Does anyone know what they are doing on the West side of Hwy 75 near Buffalo, TX. There is a huge amount of dirt being moved around.

Lignite mining? Those guys move around a lot of dirt.

It might be a landfill...

You mean I-45? There's a huge strip mine that's been in production for several years there.

Its a mine

Got to tour the site as a field trip for a Geology class in 2000. They have some huge loaders and dump trucks, not to mention the mining machine. They have already filled back in some of the areas that were previously mined and there is nice green grass and trees growing there now. Eat that tree huggers.


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"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin

I used to work at a strip mine in Texas (but not that one). If you ever get a chance to tour a strip mine, do it. It's a very interesting experience. The mining is amazing and the reclaim areas are very nice.

An even more interesting view is the bucketwheel excavator/crosspit spreader at the Monticello mine. You can see it on the North side of I-30 at Mount Pleasant. Depending upon where their at in the pit you can get a real close view from the interstate. It's an impressive machine, even though it's an absolute boondoogle.

Strip mining prevents forest fires.
Take that Smokey the Bear!

Google maps

They are getting ready to build a top secret underground chupacabra breeding facility.

It's probably an Alcoa lignite (peat) coal mine. They use it for their aluminum processing.

As pointed out, it is a lignite mine. It belongs to Texas Westmoreland Resources. They mine coal for power generating plants.

Texas lignite is a very low grade (BTU content) coal. These strip mines are opened up to feed a power plant on site. They are only economical as long as the transport of the coal is absolutely minimal.

For example, the Gibbons Creek facility outside of Carlos used to mine lignite on site up until a few years ago. If you drive down 30 you will see some of their old haul roads, and if you turn on FM ???? towards Anderson, you will see the end of the mine where the last pit was turned into a very nice long pond. Supposedly some excellent fishing in there, if you have access. The mine shut down, I believe, due to a dispute between the mining company and the power plant and today the plant imports coal from Wyoming.

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They are only economical as long as the transport of the coal is absolutely minimal

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This is only part of the equation. The strategic advantage of Texas lignite over Powder River Basin coal is that the mine is generally right next to the power plant. However, the recent shuttering of some Texas lignite mines is more tied to poor geology (i.e. more expensive to mine) than increases in transportation costs.

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Agreed, the low BTU content requires that the coal be pretty shallow. I don't know the number (I'm sure my advisor does, but he's out of the office today), but Texas Lignite doesn't have to be very deep before the costs of moving overburden become prohibitive.

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Agreed, the low BTU content requires that the coal be pretty shallow. I don't know the number (I'm sure my advisor does, but he's out of the office today), but Texas Lignite doesn't have to be very deep before the costs of moving overburden become prohibitive.

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You're thinking of the stripping ratio, which is the amount of overburden you have to move in order to get an amount of coal. In surface mining it's usually reported in cyd/ton. It's been a few years but I want to say that Texas lignite is somewhere between 10:1 and 20:1. You start to have economic problems once you get above 17 to 18.

In my experience, Texas lignite mines typically move between 50-ft to 120-ft of dirt to get to 6-ft to 20-ft of lignite. The mines in the Powder River Basin move 20-ft to 60-ft of dirt to get to 20-ft to 80-ft of coal.

As far as delivered heat content lignite is typically 5,000 to 7,000 btu/lb. PRB coal is 7,500 - 9,000 btu/lb, and eastern coal is 10,000 btu/lb to 12,000 btu/lb.

Wildcat

How do the sulfur contents stack up for TX Lignite vs. PRB Coal vs. Eastern Coal?

I've seen outcrops of manning formation lignite and they've got a decidedly yellow tint, especially the water draining out at the base above the clay.

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How do the sulfur contents stack up for TX Lignite vs. PRB Coal vs. Eastern Coal?

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In general, I believe lignite has a higher sulfur content then PRB. Most of the high sulfur eastern coal production in western Kentucky/Illinois has been shut down so current eastern production doesn't have much problem with sulfur.

I worked at TXU's Martin Lake facility and we had three mines at that location. One of the three mines has some higher sulfur coal at times. We had to watch it pretty close when we were sending it to the plant to make sure we didn't exceed our permitted emissions. Like you said, there were sometimes when you could actually see the pyrite in the coal. The first time I saw it for a split second I thought we had struck gold.

It's been a few years but I think we started to worry about sulfur once we got above 3 lbs (keep in mind the plant has scrubbers). The mine we had "trouble" with above varied between 2-4 lbs. Most of the lignite at out other mines was around 2 lbs. I want to say our PRB coal was less then 0.5 lbs.

thx