Published: March 24, 2008 08:34 pm

New, life-saving technology unveiled at exhibition mine

POCAHONTAS, Va. — Exhibits at the Pocahontas Exhibition Coal Mine relive the days when coal miners relied on caged canaries and rats fed from lunch pails to help keep them safe, but Monday it hosted new technology that wasn’t even imagined in the days of coal cars hauled by mules.

Representatives of InSet Systems, LLC out of Strasburg, Ohio, visited the exhibition mine to shoot photographs of a new invention, an inertial sensor tracking system. Based on technology used to track submarines, the device has been nominated as one of the Top 10 Inventions of the Year by Popular Science magazine, said J. Jay Breeding, chief operating officer for Inset Systems.

InSet Systems came to Pocahontas when the company decided to shoot photographs of the new invention in a coal mine setting, Breeding said.

“We were in the process of getting approval to go into an active mine, but if you go into a working mine, you need to have safety training,” he said.

Breeding and other people in the company had such training, but the photographer assigned to the project did not. InSet Systems’ Chief Technology Officer Russell Breeding contacted the Pocahontas mine about taking photographs there instead.

“Pocahontas welcomed us with open arms,” J. Jay Breeding said.

Russell Breeding said the idea for the new inertial tracking system was started by the Sago Mine disaster in 2006. Rescuers had difficulty determining the location of trapped miners, but that could be less of a problem with the new system.

“We could tell within 10 feet where you are,” J. Jay Breeding said. Comparing the size of an underground mine to the area around Pocahontas, he said outside the mine, “Would you rather know they’re somewhere in town, or somewhere in this parking lot?”

Miners using the new system would carry a battery operated device about the size of a cell phone, Russell Breeding said. This device then operates off an underground system put in place. The tracking system stays in contact with the miner’s unit, and if one path in the system fails, there are other paths that let the device stay in contact with the overall system, he said.

“This tells you exactly where they are within 3 meters,” he said. “It can track them post disaster as they move.”

Tour guide Amy Flick showed visitors exhibits that described the times when coal miners relied on very low tech systems. For instance, the cold inside the tunnels kept canaries singing, she said.

“The bird wouldn’t shut up,” she said. “If it did, they’d blow out their candles and run. That was their gas detection.”

Today open flames are forbidden in coal mines, but years ago it was the only source of underground lighting. The situation improved when miners started using enclosed “bacon lamps,” named as such because bacon grease was often used as fuel. Then in 1955 came the first electric lamps, Flick said. Miners didn’t mind carrying its 30 pound battery.

In the “dinner hole” where miners ate their meals were rats as big as small dogs, Flick said. Miners fed them on purpose — plus the clever rats found ways to open sealed lunch pails.

Miners valued the rodents for their keen senses. According to maritime tradition, rats abandoned ships in danger of sinking; the same rule applied to coal mines.

“If you see a bunch of rats running out of here, you’d want to follow them,” Flick said.

Flick listened as company officials described technology that is much more advanced than birds and rats.

“If you can find them, that’s beautiful,” she said.

Popular Science should make its decision about the Top 10 Inventions within the next four to five weeks, J. Jay Breeding said.