Coal mining
Coal mining is the process of
Coal mining has had many developments in recent years, from the early days of men tunneling, digging, and manually extracting the coal on carts to large
The coal mining industry has a long history of significant negative environmental impacts on local ecosystems, health impacts on local communities and workers, and contributes heavily to the global environmental crises, such as poor air quality and climate change. For these reasons, coal has been one of the first fossil fuels to be phased out of various parts of the global energy economy. The major coal producing countries, though, such as China, Indonesia, India and Australia, have not reached peak production, with production increases replacing falls in Europe and U.S.[1] and proposed mines under development.[2]
History
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
Compared to
By the late 20th century, coal was, for the most part, replaced in domestic as well as industrial and transportation usage by oil, natural gas or electricity produced from oil, gas, nuclear power or renewable energy sources. By 2010, coal produced over a fourth of the world's energy.[4]
Since 1890, coal mining has also been a political and social issue. Coal miners' labour andMethods of extraction
Coal extraction methods vary depending on whether the mine is an underground mine or a surface (also called an open cast) mine. Additionally, coal seam thickness and geology are factors in the selection of a mining method. The most economical method of coal extraction for surface mines is the electric shovel or drag line. The most economical form of underground mining is the long wall, which involves using two spinning drums with carbide bits that runs along sections of the coal seam. Many coals extracted from both surface and underground mines require washing in a coal preparation plant. Technical and economic feasibility are evaluated based on the following: regional geological conditions; overburden characteristics; coal seam continuity, thickness, structure, quality, and depth; strength of materials above and below the seam for roof and floor conditions; topography, especially altitude and slope; climate; land ownership as it affects the availability of land for mining and access; surface drainage patterns; groundwater conditions; availability of labor and materials; coal purchaser requirements in terms of tonnage, quality, and destination; and capital investment requirements.[7]
Surface mining and deep underground mining are the two basic methods of mining. The choice of mining method depends primarily on depth, density, overburden, and thickness of the coal seam; seams relatively close to the surface, at depths less than approximately 55 m (180 ft), are usually surface mined.[citation needed]
Coal that occurs at depths of 55 to 90 m (180 to 300 ft) are usually deep mined, but in some cases surface mining techniques can be used. For example, some western U.S. coal that occur at depths in excess of 60 m (200 ft) are mined by the open pit methods, due to thickness of the seam 20–25 metres (60–90 feet). Coals occurring below 90 m (300 ft) are usually deep mined.
Surface mining
When coal seams are near the surface, it may be economical to extract the coal using open-cut, also referred to as open-cast, open-pit, mountaintop removal or strip, mining methods. Opencast coal mining recovers a greater proportion of the coal deposit than underground methods, as more of the coal seams in the strata may be exploited. This equipment can include the following: Draglines which operate by removing the overburden, power shovels, large trucks in which transport overburden and coal, bucket wheel excavators, and conveyors. In this mining method, explosives are first used in order to break through the surface or overburden, of the mining area. The overburden is then removed by draglines or by shovel and truck. Once the coal seam is exposed, it is drilled, fractured and thoroughly mined in strips. The coal is then loaded onto large trucks or conveyors for transport to either the coal preparation plant or directly to where it will be used.[9]
Most open cast mines in the United States extract
Strip mining
Strip mining exposes coal by removing earth above each coal seam. This earth to be removed is referred to as 'overburden' and is removed in long strips.[10] The overburden from the first strip is deposited in an area outside the planned mining area and referred to as out-of-pit dumping. Overburden from subsequent strips is deposited in the void left from mining the coal and overburden from the previous strip. This is referred to as in-pit dumping.[citation needed]
It is often necessary to fragment the overburden by use of explosives. This is accomplished by drilling holes into the overburden, filling the holes with explosives, and detonating the explosive. The overburden is then removed, using large earth-moving equipment, such as
and conveyors. This overburden is put into the previously mined (and now empty) strip. When all the overburden is removed, the underlying coal seam will be exposed (a 'block' of coal). This block of coal may be drilled and blasted (if hard) or otherwise loaded onto trucks or conveyors for transport to the coal preparation (or wash) plant. Once this strip is empty of coal, the process is repeated with a new strip being created next to it. This method is most suitable for areas with flat terrain.[citation needed]Equipment to be used depends on geological conditions. For example, to remove overburden that is loose or unconsolidated, a bucket wheel excavator might be the most productive. The life of some area mines may be more than 50 years.[11]
Contour mining
