China has experienced huge casualties from mining disasters, with over 9,000 deaths in year 2006 according to the official statistics, the government has pressured the larger mining operators to install mining safety monitoring system while shutting down the smaller mines. For any system to go to market, they must first be certified for Anti-explosion Safety and System Reliability, sponsored by Institute of Coalⁱ Research. While the MSHAⁱ certification seems to focus much more on anti-explosion safety side.

This is a summary comparing RFID and Zigbee coal mining technology. This page works in conjunction wth the previous submission regarding the business development plans of such a program. The system in question was developed and is currently deployed in Mainland China. This system can be localized for North American use.

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Recent developments in wireless tracking technology has provided enormous growth and has opened new doors forcing industries to rethink how they manage their inventory, equipment, and people. While the technology itself may not be new, the cost of production and deployment has fallen to levels that make it more affordable to many industries.

Background Information - How is coal mined?

As was the case 50 years ago, most coal is produced from two major types of mines-- underground and surface.  But the methods for recovering coal from the earth have undergone drastic changes in the past 25 years, as a consequence of technological advances.

West Virginia Office of Miners' Health, Safety and
Training

WEST VIRGINIA COAL MINING FACTS

In 1742, John Peter Salley took an exploratory trip across the Allegheny Mountains and reported an outcropping of coal along a tributary of the Kanawha River. He and his companions named this tributary the Coal River, and his report became the first reference to coal in what is today West Virginia.

By Johnny M Vergis
Special Thanks to Goldenseal Magazine

Let me take you to my hometown, Edwight, Raleigh County, back in the 1940's when I was growing up there. Let's look down from Turkey Rock on the mountain above town. There are coal miners walking to and from between the bathhouse and the company store, children playing, and womenfolk moving about. What a bustlng place my town is.

The Beginnings of Coal Development
Photo of Early Coal Fleet
From the Semi-Centennial History of West Virginia, by James Callahan, 1913.

Notes on Coal, Oil and Gas Development By the Editor.

The coal mining industry in West Virginia Is still in its infancy. Many pioneer miners, who have watched it grow and expand from very small beginnings, are still living. There was no mining on an extensive scale before the civil war.

People have been mining since the eighteenth century, and compared to that time period; the lot of coal miners has only recently improved. Miners have lived with dangers the rest of us can't even imagine: slag falls, explosions, fires, gases, cave-ins or being crippled for life either from broken bones or the 'black-lung' disease that coal miners still aquire from breathing in coal dust. And it was not just in America, as they were mining for coal in Europe before they began here in the states.

Monacans and Miners sheds new light on the indigenous and immigrant communities of southern Appalachia by comparing the political, economic, and social experiences of the Monacans, a historically significant Native American group in Amherst County, Virginia, with those of Scottish and Irish settlers who made their home in Wyoming County, West Virginia, in the late eighteenth century.