Valea Jiului Research Articles

Defining Aspects of the New Economy in Valea Jiului Carboniferous Basin

Abstract The new economy of Valea Jiului Carboniferous Basin changes the economic profile of the six localities with urban status in Hunedoara County: Petroșani, Vulcan, Lupeni, Petrila, Uricani and Aninoasa. The changes in the new economic landscape occurred in a relatively short period of time (about 33 years) and created educational, social and political imbalances. The new economy proposes the reintegration of a significant part of the population by abandoning extractive operations, reducing the secondary sector of the economy and focusing on the tertiary sector, the service sector. The business environment in the Valea Jiului coalfield is going through a new stage, which began with the restructuring that began in 1990. It is influenced positively or negatively by technological advances, European Union policies, local, national and international political events and the evolution of demand and supply. Technology and strategic innovators have the opportunity to quickly enter competitive markets and replace or assimilate local players.

Psycho-Social Perspectives in the Educational System at the Level of the Valea Jiului Carboniferous Basin, in the Context of the New Economy

Abstract The research of the reality in the territory of Valea Jiului Carboniferous Basin focuses both on the peculiarities of social ideas regarding the position of education and learning in the value system of individuals in society, as well as on the psychological principles for strengthening values in socially unstable conditions. The conclusions reached in the process of determining the degree of integration of self-confidence in the value system of the adolescent personality, showed that the development of self-confidence at a high level influences the infusion of values and the formation of one’s own system. Changes in the subject’s attitude and tendency to ensure uniformity and consistency of information, attitude and behaviour can be observed.

EXAMINING THE POTENTIAL INFLUENCE OF ENERGY TRANSITION ON OVERALL WELL-BEING

Concerns about climate change and dependence on fossil fuels have raised energy transformation to unprecedented importance. This article explores the effects on employment, income, health and wellbeing of the local community in Valea Jiului, Romania. The shift towards green energy may cause behavioral changes and psychological impacts, both positive (satisfaction, self-esteem) and negative (anxiety, job loss worries) on a social and cultural level. Integrating well-being and energy transition policies can promote long-term growth while mitigating the social costs of this unavoidable change. However, limited research underscores the need for a comprehensive, multidisciplinary exploration of their interplay.

Analysis of security parameters specific to coal mines

Coal continues to remain a basic energy source for industry, but the impact on the environment and underground security resulting from its extraction and use must be given ever-increasing attention. Ecological impact analysis is currently the most powerful tool for preventing pollution and environmental degradation, respectively for underground security, in any project related to coal mining. The current trend of restricting mining activity in more productive perimeters, but far from the main connections with the surface, implies a substantial increase in the demand for ventilation systems due to underground pollutants and implicitly the continuously increasing risk factors. The particularly complex conditions and with major implications in the security levels of mining operations require the objectification of control by monitoring security parameters, through systems, installations, devices and modern automatic programs in parallel with the manual control system with modern portable devices. The paper analyzes the possibility of monitoring security parameters related to the environment, mine fires and degassing installations specific to mining operations in the Valea Jiului coal basin, in order to remove several risk factors that endanger underground mining. The main safety parameters analyzed refer to the underground environment, endogenous fires and degassing of coal seams. The parameters that are followed in order to assess the efficiency of the degassing networks are: the depression in the degassing network, the methane concentration of the captured gas and the methane flow from the network.

A Possible Alternative to Mining in Valea Jiului

Abstract Starting from the interdependence of tourism - mountain environment - rural environment - sustainable development, four solutions are proposed and developed in the work as an alternative to mining in the area: tourist village, medicinal plant and forest fruit processing line, milk processing line, cardboard packaging line.

Miners - a Privileged Category of the Working Class? Valea Jiului (Romania) in Socialism and Post-Socialism

This article addresses the dynamics of social inequalities in socialist and post-socialist Romania, following the particular situation of Valea Jiului miners (in Romania), from the creating the image of the working-class heroes to the loss of preferential status, together with the post-1989 transition from communism to capitalism and from the planned economy to the market one. Therefore, the article includes the way in which the miners’ class identity was built over time, highlighting rather a preferential status of a psychological nature than a material one, the practices of disciplining their masculinity with the help of state propaganda and how this image of a homogeneous, disciplined and solidary group was diluted after the fall of communism.

Research on the Quality of the Soil and the Land Related to the Mining Perimeters in Valea Jiului

Abstract In the paper, special attention is paid to the sources that lead to soil and land degradation in Valea Jiului, as these are the components of the environment that are most affected by mining activities. Three sources of pollution are analyzed: dumps, mine yards and constructions, and mining and preparation activities chemically polluting of soil. Among the environmental changes, land degradation currently has the most important consequences for human settlements and economic activities, especially through induced subsidence processes and the presence of dumps with reduced stability. The authors of the article propose their own method for establishing a Global Land Degradation Index (GLDI) affected by mining activities in a mining perimeter (mine) taking into account the entire analyzed area (in our case Valea Jiului) and make a classification (in three classes) of this index.

