The coal industry involves extracting and processing coal for various industrial uses, including power generation and steel production. Coal is a fossil fuel that produces carbon dioxide when burned, contributing to global warming. The industry also poses dangers to miners and the environment.
The coal industry is the worldwide group of businesses involved in the extraction and processing of coal and its subsequent uses. Coal is a naturally occurring mineral found in many locations around the world. It burns easily, so it is widely used in power generation. Coal and its byproducts have many other industrial uses, such as making steel. The coal industry is controversial in many areas due to pollution and other environmental issues.
Coal is a fossil fuel, which means it is the product of decaying organic matter that has been transformed into a fuel mineral by geological processes. These processes take millions of years, and in that time many coal deposits remain on or near the surface of the Earth. These deposits, called coal seams, were easily accessible by humans, first cultivating the exposed seams and then extracting buried coal. Coal has been burned as fuel for thousands of years. When the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century, coal was the primary fuel used for factories and machinery.
The modern coal industry includes hundreds of companies in nations around the world involved in coal mining. Coal is removed from underground seams either by strip mining, which blows giant holes in the surface of the Earth, or by shaft mining, a dangerous process that sends miners into tunnels sometimes miles deep. Once mined, coal is used in various industrial processes, including power generation. Power plants around the world burn coal to produce steam that drives turbines, producing electricity. About 40% of the world’s power was created this way as of 2011.
The coal industry also produces various other fuels, including ethanol, diesel, and a liquid fuel called coal gas. An important byproduct of coal is coke, a substance used in the production of pig iron and steel. Other by-products of coal include ammonia and coal tar, which is used in industrial, chemical and even medical applications.
Unfortunately, burning coal produces carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas believed to contribute to global warming. There are methods of producing so-called clean energy from coal, but the process of switching to these methods has been slow due to the high conversion costs of existing power plants. Other disadvantages of the coal industry include the dangers of coal mining. Many generations of miners have suffered from a condition called black lung from constant inhalation of coal dust. The highly flammable coal and coal dust also created underground fires and explosions; in April 2010, for example, 29 miners were killed by a coal mine explosion in West Virginia.
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