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The article presents the impact of lignite mining on the environment associated with the introduction of hydro borehole mining (HBM) technology. The results are partially based on the HydroCoal Plus project results, where an environmental assessment of lignite HBM technology was performed. In order to reach the goals of the task, a life cycle assessment (LCA) study was used to assess selected environmental aspects of the HBM single-borehole lignite production process covering selected environmental impact categories such as energy consumption, fuel consumption, water consumption and carbon footprint. The LCA procedure was adapted in an innovative way, constituting another added value to the shown research. The second part of this paper describes opportunities identified by the authors to minimize the environmental impact of lignite production by implementing the HBM method compared to the conventional opencast method.

Thermoelastic Stress Analysis (TSA) is one of the very few methods allowing the determination of a continuous stress distribution on the object’s surface under variable loading conditions. Such results provide a lot of valuable information in the field of technical condition assessment and residual life prediction. In order to improve the accuracy of the TSA, the Lock-In signal processing method is implemented. This research is aimed at verifying the effectiveness of this improvement and determining the TSA stress detection threshold, as it is important information in terms of the applicability of this method in the low-stress conditions encountered in considerations of fatigue of load-carrying structures. A steel sample with a centrally located hole was subjected to cyclic loads to determine the threshold of stress detection and accuracy of TSA. As a result of the research, the relationship between the magnitude of stress excitations and the underestimation of the measured stresses was developed. Based on the conducted investigations, it was concluded that reasonable TSA results can be acquired for excitations that induce a temperature response above 10 mK (0.5 NEDT). The presented field test example proves that in industrial applications reasonable results can be acquired for thermal responses below the NEDT of the IR camera. It was concluded that it is possible to successfully implement TSA in low-stress applications (temperature response below NEDT).

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The article describes selected atmospheric factors that may affect the stability of the end slopes of lignite post mining pits during their filling with water. The main factors such as waves, the influence of the ice cover and the wind were characterized.