Abandoned underground mines in Czech Republic - a concept of their future utilization

 

Josef Klomínský, Zdeňka Petáková, Tomáš Pačes

Geoscience Research Reports 48, 2015 (GRR for 2014), pages 171–174

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Published online: 29 October 2015

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Abstract

Czech Republic is known for a large number of abandoned mines as a result of extensive and long lasting mining of a wide range of mineral resources and coal. Czech Geological Survey is recording about more than 26 000 main underground mining objects and old mines irregularly distributed over the whole of the country´s territory. The abandoned underground mines comprise nowadays the majority of voluminous underground mostly flooded caverns.
The main objective of our investigation (Klomínský et al. 2013) was to gain knowledge about recent conditions of some underground abandoned mines in the Czech Republic, their way of rehabilitation and present reuses. These mines usually comprise a complex of irregular and very voluminous caverns interconnected by dense network of shafts, and horizontal galleries. Some of them were used during the last years for deposition of power plant fly-ash and waste rocks, low to medium level radioactive waste and natural gas storage. Some abandoned coal mines are nowadays sources of mine gas for the heat and electricity generation, and some are adapted for tourism.
Our inventory of the basic parameters and field survey of 11 abandoned underground mines in the Czech Republic (Fig. 1) provided essential information about their future reuse. These mines (Bohutín lead-zinc mine, Kamenná uranium mine, Roudný gold mine, Lužná coal mine, Turkaňk lead-zinc mine, Vítkov II uranium mine, Pucov uranium mine, Pepř and Rotlev gold mines, Jindřich coal mine and Olší uranium mine) are flooded by large volumes of mine water with a high geothermal capacity (ca 45 mil. m3 of mine water at a temperature of 9 to 32 °C), and therefore they can become new sources of the renewable energy for neighbouring housing and industrial centres. These mines are also favourable environment for seasonal thermal energy storage, heat exchangers as well as electricity storage to eliminate overvoltage in the electricity transmission system of the Czech Republic.
Exploitation of the mine water and its geothermal capacity seems to be very feasible from shallow abandoned hard coal mines over large areas in the Central Bohemian Carboniferous basins between Rakovník and Kladno towns. Information about such localities may positively influence the land prices above renewable energy resources.
 

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