Pros And Cons Of Coal

The positives of coal and why we should keep it.

Bryce .W. Shelden

Hotchkiss FFA

2016

Did you know that, as of 2014 coal made up thirty-nine-point eight percent of Americas electricity supply along with twenty-seven-point four percent Natural gas, and nineteen-point five percent Nuclear energy? With renewable energy at only fourteen-point four percent. What would America do without coal? So, what is coal? Coal is a fossil fuel and is the altered remains of prehistoric vegetation and organisms that originally accumulated in swamps and peat bogs. The energy we get from coal today comes from the energy that plants absorbed from the sun millions of years ago.

What country is the biggest producer of coal? The country that produces

According to the World Coal Association, more than 6,185 million tons of hard coal was mined from coal mines around the world as of 2012. Coal mines use surface mining for coal deposits buried less than 200 feet underground. In this type of mining, giant machines remove top-soil and layers of rock to expose large beds of coal. After coal extraction, the topsoil is replaced so that the area can be reused for croplands, wildlife habitats, recreation or offices. Underground mining is another method of coal extraction that involves extracting coal that is buried several hundred feet below the surface. In underground mining, miners use elevators to travel deep into line shafts where they use machines that dig out the coal.

In the first three months of the year 2015, American coal production plummeted to the lowest levels in 35 years, in large part because the winter was so warm. And the spring brought no respite. May’s production of 50 million tons of coal represented a 28 percent decline from May 2015, according to the Energy Department. In recent days, Murray Energy, a coal giant based in Ohio, sent notices to its employees that said it could be forced to lay off 80 percent of its work force, or roughly 4,400 employees, across six states because of the widespread depression in the industry. The American coal industry, in particular, is now suffering a plague of bankruptcies. Power utilities are increasingly turning to cheap natural gas and renewable energy sources such as solar and wind to replace coal. Demand for coal from China has also cooled as its economy slows and the Chinese government tries to shift to cleaner energy sources. In recent years, Deutsche has assisted one of mining’s few durable operators, Blackhawk Mining, based in Lexington, Ky., which has been snapping up some of the best mines of bankrupt or nearly bankrupt companies such as Patriot Coal and Arch Coal. At the annual general meeting in May, Deutshe bank executives said the bank would not expand its activities in its coal sector, adding to an earlier pledge “phase out” debt and equity underwriting to companies that engage in mountaintop removal.