Comparative Analysis of Ecological Rucksack Between Open-pit and Underground Coal Mine

Coal is the major energy in China, which always account for more than 70% in the structure of consumer demand for primary energy. on the one hand, coal mining provides us with the main energy, on the other hand, it gives a tremendous pressure on ecology in the mining process. Comparative analysis of ecological pressure between open-pit and underground coal mine with using the method of ecological burden. The result shows, the total ecological burden and the coefficient of ecological burden of open-pit are 4.31 to 11.36 times and 2.77 to 7.74 times of underground coal mine's respectively. Meanwhile, It is the main method by adopt measures such as pay attention to the mining section and improving technology to reduce the amount of stripping and tunneling, and lower the electricity consumption and improve the water cycling utilization ratio, as well as adopt the clean energy and biological energy to reduce the ecological pressure of coal mine. Underground coal mining is recommended if the two mining methods are allowed. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of RIUDS