Coal Mining Essay

1 What is coal? Coal is a substance we consider today a fossil fuel, created from all the dead plants millions of years ago. Coal is formed from prehistoric plants that when they die are not able to release the energy they built up from photosynthesis Typically the plants had fallen into large swamps and bogs, and then over time the dead plants lying on the bottom of the swamps and bogs were slowly covered with other dead plants and sediment build-up. Once buried the plants were subjected to high amounts of pressure and temperatures, which over long periods of time it becomes peat then eventually creates coal. We refer to coal as a “fossil fuel” today because it is created from prehistoric plants and the coal we have today has been millions of years since it was in plant form. Today we coal is still being created we just don’t fully recognize it because how long the process actually takes.

Coal: A Human History was written by Barbara Freese to focus on the history of coal and how mankind has used it as part of their lifestyle. Ever since the times when early nomads used the slash-and-burn method, coal has been around acting as jewelry for the Romans and as fuel for peasants and the noble class in Britain. Coal was in such high demand that many inventions were utilized for the convenience of retrieving it from intolerable conditions such as vacuums and the construction of more efficient underground tunnels. The book gives insight of how this small stone has been so vital to humans that they were able to adapt to the ways coal best functions.

There are four different types of coalmines, each very different. The first type are drift or slope mines, they are driven into valley walls near seams of coal. The second types of mines are shaft mines, these types of mines use pumps to remove water. Boreholes are drilled to relieve water pressure for safer mining. The third types of mines are surface mines. Surface mines use draglines, which can remove up to 200ft of coal in a single pass. A dragline is a machine used in surface

Coal contains a lot of energy and is abundant. Next, the technological demands are low, as well as the cost. It is easy to manage and needs little purification before

Coal: A Human History was written by Barbara Freese to focus on the history of coal and how mankind has used it as part of their lifestyle. Ever since the times when early nomads used the slash-and-burn method, coal has been around acting as jewelry for the Romans and as fuel for peasants and the noble class in Britain. Coal was in such high demand that many inventions were utilized for the convenience of retrieving it from intolerable conditions such as vacuums and the construction of more efficient underground tunnels. The book gives insight of how this small stone has been so vital to humans that they were able to adapt to the ways coal best functions.

When companies clear the mountains, they are removing all top soil and vegetation. Trees are typically burned or dumped and not sent for commercial use. Once the land is cleared, they drill holes in the mountain roughly 600 feet or more, depending on how far the coal is located, and fill them with millions of pounds of explosives. By using heavy duty equipment, miners extract coal and debris left behind by the explosions. Because the explosives blow up more than just coal, the companies must dump the waste somewhere, typically in nearby valley’s.

he coal mining industry started when people in Utah wanted fuel. Lumber at that time in Utah was used just for building, not for fuel. In 1854, the LDS church said that they would pay for the first usable coal mine within forty miles of Salt Lake City. The first coal mine was in Summit County. Its name was Coalville, and it was about forty miles from Salt Lake City. The Mormons built a railroad to the Coalville Coal Mine. They also found a mine that would give them fuel for transportation named Castle Gate Mine. Soon the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad was built from 1881-1883. It went to the Book Cliffs; that was discovered as Utah’s richest coal deposit. Coal mining had three big challenges The first problem with mining was labor. Most people that worked in the coal mines were immigrants that came because they believed that mining would make them rich. The second problem was money. The workers often complained about how low their wages were, and how high the store prices were in mining camps. The last one was a safety concerns. It was very dangerous working in coal mines. You could die from explosions, or gas leaks. Because of those three problems, the workers protested and many strikes occurred. The first strike happened in 1883, at Winter Quarters. They wanted safer working

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.

