Monitoring of coal waste piles with fiber optic sensing technology

Coal has been for centuries a central energy source to fulfill industrial and domestic needs. Its large scale extraction produced huge amount of debris that were piled in the neighboring of the mines, quite often going into combustion triggered by events like forest fires or lightning. When in this state it can continue for years, releasing substantial emissions of toxic and greenhouse gases with recognized impact in the environment and, more serious in the short term, in the life quality of the populations located nearby. Continuous monitoring of combustion temperature and emission levels of certain gases opens the possibility to plan corrective actions to minimize their negative impact. Optical fiber technology is well-suited to this purpose and here it is described the main attributes of a fiber optic sensing system projected to gather data on distributed temperature and gas emission in these harsh environments.