Coal as an energy resource
What is coal ?
Coal is a combustible rock that are mostly made of carbons and hydrocarbons.
It is mainly made up of 65-95% carbon and also contains hydrogen, sulphur,
oxygen and nitrogen.
Coal is the remains of the plants that lives in swamps millions of years ago
How is coal formed ?
1. The giant plants that grow in swamps million years ago cover the earth .
2. Water and dirt covered the remains of the giant plants that lived million years
ago.
3. Rocks, dirt and sediment created pressure and heat to form coal deep in the
underground.
How to convert coal into electricity ?
1. Coal is mined to a fine powder, allowing it to burn more quickly. It is blown into a
combustion chamber by a boiler and burnt in high temperature
2. The hot gasses and heat energy produced converts water into steam
3. The high-pressure steam passed into a turbine containing of thousands of
propeller-like blades. The steam pushes these blades causing the blades to
rotate in high speed. The steam is condensed and returned to the boiling
chamber where it is heated again.
4. The shaft rotation engages the wire coils and magnets in a generator connected
to it. This charge magnetic field produces electricity
5. Electricity is sent to the switchboard ( transformer) where it is regulated and sent
via on-land cables to homes.
Different types of coal
There are four major types of coal or “ranks”. Ranks refer to the slow, natural process
called “coalification”.
Anthracite: the highest rank of coal. It is a hard, brittle, black, lustrous coal, often
referred to as a hard coal. It contains a high percentage of fixed carbon and a
low percentage of volatile matter.
Bituminous: this coal has a high heating value and it is the most common used
coal in United States. Bituminous coal appears shiny and smooth when you see
it, but when you look closer you can see that it has layers.
Subbituminous: Subbituminous coal is black in color and dull ( not shiny ).
Lignite: Lignite coal, or brown coal, it is the lowest grade coal with the least
concentration of carbon.
Advantages and Disadvantages of using Coal
Energy
-Coal energy is a non-renewable energy it means that we cannot recreate it. The supply
of coal in the world is only limited and if we continue to consume this we may eventually
run out of this kind of energy.
- Coal energy is used to for the creation of electricity to power manufacturing or
industrial plants and also to power our appliances at home. Many manufacturing and
industrial plants used coal energy to generate electricity because coal energy is
affordable and even it’s a non-renewable energy its abundant around the world.
Advantage of Coal Energy
Its price is affordable than the other fuel resource
Its easy to burn
Has a high energy upon combustion
Coal energy is expensive it will be useful when you have it as a
business
Coal is a reliable source of energy
Coal is abundant around the world
Disadvantage of Coal Energy
Cal energy produces a large amount of carbon dioxide that
leads to climate change and global warming
Burning of coal is harmful for the environment it produces gas
emissions such as carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide that causes
pollution
It’s a non renewable resource (we cannot recreate)
Its depleting because we consume it to much
Coal mining destroys the environment specially the people who
work in the mines
Other uses of coals
Iron and steel
About 70% of steel is created using coke, a high-carbon fuel made from coal. It is
burned to melt and remove impurities from iron ore during iron and steel production.
Shampoo
The dandruff and head lice-zapping power of some shampoos is thanks to coal tar, a
thick, dark-coloured liquid produced when goal is turned into coke or coal gas fuel.
Plant fertiliser
Coal can be turned into ammonia fertiliser by breaking it into carbon monoxide and
hydrogen gas. The hydrogen mixes with nitrogen to make ammonia.
Concrete
Concrete is a building material made with cement. Coal is burned to make heat for
cement production. Waste ash from coal-fired power stations can replace cement in
concrete.
Coal is the most plentiful fuel in the fossil family and it has the longest and, perhaps, the
most varied history. Coal has been used for heating since the cave man. Archeologists
have also found evidence that the Romans in England used it in the second and third
centuries (100-200 AD).
In the 1700s, the English found that coal could produce a fuel that burned cleaner and
hotter than wood charcoal. However, it was the overwhelming need for energy to run
the new technologies invented during the Industrial Revolution that provided the real
opportunity for coal to fill Its first role as a dominant worldwide supplier of energy.
In North American, the Hopi Indians during the 1300s in what is now the U.S. Southwest
used coal for cooking, heating and to bake the pottery they made from clay. Coal was
later rediscovered in the United States by explorers in 1673. However, commercial coal
mines did not start operation until the 1740s in Virginia.
The Industrial Revolution played a major role in expanding the use of coal. During the
first half of the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution spread to the United States. Steamships
and steam-powered railroads were becoming the chief forms of transportation, and they
used coal to fuel their boilers.
In the second half of the 1800s, more uses for coal were found.
During the Civil War, weapons factories were beginning to use coal. By 1875, coke
(which is made from coal) replaced charcoal as the primary fuel for iron blast furnaces
to make steel.
The burning of coal to generate electricity is a relative newcomer in the long history of
this fossil fuel. It was in the 1880s when coal was first used to generate electricity for
homes and factories.
Long after homes were being lighted by electricity produced by coal, many of them
continued to have furnaces for heating and some had stoves for cooking that were
fueled by coal.
Today we use a lot of coal, primarily because we have a lot of it and we know where it is
in the United States. To find out more about how coal is mined....