While coal mining has the advantage of providing employment, cave ins and explosions are common in mining. This leaves people’s lives in danger. There is also a risk to not only those working in the mines, but also those living close to dig areas. Constant exposure to chemicals can result in lung cancer, respiratory diseases, heart failure and low birth

The fossil fuel coal is a burnable bituminous black rock that is consisting mainly of carbonized plant matter which is mainly found underground in seams and is also used as a fuel. In time, material that had been plants became coal. The main use for coal today is for generating electricity from one stop to another, cement manufacturing, steel products and as well as a liquid fuel. Coal is formed by plant decay which then turns into peat, the peat will than change to lignite which is a soft brown coal then after that a bituminous coal is formed which is black and brittle but also very polluting, after which an anthracite coal is formed, the anthracite coal contains the highest amount of carbon making it the cleanest and safest to burn. There are two ways coal can be

The U.S is a top net exporter of coal, meaning the U.S produces enough coal not only for its use but enough where it can supply the rest of the world as well. We use most of our own coal, however, some power plants along the Gulf Coast and the Atlantic Ocean find it less costly to import coal from nearby countries than it is to import our own coal to those locations (“U.S Energy Information Administration”). Coal is a naturally-occurring resource formed by deposits of decaying plants from long ago which have undergone extreme heat and pressure. Surface mining and deep underground mining are the two most basic forms of mining coal. Surface mining is only economic when the deposits are near the surface, and usually 90% of the coal deposit is recovered. When there is an abundance of soil and rocks, it is broken up by using explosives. The resulting debris is then removed by draglines or by shovel and truck. Once the coal is exposed, it is drilled, fractured, and carefully mined in strips. Lastly, the coal is loaded onto large trucks, shipped to the coal preparation plant, and then used or stored (“Coal Mining”). When mining deep underground, there are two methods that can be used, “room-and-pillar” and “longwall” mining. In room-and-pillar mining, miners cut a network of ‘rooms’ into the coal and leave behind ‘pillars’ of coal to support the roof of the mine (See Figure 2). These pillars can be up to 40% of the

Coal miners use giant machines to remove coal from the ground. They use two methods: surface or underground mining. Many U.S. coal beds are very near the ground's surface, and about two-thirds of coal production comes from

Coal is a hard, black colored rock-like substance. It is made up of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and varying amount of sulphur. Coal was form as decomposition took place in the absence of oxygen and much of the hydrogen content of the matter was eroded away, leaving a material rich in carbon. The material was compressed over the years by sand and dirt, leaving the form of a carbon known as coal. The different types of coals are Anthracite, bituminous, lignite, peat, coke, and charcoal. Coal is mined out of the ground and used to produce energy. However, they are many deaths, injuries, and sickness involved in mining coal.

What is coal? Coal is the largest domestically produced source of energy used to generate a significant portion of our nation’s use of electricity. Also it is a combustible black or brown rock consisting mainly of carbon dioxide plant matter. It is widely used as a fuel. This provides electricity and also is an essential fuel for steel and cement production, and other industrial activities. Coal information began during their carboniferous period known as the first coal agrees which spanned 360 million years ago. Coal is the most useful fuel in the fossil fuel and it has the longest and most accurate history. Coal has been used for heating since the cave men. Archeologists have also found evidence that the romans in England used in the second century.

Coal mining can have seriously adverse environmental and related impacts, including interference with groundwater quantity and quality, land subsidence, impacts on river flows and consequential impact on other land-uses, issues associated with mining wastes disposal, creation of geological hazards . . . and potential ecological havoc” (Bian et al., “The Impact of Disposal and Treatment of Coal Mining Wastes on Environment and Farmland” 1). Coal, a commodity that the world depends on as a vital economic player and energy resource, is extracted from the ground at a very costly price to the environment. It is a major energy source that provides about 40% of the electricity that the world consumes, and the consumption of coal has grown dramatically in recent years. Not only is coal a major energy producer, but it is also a vital player in many countries economies, employing millions across the world both directly and indirectly. Unfortunately, since coal is so important to the economy and energy production, there is often little regard for the impacts that it has on the environment when being extracted. In broad a generalization, coal mining techniques can be broken down into two categories: surface mining and underground mining (the first involving techniques that stay above ground and the latter using tunneling). Although environmental implications may vary slightly between the two methods of coal extraction, there are a number of issues that are the result of both surface