In the recent round of project proposals the Australian Coal Association Research Program (ACARP) received 280 submissions. Of the 113 underground proposals submitted, 44 were shortlisted for full proposal submission.
ACARP manager Roger Wischusen said ownership of the research program appears to be increasing with greater interaction in the various programs by the committees which oversee them. Increasingly, scoping studies are being carried out to establish the state of knowledge at an international level and provide direction for future work.
One recently approved study will look at the effectiveness of oxygen self-rescuers (OSRs). Introduced into Queensland mines after the Moura disaster, OSRs have been used in outburst prone locations in NSW mines for ten years. There is, however, ongoing debate in the coal industry about whether OSRs are the best option.
The premature failure of some OSRs has fuelled the debate and left many mines nervous about spending several million dollars buying equipment that may fail. The recent confusion generated by reports about Dräger equipment failing in the United States (see separate story) is evidence of the general lack of understanding surrounding this equipment.
Another study of interest is a scoping study to examine the use of higher voltages in underground coal mines. An earlier ACARP study by Tony Reczek found poor face equipment performance, utilisation and voltage regulation were the outcomes of lagging industry practice in the wider use of higher voltage equipment.
In other news, a recent ACARP initiative has been the inclusion of Land Mark Projects. These are projects which could deliver important outcomes to a large portion of the industry. They would therefore have broad industry support and would need substantial funding. Roughly 1% of ACARP's 5c per tonne levy from coal companies will support Land Mark Projects to the value of around $2 million a year.
Two Land Mark Projects have been selected this year. The first, which is conditional on other funding being committed, will examine the role of coal in a sustainable society and will include work on Life Cycle Analysis (see separate article).
The second Land Mark Project will tackle the issue of longwall automation. This second project is the subject of a scoping study and a full proposal is expected to be ready for industry scrutiny by early 2001. BHP manager Guy Mitchell is chairman of this steering committee.
Articles on the OSR study and ACARP's Landmark Automation project will be published in the September edition of Australia's Longwalls.
