Coal Mining Research Paper

Coal mining is not just dangerous to the environment but also a big life and health risk to the workers themselves. Coal miners live the risk of getting trapped in the coal mines if something goes wrong as in an explosive goes off and covers the way out. Since coal mines are deep into mountain sides the possibility of getting the workers out is very low because it is very hard to reach them. In a mine in Mexico, 65 miners got trapped and died due to an explosion that went wrong. There are approximately 6,000 deaths every year in the mines of china. They are the ones that cause the most deaths.

All though coal has a cheap price to it, the damage it does to mother nature is far more greater. The world consumption of coal was the amount of 100million tons of oil in 1860. As of now it has increased dramatically, up to 2200 tons in the year 2000. It is easy to see the life time of coal consumption by simply dividing the coal reserves consumption, and the numbers add up to about 250 years worth. Foreign countries like China are building coal power plants at an alarming rate, it is assumed that a two 500MW coal fired power plants are being built every week.

The mining of coal may be dangerous and cause health issues but more importantly can completely wipe out grasslands and lakes.

One coal power station can produce up to one million tons of ash, 21,000 tons of sludge, and half a million tons of gypsum. 11 millions tons of carbon dioxide is also released into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is not the only gas that comes out of these horrible coal plants. 16,000 tons of sulphur dioxide, 29,000 tons of nitrogen oxide have a great affect on the atmosphere, as in climate change and also acid rain. Acid rain is a serious issue because of the fact that it can damage plant life and cause them to die and can also damage lakes by sterilizing them and killing

fish.
The waste that produced by coal plants are usually placed near the factory, the burned up coal are stored in mountainous slag heaps. After heavy rain falls they can collapse damaging near by buildings, or worse running into a near by village killing hundreds of innocent children as it happened in Welsh Village in Aberfan. Coal-to-liquid fuel is sulfur-free, but through the procedure in producing and using it releases twice as much carbon dioxide as everyday petroleum-derived fuel. Universal use of coal-to-liquids fuel may create even dirtier fuel than ordinary gasoline. Coal powered plants are the cause of one third the greenhouse gas emission in America. The GHG (greenhouse gasses) emissions per kilowatt is marking at 1160g of CO2 while the average coal plant produces about 2000 kWh a day causing the emissions to be 846,800,000g a year for one plant.