Coal is a vital resource that we depend upon as human beings. We use coal everyday either for transportation or heating a building. We need to stop taking advantage of it and start finding new ways to produce energy.
Coal is a fossil fuel. It can be identified as a black or brown rock that can be ignited and burned for energy. It is chemically made up of sulfur, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen elements. Coal is classified by degrees of hardness, moisture, and heat content. As the sea deposits layers of other materials over the peat through centuries, the peat was tightly compacted and dried. (Illinois Coal Association, 2013)
Coal is mined from either surface mining or underground mining. Surface mining include strip mining, open pit mining and mountain top mining. Topsoil and rock above the seam, called the overburden. The overburden is then removed and placed to one side, exposing all the coal Underground mining include borehole mining, drift mining, hard rock mining, shaft mining, and slope mining. For underground mining, workers us a continuous mining machine that cuts through walls in the cave. Usually there are rock pillars that hold up the cave ceiling preventing a cave in. The coal is then drilled and loaded on to the trucks or trains where it is then transported to factories or industries that convert it in to electricity or wherever it is needed. (World Coal Association, 2013)
Coal is the most affordable fossil fuel compared to petroleum and oil. Coal prices vary in different places. In places where coal is used a lot, the price increases. The US spends around 1/3 of a trillion dollars on coal annually. Kansas produces around 1.4 million dollars worth of coal a year. (World Coal, 2013)
Coal is generally used for e...
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A machine known as a dragline then digs into the rock to reveal the coal, the machines hollow out the tiers of coal and dump millions of overburden, the previous mountaintops, into constricted nearby valleys, thereby producing valley fills. Coal companies have covered over 1,200 miles of biologically crucial Appalachian headwaters streams.
Coal is by far the most abundant of fossil fuels, and will be available for much longer than oil. Having been harvested and burned since the 13th century, a massive infrastructure has been formed to quickly and efficiently mine, deliver, and burn coal. Coal is also the cheapest of fossil fuels (The Futurist, 1997)
Less than 1% of the labor force is engaged in mining. In 1988 coal production was 14.5 million metric tons. Most of it from two principal coalfields the Lorraine coalfield near METZ, which is an extension into France of the Saar coalfield and the Nord-Pas de Calais coalfield around Lille, which is an extension into France of Belgium's Sambre-Meuse coalfields and is similarly thin-seamed, faulted, and difficult to work.
Historically it was used as a domestic fuel and was mainly utilized to run steam powered engines, provide heat for buildings, generate electricity at an efficient rate and also provided the high heat temperatures that were required to extract specific metals from their ores, otherwise known as metallurgy. Although the modern world has nearly moved away from using coal as a primary source of energy; the trials and tribulations regarding the gathering of this fuel throughout history has created employment, powered the boom of the industrial revolution and also posed many circumstances that could be considered disastrous and/or non-compliant to human rights as we see it today.
Open pit mining. It is also known as strip mining. It begins with the removal of soils on the surface and inefficient rock to get at the ore below. This is only possible in some cases, generally when the ore is less than 120 metres below the surface.
The loss of a life is the ultimate tragedy, and over the thousands of years of mining history, the industry has had its share of casualties. Mining deals with the extraction of raw materials like coal, diamond, iron-ore etc. Mining industries can be both open cast mining and underground mining. Although we have improved in the technology and study of the earth, mining industry is a very dangerous job. One of the most dangerous work of mining has been mentioned to be coal mining in which they extract coal from underground. Coal mining hazardous mixture of gas and coal dust can form a fatal explosion. As a matter of fact, I reviewed an article that mention the worst coal mining known as the Benxi Hu colliery disaster in China in 1942. “Cost 1,549 lives and is believed to be the worst coal mining disaster ever.” (Limited, 2014)
Coal is one of the world’s most abundant fossil fuels. Coal was formed during the Carboniferous Period when dead plant material was buried and subjected to high pressure and heat. Coal is classified by moisture content and composition. There are four d...
Roughly 68 percent of the electricity generated in the United States of America is produced by fossil fuels. That includes petroleum, natural gases and coal. Although coal contributes around 37 percent to the factor, it is by far not the cleanest of them all. Some might argue that it is good for the economy because it is cheap and it creates jobs.. But the other side of the story portrays coal mining as a process that kills thousands of coal miners a year and that it practically destroys the environment around the mining with soot and air pollution. Mining now days is a big part of urbanization; due to how cheap the process is. There are different ways that coal mining is done. Mainly mountain top removal is done but there are many other
The reason we don’t replace coal energy is because it produces a profitable amount of energy, just like most cars get fairly good mpg. While solar and wind energy are not efficient and take a ton of sun and wind as well as entire farms of panels or mills to produce the same amount of energy, which goes back to solar and wind being more expensive.
While the economic cost of this is considerable — over $1 billion spent in the United States alone, despite the fact that the relatively few coal fires it plays host to are still extant — the environmental cost is perhaps even more alarming.
What comes to mind when you think of coal mining? If you're like me, coal mining means living in darkness and a cold hearted industry. Other words that come to mind are poverty and oppression. Coal mining is not a job that you dream about or get a degree for. People who are coal miners do not chose a life full of danger and repression, they get stuck with it. There are many dangers that come along with coal mining, not only for the workers, but for the environment. Coal mining and the coal industry have caused irreversible damage to our environment and has killed innocent miners.
The use of fossil fuels on a large scale, specifically coal, began with the Industrial Revolution in England. Industries/corporations first used coal as a main source of energy to fuel their factories, and it became even more popular when railroads started. According to the United States Energy Department, "...by the early 20th century coal had become the major fuel in the United States, accounting for nearly 75% of the nation's energy requirements." Soon after, newer and cheaper fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas, were high in demand. Energy Supplies, Sustainability, and Costs, by Sandra Alters, states oil was used as the main source of fuel to heat homes and offices, and gas powered the growing number of cars (57). "Oil shoved aside coal as the world's primary fuel, just as coal had replaced wood", says Tom Mast in Over a Barrel: A Simple Guide to the Oil Shortage (15). Most Americans were not concerned wit...
Burning and mining coal for fuel is harmful to the environment but because how cheap and easy it is to find many people are unwilling to give it up as a fuel source. One of the problems with coal is that they are limited and are non-renewable so once it has been used we won’t be able to use it again.
There are three types of fossil fuels- coal, crude oil, and natural gas. Coal was formed very slowly. Even the “newest” coal we use today was formed a million years ago. Most of the coal we use was formed 300 million years ago, when the Earth was covered with swamps. When plants and trees died, they sank to the bottoms of the swamps. These plants and trees were layered on top of each other, forming a substance called peat. Peat is considered the first stage in coal formation. It is a mixture of water, leaves, braches, and other plant debris. Over time, the Earth changed, and deposits of sand, clay, and other minerals were formed, burying the peat. Sedimentary rock...
Fuels like coal, and oil that once were a fine innovation in creating energy are now rapidly deleting and one day will be gone forever; energy that won’t last is often referred to as non-renewable energy. Besides being set up to fail and become inefficient in the future, fossil fuel energy is not clean to use and poses several environmental complications. Coal, for instance is “the dirtiest of all fossil fuels. Coal combustion not only produces sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides that contribute to acid rain and snow, it generates millions of tons of particulates that cause asthma and other respiratory diseases.” As with all usage of fossil fuels, it creates enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, which contributes to greenhouse gas. Not only are fossil fuels dirty, they also pose as a security risk and unforgiving on the American wallet. (Saini)