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underground safety equipment continued Lemmon worked for Arch Coal for 30 years and is proud of IE's recent achievements. "What sets us apart from the others? We have a diverse group of people with operating longwall experience and we always answer the phone," said Lemmon said. "We have technicians in the Illinois Basin who are 20 minutes from one mine and two hours from the other." John Houston, IE's founder and CEO. "We have made it a habit of hiring operators from the mining industry, like Pat, to support our customers. While others tout their experience in manufacturing these units, we also have a long history of operating these units. From this perspective, IE's experience is unmatched." Both sets of electrical controls offer the latest in automation and remote operability. The electrical controls on the Mach longwall system have five HMIs (control panels)—meaning the longwall can be monitored and operated from any of those operator interfaces or from the surface. "Deer Run has four electrical systems and it's the same thing," Lemmon said. Readers might recall that the miners at Deer Run are a highly motivated group of coal miners (See Foresight Energy, p. 32, December 2012, Coal Age). Eventually they hope to run the longwalls with a high level of automation. Foresight Energy and IE have been working with Joy Mining Machinery and Cat Global Mining to improve this installation to the point where they can accomplish that feat. MSHA Approval and Certification Before Foresight could install the new systems, MSHA had to approve them. One traditional problem with using VFDs is ensuring ground fault relays sense ground faults at low frequencies. In particular, the ground fault that Lemmon had chosen for this project, a Startco unit, had not been tested or approved in this application previously. "We invited A&CC; to participate in a series of tests," said Jim Martin, who heads IE's eastern engineering out of IE's Kingsport, Tenn. office, and performed the testing. "With the Mach installation, we set up a scenario using the exact drives that would be used. That was rather painful because we pulled them out of the existing equipment, brought them into the shop, and set up a motor load. A&CC; brought four to six people down. We spent the day going through a series of tests to ensure the ground fault protection was not compromised by the frequency of the drive. The test data looked good." The process was repeated for the Deer Run configuration. "The drive scenario was replicated—because of the brand difference, we wanted to repeat the testing and verify the design," Martin said. "We went through a series of tests using the Startco Putting Miner Safety First BY SCOTT SHEARER For more than 40 years, CSE has worked to make the mining industry safer, which has allowed it to become a world leader in Self-Contained Self-Rescuer (SCSR) development and technology. We always have been dedicated to safetyÑit is our business. While we create the highest quality product using state-of-the-art mine safety technology, we know safety comes from more than just the top of the line technology; it comes from training. That is why we were excited to see that on March 14, the National Research Council came out with a report titled Improving Self-Escape from Underground Coal Mines. The conclusion of their report stated, ÒEfforts on the part of mine operators and other industry stakeholders to empower self-escape in a mine emergencyÑto include, but not be limited to training, technology, equipment and emergency response plansÑneed to be fully integrated and coordinated, using a human-systems integration approach, to establish unified, efficient and effective protocols.Ó According to MSHA records, at least 30 miners have had their lives saved by properly donning and using a CSE SCSR. We have come across miners who have told us how an SCSR has saved their lives. The one consistent element we have learned over the years is that having the proper equipment is not enough; you have to know how to use it in an emergency. Knowing how to use it is as important as having access to an SCSR. 46 www.coalage.com May 2013