A combined pumping test and heat extraction/recirculation trial in an abandoned haematite ore mine shaft, Egremont, Cumbria, UK

Banks, D. , Steven, J. K., Berry, J., Burnside, N. and Boyce, A. J. (2019) A combined pumping test and heat extraction/recirculation trial in an abandoned haematite ore mine shaft, Egremont, Cumbria, UK. Sustainable Water Resources Management, 5(1), pp. 51-69. (doi: 10.1007/s40899-017-0165-9)

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Abstract

A pumping test at rates of up to 50 L s−1 was carried out in the 256 m-deep Florence Shaft of the Beckermet–Winscales–Florence haematite ore mine in Cumbria, UK, between 8th January and 25th March 2015. Drawdowns in mine water level did not exceed 4 m and the entire interconnected mine complex behaved as a single reservoir. Pumping did, however, induce drawdowns of around 1 m in the St. Bees Sandstone aquifer overlying the Carboniferous Limestone host rock. During a second phase of the pumping test, a proportion of the 11.3–12 °C mine water was directed through a heat pump, which extracted up to 103 kW heat from the water and recirculated it back to the top of the shaft. Provided that an issue with elevated arsenic concentrations (20–30 µg L−1) can be resolved, the Florence mine could provide not only a valuable resource of high-quality water for industrial or even potable uses, it could also provide several hundred to several thousand kW of ground sourced heating and/or cooling, if a suitable demand can be identified. The ultimate constraint would be potential hydraulic impacts on the overlying St Bees Sandstone aquifer. The practice of recirculating thermally spent water in the Florence Shaft produced only a rather modest additional thermal benefit.

Item Type:Articles
Additional Information:The stable isotope work reported in this paper was funded as part of the Low-Carbon After-Life (LoCAL) project under the European Commission Research Fund for Coal and Steel Grant RFCR-CT-2014-00001. AJB is funded by NERC support of the Isotope Community Support Facility at SUERC (F14/G6/11/01).
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Boyce, Professor Adrian and Burnside, Dr Neil and Banks, Mr David
Authors: Banks, D., Steven, J. K., Berry, J., Burnside, N., and Boyce, A. J.
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Systems Power and Energy
College of Science and Engineering > Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre
Journal Name:Sustainable Water Resources Management
Publisher:Springer
ISSN:2363-5037
ISSN (Online):2363-5045
Published Online:08 August 2017
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2017 The Authors
First Published:First published in Sustainable Water Resources Management 5(1):51-69
Publisher Policy:Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

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