Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Coal is a type of fossil fuel, formed when dead plant matter decays into peat which is converted into coal by the heat and pressure of deep burial over millions of years. [2] Vast deposits of coal originate in former wetlands called coal forests that covered much of the Earth's tropical land areas during the late Carboniferous ( Pennsylvanian ...
The History of coal mining goes back thousands of years, with early mines documented in ancient China, the Roman Empire and other early historical economies. It became important in the Industrial Revolution of the 19th and 20th centuries, when it was primarily used to power steam engines, heat buildings and generate electricity.
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production.
The introduction of new technologies, such as mechanized equipment and explosives, made mining faster and more efficient. However, it also made the job even more dangerous. Coal mining disasters, such as the Harlan County mining disaster of 1976, were not uncommon and resulted in numerous fatalities.
Today, the state is ... Railroad is likely still leaking cancer-causing materials into the Reedy River from the remnants of toxic sludge created by a long-closed coal plant. And they say that the ...
Coal tar and coal tar sludges are frequently denser than water and are present in the environment as a dense non-aqueous phase liquid. In the UK, a number of former gasworks sites have been redeveloped for residential and other uses (including the Millennium Dome), being seen as prime developable land within the confines of city boundaries.
The surge of natural gas production in the U.S. has opened several doors that many didn't think were previously economically feasible: Manufacturers are reconsidering a move back to the U.S. for ...
As the wastes produced by former manufactured gas plants were persistent in nature, they often (as of 2009) still contaminate the site of former manufactured gas plants: the waste causing the most concern today is primarily coal tar (mixed long-chain aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbons, a byproduct of coal carbonization), while "blue billy" (a ...