A mineral of fossilized carbon, or better known as ‘coal’, is one of the world’s leading sources of energy for the production of Electricity. Although coal is utilized for many other requirements such as refining metal, it is predominately burned for the production of heat and electricity. Coal is a fossil fuel, meaning that the process in which it became too be was through the decomposition of dead plant and animal matter which is referenced as ‘peat’. Different forms of Coal are created when Geological processes produce pressure to the peat which later leads to the formation of coal (Refer to figure 1).
Figure 1: Coal Formation.
There are four ranks that coal can be classed as such as; Anthracite, Bituminous, Sub-Bituminous and Lignite. There characteristics are as followed:
“Anthracite coal is a dense, hard rock with a jet black colour & metallic lustre. It contains between 86% and 98% carbon by weight, & it burns slowly, with a pale blue flame & very little smoke.
Bituminous coal (in Indiana), contains between 69% & 86% carbon by weight.
Sub-bituminous coal contains less carbon, more water & is a less efficient source of heat.
Lignite coal, or brown coal, is a very soft coal that contains up to 70% water by weight and emits more pollution than other coals” (COAL CHARACTERISTICS).
‘Rock Strata’ are areas made up of sedimentary rock with coal being found in ‘layers or veins’ called coal beds or coal seams. This extraction process can be performed either by underground mining such as step or post room-and-pillar and open pit mining. The locating process of this source relies on the creation of a geological map, with geochemical and geophysic...
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Refining coal isn’t really as hard as you would think… Moisture and other pollutants have to be removed first from some of the lower-classed coals such as ‘lignite’ and ‘sub-bituminous’, which is condoned by washing all of the coal to get all of the superficial impurities (dirt, mud and sulphur etc.) off of the coal. When refining coal, there is usually two main ways, either by burning the pulverized coal and blasting it with strong, pressurized steam and then scrubbing it or through another method known as ‘fluidized bed combustion’. Fluidized bed combustion is the process in which “limestone and powdered coal are forcefully blown on the bed at a very high temperature where as they burn, the limestone bonds with the sulphur that emanates from coal”. (Refining Coal)
(Figure 4 Fluidized bed combustion process)
The Powder River Basin coal beds are some of the thickest in the world helping to make the basin one of the top producers not only nationally but globally as well. Although the coals are low rank and therefore not ideal for producing electricity, the sheer amount of coal in the basin makes it very economical to mine these coals. The low ash and low sulfur content of the Powder River Basin coals also make the coal ideal for the current marketplace. The low ash and sulfur content helps to make these coals relatively environmentally friendly in comparison to coals that are mined from places like Illinois, which have higher sulfur contents. The vast amount of resources that the Powder River Basin contains makes this region of the United States a major player when it comes to supplying energy for the next century.
A machine known as a dragline then digs into the rock to reveal the coal, the machines hollow out the tiers of coal and dump millions of overburden, the previous mountaintops, into constricted nearby valleys, thereby producing valley fills. Coal companies have covered over 1,200 miles of biologically crucial Appalachian headwaters streams.
Minerals play an important role in our day-to-day life but we often not contemplate how the minerals are obtained. Minerals are scattered all over the world just like any other resources. Due to the natural processes of magma flow, hydrothermal gradients, sedimentation, and evaporation, Minerals are concentrated in various areas of the Earth’s crust. Obtaining these minerals for human use involves four general steps:
Roughly 68 percent of the electricity generated in the United States of America is produced by fossil fuels. That includes petroleum, natural gases and coal. Although coal contributes around 37 percent to the factor, it is by far not the cleanest of them all. Some might argue that it is good for the economy because it is cheap and it creates jobs.. But the other side of the story portrays coal mining as a process that kills thousands of coal miners a year and that it practically destroys the environment around the mining with soot and air pollution. Mining now days is a big part of urbanization; due to how cheap the process is. There are different ways that coal mining is done. Mainly mountain top removal is done but there are many other
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...
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.
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...
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.
I’ve long been familiar with the concept of coal mines, but a common occurrence I was unfamiliar with previous to this class was the concept of coal mine fires, but it is a huge problem, both economically and environmentally.
Acid mine drainage refers to water (leachate, drainage or seepage) that has come into contact with oxidised rocks or overburden that contains sulphide material (coal, zinc, copper, lead). (Keller, 2000; U.S.G.S.; U.S.E.P.A., 2002). A common sulphide is pyrite, or iron disulfide (FeS2), and throughout this essay it will be pyrite that will be the primary sulphide considered. Acid mine drainage is not a new phenomenon, early mining techniques utilized gravity to avoid water pooling, resulting in the water becoming polluted by acid, iron, sulphur and aluminium (U.S.E.P.A., 2002). It is most commonly associated with coal mining, especially with soft coal, coal that has high sulphur content. The pyrite that is present in coal seams will be accessible after surface mining when the overlying surfaces are removed or in deep mines that allow oxygen access to the previously inaccessible pyrite-containing coal (D.E.P. 1, 1997). After pyrite is exposed to air and water, sulphuric acid and iron hydroxide are formed, creating an acidic runoff (D.E.P. 1, 1997; 2 2002).
Burning and mining coal for fuel is harmful to the environment, but because of how cheap and easy it is to find, many people are unwilling to give it up as a fuel source. One of the problems with coal is that they are limited and are non-renewable, so once it has been used we won’t be able to use it again. When coal gets burned, they start to release harmful, dangerous toxins such as mercury, lead and arsenic that will then escape into the air. It also releases large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. These emissions increase the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere and lead to global warming.
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...
Copper ore, usually in the form of chalcopyrite (Figure 2), CuFeS2, is mainly mined using large block cave mines (Figure 3). Block cave mining is a mass mining method that allows for large quantity mining of large lower grade ore bodies. This method of mining is characterized by caving and extracting massive volumes of rock which potentially leads to the formation of a surface depression which is indirectly affected by rock mass and topography of the ground surface. A major challenge when initially starting mining is to predict how the specific ore bodies will cave with respect to the geometry of the undercut. In simple terms, an underground tunnel leads to the draw points where broken, overlying rock is gathered and taken away for processing. Palabora
The field of geology has many different branches. Some of these areas have hardly anything in common. The one thing that they all include, though, is that each one concentrates on some part of the Earth, its makeup, or that of other planets. Mineralogy, the study of minerals above the Earth and in its crust, is different from Petrology, the st...