Tracking mercury from the mine to the power plant: geochemistry of the Manchester coal bed, Clay County, Kentucky

Mercury in Eastern Kentucky coals: Geologic aspects and possible reduction strategies

“…Supplemental information was gathered from Sakulpitakphon et al (2004), Hower (2004), Hower et al (2005b), and from as-yet unpublished studies. Coal assay data for commercial coal shipments were selected from the Information Collection Request (ICR) part 2 data (Maxwell, 2000) using criteria described by Quick et al (2004).…”

“…The bottom bench has 0.10 ppm Hg, again indicating enrichment at the bed margin. Sakulpitakphon et al (2000Sakulpitakphon et al ( , 2004 investigated the Manchester coal bed in Clay County, Southwestern reserve district (Table 6). As in the studies noted above, they found that the top of the coal bed had the highest Hg (0.52 ppm) and the highest S py (3.36%).…”

“…Another possible approach to reduce Hg emissions involves avoiding Hg-rich mineral partings or coal benches at the mine site to produce a low-Hg product (Goodarzi and Goodarzi, 2004;Mardon and Hower, 2004;Sakulpitakphon et al, 2004). If the high-Hg lithology is at the top of the coal bed, as in the latter two examples, selective mining might be an effective Hg reduction option.…”

On the fundamental difference between coal rank and coal type

“…The notion of hydrothermal influences on coal metamorphism generally did not gain traction until the 1980s with the observations of Oliver (1986Oliver ( , 1992. Just within the Appalachians, connections between the flow of thermal fluids and coal metamorphism were made with respect to the Pennsylvania Anthracite Fields (Bayan and Hower, 2012;Daniels et al, , 1994Daniels et al, , 1996Harrison et al, 2004;Hower and Gayer, 2002;Hower et al, 1993;Juster et al, 1987;Ruppert et al, 2010); western Pennsylvania bituminous coals (Zhang and Davis, 1993); the Valley Fields, Virginia (Lewis and Hower, 1990); and the Central Appalachian bituminous coals (Collins, 1993;Evans and Battles, 1999;Goldhaber et al, 2003;Hearn et al, 1987;Hower and Rimmer, 1991;Ruppert et al, 2010;Sakulpitakphon et al, 2004); and Alabama (Pashin et al, 1990;Winston, 1990).…”

Mercury in Western Canadian subbituminous coal—a weighted average study to evaluate potential mercury reduction by selective mining

“…The distribution of elements within a coal seam is related to lithological components, and generally, elements associated with mineral matter are more abundant in partings than in coal layers (Goodarzi, 1994). Mercury may enrich in some lithological of coal seam and not necessary in whole coal seam (Sakulpitakphon et al, 2004).…”