Corina Iosif, Florica (Bohîlţea) Mihuţ, and Daniela Zaharia, coords. Arhive şi cunoaştere

Corina Iosif, Florica (Bohîlţea) Mihuţ, and Daniela Zaharia, coords. <i>Arhive şi cunoaştere</i>

Water Quality Monitoring in Valea Jiului

Abstract The paper presents the monitoring of the water quality in Valea Jiului, related to the Jiu river basin. In the increasingly alert conditions of urbanization and industrialization, contemporary civilization is characterized by a worrying process of deteriorating the ecological balance and pollution of water resources. Monitoring allows the achievement of four primary objectives in knowing the state of water quality, namely: monitoring, forecasting, warning and intervention. The paper presents the objectives of water quality monitoring, aspects related to the implementation of water monitoring programs.

Considerations Regarding the Closure of the Mines in Valea Jiului

Abstract The paper, starting from a series of general considerations regarding the closure of a mine, makes an analysis, according to the available data, of the manner some of the mines in the Valea Jiului were closed. It is specified that the relatively short time since the closure of the first mine in the Valea Jiului (30 years) did not allow to highlight any mistakes / errors of closure, which would have significant repercussions on the surface land and, in general, on the environment. However, more or less serious problems have already been reported, which arose after the closure of some mines, problems that appear in the last part of this paper.

Managing the Dust Degree –Related Risks in Valea Jiului Collieries: A Synthesis

Abstract The paper aims to make a synthesis regarding the risks associated with the presence of industrial dust in the underground atmosphere of the coal mines. Thus, in the first part of it are presented relevant aspects regarding the health risk associated with the exposure to silica dust, as well as the flammability and explosiveness of the coal dust, in correlation with the mechanism of the explosion. The second part is dedicated to identifying and substantiating measures to combat the explosiveness of coal dust. In presenting the mentioned measures, the emphasis is placed on highlighting the scope and the specific advantages and disadvantages of each measure, with particular emphasis on the possibilities offered by the use of less employed techniques in mining operations in the Jiu Valley, such as it is, for example, the treatment of mining works with hygroscopic substances. The purpose of the authors is to offer the experts in the field of management of occupational safety and health in the mining industry an overview, in conjunction with specific information elements that facilitate the decision-making processes regarding the minimization of the hazards associated with the degree of coal dustiness in the Jiu Valley collieries.

Pension rights of Valea Jiului mining companies’ clerks through the privately administered pension house

Since their founding at the end of the XIXth century, the mining companies that have extracted coal in the Jiu Valley have tried to guarantee, though a private system of social security, pension rights for all of its employees, workers as well as clerks. This private system of social security would perpetuate itself, in the case of clerks working for Valea Jiului mining companies, though the interwar years up to the instauration of the Communist regime, when another pension scheme was established for those employees in the workforce. In this study we will seek to uncover the way in which these mining companies’ clerks’ Pension Houses were constituted and functioned after the First World War. They would operate on the basis of their own rules/statutes, would be under the leadership of a Committee chosen among the members of the Pension House, but also under the supervision of the Administrative Council of the mining company. Due to the levies placed upon their members, subsidies given by the mining companies, and other income, the Pension Houses managed throughout the entire period in question to guarantee honorable pensions for their members, and also for their widows and descendants.

DETERMINATION OF COAL MICROELEMENTS BY INSTRUMENTAL ANALYSIS

In the mineral matter of coal there are microelements chemically bounded to organic matter or mineral impurities in various combinations that catalyzes the evolution / involution of a spontaneous combustion phenomenon as an accelerator in the oxidation reaction or which slows down these processes. Specialised literature analyzes the phenomenon of coal self-heating based on several theories of which we exemplify the theory of coal oxidation, the theory of pyrite and the theory of the microelements role in the process of coal oxidation. For the determination of these microelements in coal, the inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry method by means of which the mineral concentrations of hard coal and lignite samples were determined. The present paper proposes to perform a comparative analysis of the results obtained by laboratory determinations on samples taken from various coal basins (Valea Jiului, Motru, Jilt, Rovinari, Berbesti).

The Narrative Constitution of Identity: The Case of Pastoral and Mine Workers’ Communities from the Region of Valea Jiului, Romania

The Narrative Constitution of Identity: The Case of Pastoral and Mine Workers’ Communities from the Region of Valea Jiului, Romania

Topographic Research upon the Subsidence in the East of the Mining Basin of Petroşani

