Heap of coal waste environmental evaluation methodology

Although renewable energy is recently the fastest growing part of energy sector, hard coal still remains the main source of energy in the world. The unwanted side effect of coal production is waste which in large quantities are stored as waste coal heaps. The environmental impact of them could be very high taking to the consideration its life cycle chain. The methodology of environmental assessment of coal industry of heap of coal waste is proposed in the manuscript. Standard impact categories set - usually used in evaluation process - is enriched with new ones which are focused especially on waste management. New impact indicators are proposed in the manuscript. They contain information about quality of waste management in the coal mine, potential emissions, avoided emissions due to change of type of land use etc. In addition the danger of large scale emissions due to random incidental events like uncontrollable burning coal-waste-heap as well as elements of risk assessment is included into the evaluation process as well.