John Snyder, Comox Valley Echo, July 01, 2011

Recently, while reviewing the Updated Project Description for the proposed Raven Underground Coal Mine Project, I came across the following:

"Estimated methane emissions from the mine aT 127,500 cubic meters per day." The following are calculations I did based on those estimates on methane emissions:

Methane emissions PER DAY= 127,000 cubic meters

127,000 cubic meters of methane = 1482 metric tonnes of CO2

One metric tonne = 2,205 pounds

Mine emits equivalent of 3,267,810 pounds of CO2 PER DAY

One mature tree captures 48 pounds of CO2 PER YEAR

One mature tree captures 0.13 pounds of CO2 PER DAY

The Raven Coal Mine would need to plant 25,137,000 trees PER DAY, to offset the methane emissions from the mine.

Perhaps the new slogan for the proposed mine should be:

SAVE A COAL MINE, PLANT A TREE

John Snyder
Fanny Bay

© Comox Valley Echo 2011

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