The research upon the influence of the underground mining upon the surface represent a primordial preoccupation in order to highlight the moving phenomenon and to take the required measures for the protection of the surface and its existing objectives. Thus, the necessity of monitoring the studied phenomenon and the need for prognosis in taking decisions for a durable development leads to the apparition and the creation of topographic techniques and concepts for obtaining information, using the installation in the studied area of marks to observe the deformation and the movement of the surface. The object of this paper is the monitoring process in the East area of the coalfield in Valea Jiului, based on observations that may be visualised, questioned and researched in several areas from the study perimeter in order to find efficient rehabilitation and development solutions of the area, considering the reality in the field and the effects of the subsidence. The documentation for the research in the present paper was made in Compania Nationala a Huilei S.A. of Petrosani, Romania and the measuring was performed in the eastern area of the coalfield. After processing and analysing data and information, a comparison was made between the existing data inside the host company and the data from the field, gathered with the method of radiation with the help of dedicated modern technology, leading to concrete results. The results presented in our study in tables, diagrams, reports and comparisons permit a prognosis of the influence the subsidence has upon the anthropic environment, helping to take correct decisions, necessary to a durable development in the affected area from the eastern part of Valea Jiului coalfield. The paper highlights the fact that subsidence continues to be of large interest due to its involvement in the problems of environmental protection and the protection of the constructions at the surface. The research leads to the conclusion that, following observations in the areas affected by underground exploitation, prognosis on short, medium and long time are possible for the studied phenomenon. These prognoses have a special importance because they can be used for future studies for a durable development of the areas affected by the underground mining. Â

Last Shift

The Romanian authorities submitted a detailed table with viability scores for each production unit. The results of the ranking outlined that Paroseni, Uricani and Petrila production units do not have viable economic perspectives and need to be included in the closure plan’ (State aid SA. 33033 — Romania — National Hard Coal Company Petroşani, 22nd November 2012) On 26th November 2012, Valea Jiului (the National Society of Closing Coal Mines), was established with the sole purpose of closing down three coal mines (S.M. Paroseni, S.M. Petrila and S.M. Uricani) that were perceived as uneconomical and unreliable.. Last Shift is a photographic documentary of the last few months of mining activity in each of the three mines. The collection of images aims to raise awareness of the coal mining industry in Romania, and the proposed closures. The project shares a similar topic to Sebastiao Salgado’s Workers project of the 1990s. However, Salgado’s images are often criticized for being too aestheticized, exploiting human misery and showing the effects of heavy toil in a romantic way, whilst the purpose of Last Shift is to show the miners as individuals in a dignified manner, focusing on the humanity of each subject.

Economic and Social Policies Impacting on the Social under-Development – Case Study: Mining Restructuring in Valea Jiului

The paper I suggest is based on the preliminary results of the research project Deindustrialization and under-development in the Romanian Transition. Individual/Collective Strategies/ Reply Policies. Case study: Valea Jiului, that will be done within the project ID- 141086 „Pluri- şi interdisciplinaritate în programe doctorale şi postdoctoraleIe" This project is constructed from the perspective of the social development paradigm. The modernization theories suggest the paradigm of development as modernization from an evolutionist perspective. While the communist project of social development chose explicitly industrialization as a corollary of modernization, such process of (post) modernization initiated in the moment of the communism' collapse. On economic level the transition meant also a continue and emphasized process of de-industrialization illustrated by the constant decrease of the number of industrial employees from maximum 4 millions in 1990 to 1,2 millions of employees in 2011 (data sourse: Zamfir s.s., coord. 2011). In the same time a transfer of the agriculture employees to the subsistence agriculture was registered (now the employees represent only ,2% of the total persons working in agriculture – MADR, 2013). The high reduction of the percentage of employed population represents a factor generating under-development and has a negative impact on the balance of the social insurance systems (pensions, unemployment, health). This paper intends to describe and analyze a special case of the communist under-development from the perspective of causes, factors and mechanisms of this process located in the region Valea Jiului. The selection of the mining restructuring in Valea Jiului is based on the fact that this represents an example of failure of the social policies aiming to reduce the effects of the transition (effects increased in the respective case exactly by the manner of implementation of certain economic policy measures).

Explosion and/or fire risk assessment methodology: a common approach, structured for underground coalmine environments / Metoda szacowania ryzyka wybuchu i pożarów: podejście ogólne, dostosowane do środowiska kopalni podziemnej

In order to meet statutory requirements concerning the workers health and safety, it is necessary for mine managers within Valea Jiului coal basin in Romania to address the potential for underground fires and explosions and their impact on the workforce and the mine ventilation systems. Highlighting the need for a unified and systematic approach of the specific risks, the authors are developing a general framework for fire/explosion risk assessment in gassy mines, based on the quantification of the likelihood of occurrence and gravity of the consequences of such undesired events and employing Root-Cause analysis method. It is emphasized that even a small fire should be regarded as being a major hazard from the point of view of explosion initiation, should a combustible atmosphere arise. The developed methodology, for the assessment of underground fire and explosion risks, is based on the known underground explosion hazards, fire engineering principles and fire test criteria for potentially combustible materials employed in mines.

Shrinking Cities in Romania: Former Mining Cities in Valea Jiului

Shrinking Cities in Romania: Former Mining Cities in Valea Jiului

Divergențe ȋntre stat şi societate ȋn România secolului XX: Greva minerilor din Valea Jiului din august 1977

Abstract In year 1977 romanian miners from the region of ”Valea Jiului” get into strike as a protest against heavy conditions of work and life. Immediately, the communist regime begins a hard repression against them.