Coal: a Human History

In the chapter, “Underworld”, the author asks the true purpose of coal mines. After getting a sarcastic joke from a worker, she writes, “Every time we flip on a switch, we burn a lump of coal, each of us consuming about twenty pounds of those lumps a

When asked to think of coal mining, what comes to mind? A mountain with a hole cut into the side of it with a set of railroad tracks disappearing into it? Maybe an old mine car or two full of some rocks or coal, with a pickaxe and shovel leaning against it. A few guys with hard hats covered in a black powder coming walking out of the mine pushing a car or two full of coal. The technology has advanced but the process is basically still the same as well as the outcome. Coal is retrieved from underground and taken to factories to be burnt to create electricity or to fuel the steel mills.

In 1907, two miles south of Centralia, Illinois was the Centralia Mine No. 5. The Mine was there to provide coal during World War II. This particular mine employed 250 men and produced 2,000 tons of coal each day. During the next several years there were several complaints made regarding the safety of the mine. On March 25, 1947, the mine exploded, killing 111 miners. (Stillman, 2010)

Document 6 states children working underground, breaker boys inhaled great amounts of coal dust damaging their lungs and causing illness. This shows that many children were worked hard. Additional document 1 shows that in 1910 there were 163000000 child workers,117 infants under one died. That means .5% of the work force was children.

Reforms were made during industrialization to help improve the poor working conditions present in mines and factories that had been created by the rapidly expanding workforce. Workers often worked in conditions that had detrimental effects on their long term health and had many hazards. Miners were exposed to heavy falling rocks, excessive smoke, poisonous gas and bad air. They often got what is known as miners’ asthma and many died from it (Doc 1). Factory workers worked in cramped, unclean buildings that had many fire hazards and safety issues.

3. Miners were sometimes brought up from the mines by hanging from rope, which could sometimes break and cause them to fall to their deaths. 4. Women who worked in the mines frequently suffered pelvic damage due to the baskets used to carry coal up from the mines, which could lead to death in childbirth later on. 5.

Coal discovery dates to the 1300s with the Hopi Natives. This would prove significant some five hundred years later when coal became the predominant source of power in the mid to late 1800s. This would prove even more significant when the Government started surveying the landscape for the best route for the Transcontinental Railroad in 1853. Upon completion of the research, one thing the scouts made clear was the presence of coal in Wyoming and some of the western states. To run supplies from the eastern states to the west they needed the presence of coal to be close and readily available for the coal fueled trains. This played a major role in the industrial revolution the United States was about the experience.

Topic: This story is mainly about children who lived in towns with coal mines and what their life was like.And how the coal mines affected them.

The pollution is leaving our footprint rate out of control! Knowing that they have gotten rid of all the coal generators is a big reduction of the ecological footprint. Without the generators burning off the coal, the pollution will stay at a lower rate causing the footprint to decrease. It is more sustainable now than before because our city doesn't have to worry about trying to maintain the pollution levels as much as we used to and we can focus on more of the major projects.

“Blasting itself produced immense quantities of mineral particles. The common practice of returning to the work face soon after the detonation of charges meant entering an area filled with particulate matter. (Derickson 3)” Also, as labors transported, unloaded, and cleaned the extracted material dust was inhaled even though they were away from the mine. So no matter what technique used the coal dust still made it in the air and into the miners’ lungs. There were no safety regulations in place about how long to wait after blowing up coal, no regulations about how many particulates in the air were safe, no mask or safety precautions and no mandatory venting. Although some of these things were easily usable to the safety the company felt it was too costly. “An elaborate system of fans and blowers was ‘too costly’, so the miner had to pay for the bad ventilating by ‘miners’ asthma’ and other ailments caused by bad air. (Derickson 4)” Basically the coal operators did not care enough about the miners safety to provide vents and things that could have helped the air quality.

This paper will review past practices and policies relating to mountaintop coal mining, evaluate and analyze current research on the impact of coal mining on human health, and provide recommendations for further research guided by logic and in agreement with biblical truth.

It produces a great deal of our electricity; however, we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the implications. As Goodell notes on the first page, “We love our hamburgers, but we’ve never seen the inside of a slaughterhouse.” Isn’t that the truth? When we fuel up our cars, we don’t think (much) about the ramifications of our oil dependence. When we flip a light switch, we do not associate that with the coal-driven mountaintop removals in West Virginia. In this book, “BIG COAL” Jeff describes Goodell thrusts those associations right in your face. He covers the history of the industry, tells the stories of the people in and around the business, and while most of the book is based on U.S.-happenings, he does spend a chapter in China. We would imagine the coal industry was none too pleased with Big Coal because it paints a really ugly picture of the industry. Goodell contrasts the coal industry with the individuals whose lives have been negatively impacted by coal in one way or another. He details corruption and politics that allowed the industry to delay implementation of pollution control equipment. And on a big picture level, he argues that continued usage of coal poses a serious threat to the earth’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.

Throughout the century British coal had become increasingly costly and difficult to mine. Nationalization in 1948 had not altered this. Indeed, there was a case for saying that lack of government investment since that date had added to the problem. For some time Britain had been importing coal from abroad. With the exception of few pits producing particular types of coal, British mines by the 1970s were running at loss.

Coal, a mineral I have discussed previously, is necessary to our everyday lives. Coal is an incredible source of energy; it heats our houses and buildings, and also fuels stoves. You may often wonder where this extremely useful mineral comes from. Coal does not just appear; it needs to be mined through a process which results in our being able to utilize it. Coal mining is fairly inexpensive, is carried out on a large scale and can be mined in either underground or surface mines.