We are grateful to have Jon Fox of SRK Consulting on Team Oxiperator, providing guidance and support as we develop methane mitigation solutions for the global mining sector. Jon Fox co-authored Edan Prabhu’s technical paper “The Oxiperator for Coal Mine Ventilation Air Methane (VAM),” recently presented at NAMVS 2023.
Jon Fox has more than two decades of experience in the mining industry, with a PhD in Geo-Engineering and 14+ years of experience in mine ventilation production, research, surveying for tunneling and underground metalliferous, industrial mineral and coal mines. SRK Consulting is an international mining consultancy with more than 45 years of experience providing advice and solutions to clients in the earth and water resources industries. SRK has 1,600+ employees providing engineering, consulting services and software products to customers on six continents, with 30,000+ projects to date. Their work includes engineering and consulting for environmental compliance reporting, mineral exploration, mine project evaluation, operations support and site closures, giving them a broad and deep understanding of coal mining operations and economics across legislative agencies, regions and operator types. We are especially grateful to SRK’s Brian Prosser and Jon Fox, for their insights and encouragement! An excerpt from SRK Consulting’s statement of support for Prabhu Energy Labs: Our global mining customers are actively looking for cost-effective methane emissions control solutions, as they face increasing market and regulatory pressure due to methane’s link to climate change. The only commercial solution for mitigation of low concentration methane emissions, the Regenerative Thermal Oxidizer (RTO) is cost prohibitive for all but the largest and most profitable mine operators. Its large footprint makes it impractical for use at mines located in mountainous regions or where terrain is steep and rocky, with narrow roadways. As methane detection improves and data becomes publicly available, we expect more methane emissions to be uncovered in the US mining sector and that operators will be under market and regulatory pressure to mitigate emissions this decade, with California’s Air Resources Board leading the way. SRK would like to express strong support for Prabhu Energy Labs’ Pressure Oxiperator for mine methane mitigation, with its emphasis on low-to-no power requirements and the potential benefit of surplus electrical power generation. An ultra compact, portable solution that can mitigate low-concentration methane emissions down to 0.2% and generate electricity from methane at concentrations as low as 1.5% would be a vast improvement over RTO, which is a highly inefficient system that can sometimes require as much or more methane gas to run it than it can eliminate. The full technical paper on Prabhu Energy Labs’ approach to oxidizing Coal Mine VAM is available upon request: i[email protected] Comments are closed.
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