The positives of coal and why we should keep it.
Bryce .W. Shelden
Hotchkiss FFA
2016
Did you know that, as of 2014 coal made up thirty-nine-point eight percent of Americas electricity supply along with twenty-seven-point four percent Natural gas, and nineteen-point five percent Nuclear energy? With renewable energy at only fourteen-point four percent. What would America do without coal? So, what is coal? Coal is a fossil fuel and is the altered remains of prehistoric vegetation and organisms that originally accumulated in swamps and peat bogs. The energy we get from coal today comes from the energy that plants absorbed from the sun millions of years ago.
What country is the biggest producer of coal? The country that produces the most coal is China with America in second and Indonesia in third. China has been the biggest coal producer in the past three decades. China produced nearly 3.7 billion tons of coal in 2013 representing forty-seven percent of global total coal yield. While the United States is second worldwide in coal production, generating 922 Million tons of coal in the 2012/2013 period representing approximately thirteen percent of global coal production. India's coal production was about 605
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According to the World Coal Association, more than 6,185 million tons of hard coal was mined from coal mines around the world as of 2012. Coal mines use surface mining for coal deposits buried less than 200 feet underground. In this type of mining, giant machines remove top-soil and layers of rock to expose large beds of coal. After coal extraction, the topsoil is replaced so that the area can be reused for croplands, wildlife habitats, recreation or offices. Underground mining is another method of coal extraction that involves extracting coal that is buried several hundred feet below the surface. In underground mining, miners use elevators to travel deep into line shafts where they use machines that dig out the coal.
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)
Coal production had become a driving force behind the United States industrial revolution. Coal was used for a variety of purposes including powering steam engines, iron manufacturing, and the heat in homes and towns. One of the largest users of coal in southern Colorado was the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company (CF&I). Their furnaces were heated with coal from, he Culebra Mountain range in the southern part of Colorado was known for having some of the richest coal in the state. The coal is glossy black bituminous coal the second highest grade of coal available.
Coal is considerably one of the most important sources of energy in nature and is one the most significant sources for power generation worldwide. The excavation and importance of coal became mainstream and apparent during the Industrial Revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Coal was the cutting edge of energy generation before any other source was extensively used. Wood, wind, water, and muscle power provided nearly all of the energy before the widespread adoption of coal. The greater energy density of coal provides a greater efficiency than these other methods of generating power; combine that greater efficiency with its ease of transportation and coal easily becomes the fuel of a nation. In its early days, coal was mined and consumed in England, a country short on wood and usable water power. This shortage in other areas left a gap that the relatively cheap coal could fill. Coal allowed for industry and manufacturing to grow and produce profits greater than almost any other industry. Coal gained its popularity mainly because it had an economic value in that it provided energy in quantities and in locations that were unobtainable and unreachable for the other energy sources at the time. This start in England led to momentum in ta...
Underground mining. This method of mining is used to reach larger concentrations of uranium that are far too deep to access from open-pit mining. The ore is drilled out, and then blasted to create smaller rock fragments which are then transported to the surface on to a mill.
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
Coal has a very negative impact on the environment, one of the main impacts on the environment is the actual process of extracting the coal from the ground. The two ways that coal is mined, underground and surface, both have different effects on the environment. The first way that coal is mined is by digging tunnels and creating mineshafts underground and then removing the coal from th...
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.
We depend on energy; nothing in our daily lives could be possible without it. Electricity primarily comes from burning fossil fuels or using nuclear reactors. But the plain truth is, we are running out of fossil fuels. Our known oil deposits will run out in approximately 35 years, and if we increase the use of natural gas and coal to make up for the energy loss, our natural gas will last for 45 years and coal deposits will deplete in 75 years.
Coal mining can benefit humans as well as it supports the economy in many ways. Coal mining provides a lot of jobs for local communities. It provides over 7 million jobs worldwide.
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...
"U.S. Energy Information Administration - EIA - Independent Statistics and Analysis."China Consumes Nearly as Much Coal as the Rest of the World Combined. U.S. Energy Information Administration, 29 Jan. 2013. Web. 22 Feb. 2014.