures so they can comply with the updated greenhouse reporting act which now requires mines to report their fugitive emissions to the Department of Climate Change.
“The new methods have a lot of other details that are currently not in place in Australian mines,” Day said.
“Ultimately this means that any emissions that mines report using current methodology will be subject to uncertainties,” he said
Uncertainties regarding measurements may have financial ramifications for mines, as they may have to pay for more emissions.
“It’s worth a mine’s while to improve the accuracy of their measurements,” he said.
The report also found that more work needs to be done to improve the reliability and accuracy of continuous flow measurements to reduce the uncertainty of fugitive emissions estimates.
Add a comment