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Fossil fuels in the world today
What is the effect of fossil fuels on our planet
What is the effect of fossil fuels on our planet
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At a coal-fired power plant, coal is crushed into powder that is burned to produce heat. That heat is then used to make steam that turns a turbine to create electricity. Coal itself is a fossil fuel that was mostly formed about 300 million years ago, though some of it is as young as 1 million years old and it continues to form. During the time it was formed most of the earth was covered in swampy areas. Coal formed when vegetation, which is full of carbon, sunk to the bottom of swamps and eventually built up a layer of thick material called peat. Over the years, the peat was buried further under the layers of rocks and compressed, squeezing the water out of it and heating it up. Heat and pressure eventually turned the peat into coal, making it a sedimentary rock. Scientists estimate that about 267 billion tons of coal can be mined and used.
In about 1000 BCE, the first mention of using coal appeared in China. They used it to smelt copper. For early coal powered mechanisms, coal was hand fed into boilers to produce steam in the late 1800s. From that time, technology contin...
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 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.
According to World History From 1500 by J. Michael Allen and James B. Allen, the Industrial Revolution could not have happened without a new, reliable source of power (144). The steam engine became such a source. Before the steam engine all industries used manpower, horsepower, and the power of water and wind to drive the machines. All these means were not efficient and practical enough to satisfy the rising needs for energy – the solution – steam engine.
The myths must be dispelled. First of all, coal is not a bountiful. It is a nonrenewable resource and, according to a United States Geologic Survey, it is only expected...
They previously made due on charcoal but with the ascending popularity of steam engines and furnaces there was a demand for coal. Improvements in the steam engine and development of factories by Arkwright and Watt further increased this growing demand of coal. Mining was extremely dangerous flooding, encounters with explosions from damp gas (explosive gas found deep in the earth) or poisons gas, and collapses were not uncommon. In an attempt to avoid these issues they set up ventilation and had young children called trappers open and close them so coal trucks could pass through. They also deemed it would protect the rest of the coal if an explosion were to occur.
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...
In the late 1600’s, coal miners faced many different problems while attempting to complete their task of mining as much coal as possible. Perhaps the most threatening problem to the miners was water that would enter the mines while the miners were digging. A man by the name of Thomas Savery was especially drawn to the problem of water in coal mines, and he set out to look for an efficient and effective way to help remove the water from the mines to allow the miners to continue working. Savery drew inspiration from Denis Papin, and through using the principles of thermodynamics, and also by drawing from Papin’s idea for a steam engine (“Denis Papin”), Savery began working on his own steam engine. His machine worked by introducing pressurized steam to a tall tube with water at the base.
The old furnace of Abraham Darby (1678-1717) was located in the town of Coalbrookdale the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. In 1709, Darby successfully smelted iron using a new coal product “coke.” The coke was made the same way charcoal was made through the use of heating coal at high temperatures creating a more purified fuel which burnt at higher temperatures. However, a bridge to nowhere built near the town of Coalbrookdale by the Darby’s to demonstrate the importance of iron made from coke. This new method of Darby’s enabled him to make the same items using half as much iron. Darby’s sons would be instrumental in helping other men build steam engines and trains not to mention rails and wheels. According to Reyburn; "Darby's key product was cast-metal iron pots. He found that, with coke, he could make cast-iron pots half the thickness of charcoal-fired pots.” Darby's achievement showed that coke could replace charcoal in iron production (thefreelibrary.com).
First vehicles powered by the steam engine started to appear in the early 1800s. Various machines started slowly replace horses. It was especially true for the jobs that required a lot of power. Transportation, of course, was the first and the most beneficial adopter. Goods could be carried across large distances with relative ease. No wonder that farmers were also eager to adopt engines. By that time most of the work was done using horses and basic tools.
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...
How coal is formed is quite an interesting topic. It started over millions of years ago in ancient swamps when vegetation and trees died and formed peat (it is where vegetation builds up and turns into a super messy pile of stuff). This peat was eventually covered with either dirt or sand. As the peat is covered and pressure the gas that the peat gives off starts to get trapped in the new forming coal. Several years the peat now turns to rock known as coal. As the planetary plates shift the coal moves and forms pockets and runs in the earth. Then people came along and found out how to harness is power. People had to get the coal out of the earth. One way they found out how to get it out was to dig it out of the underground tunnels to find where the coal runs. Another way to get the coal is to strip mine the coal this is where the miners remove huge amounts of dirt to get to the coal. Both of these mining techniques are extremely dangers.
Lower quality coal is used for generating electricity. To generate electricity they burn the coal in a power plant to produce steam. The steam then travels through a turbine and generates power. The higher quality coal is used for making iron and steel. Coal is retrieved from nature by mining, either from an underground mine or from an aboveground mine. Due to the difficulty of underground mining coal from underground mines sells for more money. After the coal is mined it is processed to remove impurities from it. Lastly it is transported, “The cost of shipping coal can be more than the cost of mining it.” (US Energy Information Administration, 2013). Transportation methods include, truck, barge, train, and pipeline.
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...
Great Britain’s natural resources were a major factor in its early industrialization. One of the main resources was the abundance of both coal and iron. These two elements could be easily used in many different aspects of industrialization, and the amount of each led innovators to use them in all aspects of manufacturing in order to lower costs. Due