Mining techniques make it possible to assess deposits and extract coal from them. As a reminder, coal is a fossil fuel of organic origin, originating from the decomposition of plants buried in the form of sediments more than 300 million years ago.

Deposits are generally deep areas where large amounts of coal are found. Wells must be drilled to access and extract the ore. When coal reserves are relatively close to the earth’s surface, surface mining can be carried out. There are also coal deposits under the oceans, currently untapped.

Before exploiting the coal deposits, it is necessary to evaluate them in order to put in place the appropriate extraction and exploitation techniques. The coal layers (called veins) are not always continuous and can form several strata hundreds of meters deep. The role of coal mining engineering is to understand the structure of these layers and to develop the best method for reaching and exploiting them.

Technical functioning
Mining techniques come in two phases.

Upstream: the evaluation of deposits

It is first necessary to estimate a deposit in order to determine its volume, its quality, its profitability and the geological nature of the surrounding soils. The soil is probed to obtain information on the deposit such as the depth of the layers or the existence of faults. Through this prospecting, engineers can design the mine plan and the techniques to be used. This work makes it possible to know whether the operation is economically viable in the face of the investments to be made. An industrial center is then created around the deposit, explosives are used, wells and galleries are dug to prepare access to the coal seams.

Slaughter (exploitation)

Depending on the depth of the deposit, there are two types of mining operations:

Underground mines

To reach the coal layers, it is necessary to dig in the basement and build galleries. The place where the coal is located is called the “deposit”. The rolling galleries (3 meters by 3 meters) allowing the circulation of the wagons. They stretch for miles. Certain sizes (galleries between the upper and lower galleries), sometimes wooded, may not exceed one meter in height. The miners work there lying down.

masquerade of democracy

The procedure for examining the application for this permit, which follows the recent approval of another permit of the same type ( PERM of Tennie, in Sarthe and Mayenne ) [3], is a clear example of authoritarianism. By submitting the grant proposal to the ” public consultation ” in the middle of the summer and without making the least publicity of it, the Ministry of Productive Recovery shows its deep contempt for democracy.

As indicated in the presentation note to the draft granting order [4], all of the administrations consulted on the Villeranges PERM have already given their explicit green light. The public is invited only to send their observations, last, and only if they learn of the existence of this possibility by their own means. The ” consultation ” therefore comes down to the opening of an email address by the Ministry ! Its result is moreover in no way binding: it is not a question of obtaining the approval of the population, but at most of knowing its opinion.

What a denial of democracy, Mr. Montebourg ! We are very far from the VI th Republic you to promise in 2012: “The citizen […] will be reinstated in the loop of the decision and found the opportunity to express themselves and participate in public policy.”

Is it an oversight or a flip-flop ? The methods you use today are the same as those used by JL. Borloo when, in 2009, he quietly signed shale gas and oil exploration permits.

Risks ignored

By declaring that ” the mine is a potential axis of recovery, an element of competitiveness and sovereignty ” [5], Arnaud Montebourg seems to ignore that the file of industrial mining is excessively heavy in terms of social, economic impacts, cultural, political and environmental.

The modern mining industry is geared towards the exploitation of low concentration deposits and involves the use of large volumes of potentially toxic products (cyanide, sulfuric acid, etc.), as well as the massive generation of waste. Whatever the technique used (by galleries or in the open), the step of separating the metals from the rock always requires heavy chemical treatments.

To the pollution involved in the storage of waste from these treatments, we must add the accumulation of waste rock – rocks containing metals that cannot be exploited in a profitable manner – with the pollution problems caused by acid mine drainage (acidification of rainwater and therefore hydrographic networks by runoff on waste rock) and the release, in contact with water and air, of heavy metals, arsenic [6] and / or radioactive substances naturally contained in the rock (the latter risk is seriously consider in the case of the Villeranges PERM , given the proven presence of uranium in the basement of the Creuse [7]).

This type of pollution can last up to several centuries, even several thousand years. Scientific publications attest to this. To these water pollution, we must add those of air and soil, noise and visual pollution, disturbance of local ecosystems, loss of biodiversity and affect the health of residents.