Argumentative Essay On Coal

We want instant gratification and coal fits the bill. I noted in my book review of Crude World that Peter Maass didn’t present a balanced picture of the oil industry; it was all bad. He was intended to highlight the negative aspect of our oil dependency. Big Coal is the same in that respect. It is hard to argue that coal hasn’t improved the lives of a great many people around the world, and we know a number of people who would argue that these improvements outweigh the negatives. Further, it is fair to say that the coal industry has come a long way in cleaning up their emission profile over the past few

As the time goes on and the world population grows, our nonrenewable resources will become less prevalent. Coal powers a large portion of the world’s electricity. As the population increases, so will the level of electricity needed. When coal burns it pollutes the air, causing climate change. Mining coal can destroy the natural environment around the mines.

We should invest in cleaner alternatives that will not only be better for us but the environment. Although coal is used for electricity, there are other ways to produce electricity like water power, wind generators, and solar energy. Water power, or hydropower is power that is derived from the weight of the water. Hydroelectric power plants use dams or rivers to store water to then release the water through turbines that spin it that produces electricity. Wind generators are like water power but instead of water its wind. Wind turbines converts the wind’s energy into electric energy. Solar energy is similar but the energy comes from the sun. Some people use solar energy for their homes so they save money and will not have to pay an electric bill. Instead of burning coal, there are other alternatives as stated

Coal (n): A combustible black or dark brown rock consisting mainly of carbonized plant matter, found mainly in underground deposits and widely used as fuel. This little rock is what keeps 39% of our nation running. 10% of that coal comes from stripping the Appalachian mountain range of her beautiful peaks in a process called strip mining- or, more popularly, Mountaintop Removal. Coal is considered a non-renewable energy resource, meaning once it’s depleted, it will not return for millions of years. Once it's gone, it's gone. These non-renewable sources are found deep underground. Coal needs to be mined out, either by machine or by manual labor. The use of and the process in which we procure coal is a detriment to both the environment and the people in said environment. It is dangerous to the workers within the mines, the flora and fauna around the sites, and the surrounding communities.

Jason Hayes, communications director for the American Coal Council says “the industry over the past few decades had invested over $100 billion in cleaning up emissions and it’s already been effective. All of the important noxious pollutants have decreased markedly over the last 30 to 40 years. We’ve been doing all of this on top of dealing with everything else.” Coal may not be green, but it is a source of energy American needs. It is cheap and efficient. Without coal, America wouldn’t be anywhere near where it is today. The coal mined here isn’t just used for energy. America’s

Coal power is the cheapest fuel to power the ever growing population with Australian mining industry still putting in billions of dollars into a vast amount of coal projects never the less coal power is a fossil fuel, a fuel which takes hundreds of year to form so the future of coal is undetermined. Coal is a reliable power source but one of the many concern with coal is the mining process used to remove it from the ground. Ecological effects are developing worries for the industry, with the carbon emissions possibly contributing to global warming.

In 2008 coal had a peak production. In 2016 coal was responsible for 15% of the United States energy consumption. That was a decrease from previous years. The amount of coal being produced now is the same amount as it was in 1977. Coal has been decreasing for the past few years because

Coal has been combusted for fuel for thousands of years. However it was not until the last few decades that the consequences of coal use have been fully realized and effort has been taken to lessen the severe environmental harm that can come from the combustion of coal. The fact of the matter is no matter how much we may dislike coal and the detrimental effects of it we, as a nation, depend on coal to live our lives. When we flip a switch and a light turns on we don’t give it a second thought but its not always that simple. Aside from coal’s significant contribution to climate change there have been other disasters stemming from coal and specifically the storage of contaminants extracted from coal combustion. One of the biggest man made environmental disasters of the millennia occurred just outside of Kingston, Tennessee in late 2008. This disaster though not as well publicized as many other disasters has been estimated to have released over 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash several times more contaminants by volume than the Exxon Valdeez oil spill in 1989 (Initial Emergency).

Coal is cheap and abundant compared to other energy options. It will continue to impact nearly every sector of human activity from powering basic living to global politics. Coal is so important that each person in the United States uses 3.7 tons of it each year. (rmcmi.org). Coal’s production will remain as an important source of energy for many years to

For that reason, I believe coal is dead for good. The biggest clue we have is that the states that rely on coal heavily are now in debt. For many states, they look at the national debt, yet we are in a crisis of our own. This is evident by our recent 300+ million dollar budget cut. Even with plans such as the rainy day funds

As far back as the Roman Empire, and indeed probably long before then, coal has been used by humans as a source of heat, providing many advantages over wood, charcoal and other fuels. However, it wasn 't until the introduction of the steam engine that coal became a major part of shaping the world. Fueling the industrial revolution, the high energy concentration of coal made it the standard source of everything from trains to power plants. Coal companies claim that coal, though not perfect, is the best source of energy at this moment, and the negative effects are being mitigated even as we speak. Consumers have a high demand of energy, that cannot be sated by other sources. To this very day, coal continues to drive forward the world, but

Imagine your daily life and how much technology is integrated into it, now, even if you don’t think that you use a lot of technology, remember that most of what we use today in our daily lives, need some sort of electricity to make it, or run it. We live in a world that is almost dependent upon electricity, modern life is unimaginable without electricity. Coal produces almost half of the electricity we use. There is much controversy about coal and why we rely on it so heavily. The question that emerges from this controversy is “should we be mining and processing as much coal as we do on a daily basis, and should we downscale, or find alternatives?”

Coal is a solid energy source, but the only issue about coal fired power is it has a large impact on the environment. There is an estimated amount of 892 billion tonnes of coal reserves worldwide. This amount of coal should be able to last us approximately 110 years at our current rates of production.

There is an estimation of 300 years’ worth of economic coal deposits still accessible, ensuring coal fired plants can continue its production for quite a long period to come.

Fossil fuels are essential to life on earth as we know it today. Our world would certainly be much different if it weren’t for such seemingly simple things such as coal, oil, and natural gas. These basic elements of life on earth may not seem like a major concern to some people until we put into perspective how they have shaped our world today. Civilizations have been built, economies have risen and crumbled, and even wars have been fought over these precious fossil fuels. However, these fossil fuels serve us in ways we may never truly appreciate, as long as we use them as recklessly as we do now. The major entity about fossil fuels is concerning their longevity and permanence in our world, and we all know, they will be around forever.