The contour mining method consists of removing overburden from the seam in a pattern following the contours along a ridge or around the hillside. This method is most commonly used in areas with rolling to steep terrain. It was once common to deposit the spoil on the downslope side of the bench thus created, but this method of spoil disposal consumed much additional land and created severe landslide and erosion problems. To alleviate these problems, a variety of methods were devised to use freshly cut overburden to refill mined-out areas. These haul-back or lateral movement methods generally consist of an initial cut with the spoil deposited downslope or at some other site and spoil from the second cut refilling the first. A ridge of undisturbed natural material 15 to 20 ft (5 to 6 m) wide is often intentionally left at the outer edge of the mined area. This barrier adds stability to the reclaimed slope by preventing spoil from slumping or sliding downhill.[citation needed]
The limitations of contour strip mining are both economic and technical. When the operation reaches a predetermined stripping ratio (tons of overburden/tons of coal), it is not profitable to continue. Depending on the equipment available, it may not be technically feasible to exceed a certain height of highwall. At this point, it is possible to produce more coal with the augering method in which spiral drills bore tunnels into a highwall laterally from the bench to extract coal without removing the overburden.[citation needed]
Mountaintop removal mining
Mountaintop coal mining is a surface mining practice involving removal of mountaintops to expose coal seams, and disposing of associated mining overburden in adjacent "valley fills." Valley fills occur in steep terrain where there are limited disposal alternatives.[citation needed]
Mountaintop removal mining combines area and contour strip mining methods. In areas with rolling or steep terrain with a coal seam occurring near the top of a ridge or hill, the entire top is removed in a series of parallel cuts. Overburden is deposited in nearby valleys and hollows. This method usually leaves the ridge and hilltops as flattened plateaus.[8] The process is highly controversial for the drastic changes in topography, the practice of creating head-of-hollow-fills, or filling in valleys with mining debris, and for covering streams and disrupting ecosystems.[12][13]
Spoil is placed at the head of a narrow, steep-sided valley or hollow. In preparation for filling this area, vegetation and soil are removed and a rock drain constructed down the middle of the area to be filled, where a natural drainage course previously existed. When the fill is completed, this underdrain will form a continuous water runoff system from the upper end of the valley to the lower end of the fill. Typical head-of-hollow fills are graded and terraced to create permanently stable slopes.[11]
Underground mining
Most coal seams are too deep underground for opencast mining and require underground mining, a method that currently accounts for about 60 percent of world coal production.
Modern pillar sections use remote-controlled equipment, including large hydraulic mobile roof-supports, which can prevent cave-ins until the miners and their equipment have left a work area. The mobile roof supports are similar to a large dining-room table, but with hydraulic jacks for legs. After the large pillars of coal have been mined away, the mobile roof support's legs shorten and it is withdrawn to a safe area. The mine roof typically collapses once the mobile roof supports leave an area.[citation needed]
There are six principal methods of underground mining:
- Longwall mining accounts for about 50 percent of underground production. The longwall shearer has a face of 1,000 feet (300 m) or more. It is a sophisticated machine with a rotating drum that moves mechanically back and forth across a wide coal seam. The loosened coal falls onto an armored chain conveyor or pan line that takes the coal to the conveyor belt for removal from the work area. Longwall systems have their own hydraulic roof supports which advance with the machine as mining progresses. As the longwall mining equipment moves forward, overlying rock that is no longer supported by coal is allowed to fall behind the operation in a controlled manner. The supports make possible high levels of production and safety. Sensors detect how much coal remains in the seam while robotic controls enhance efficiency. Longwall systems allow a 60-to-100 percent coal recovery rate when surrounding geology allows their use. Once the coal is removed, usually 75 percent of the section, the roof is allowed to collapse in a safe manner.[9]
- Continuous mining utilizes a continuous miner machine with a large rotating steel drum equipped with tungsten carbide picks that scrape coal from the seam. Operating in a "room and pillar", also known as "bord and pillar" system, where the mine is divided into a series of 20-to-30-foot (5–10 m) "rooms" or work areas cut into the coalbed—it can mine as much as 14 tons of coal a minute, more than a non-mechanised mine of the 1920s would produce in an entire day. Continuous miners account for about 45 percent of underground coal production. Conveyors transport the removed coal from the seam. Remote-controlled continuous miners are used to work in a variety of difficult seams and conditions, and robotic versions controlled by computers are becoming increasingly common. Continuous mining is a misnomer, as room and pillar coal mining is very cyclical. In the US, one can generally cut up to around 20 feet (6 meters). This may be increased with MSHA permission. In South Africa, the limit may be as high as 12 metres (39 ft). After the cutting limit is reached, the continuous miner assembly is removed and the roof is supported by the use of a roof bolter, after which the face has to be serviced before it can be advanced again. During servicing, the "continuous" miner moves to another face. Some continuous miners can bolt and rock dust the face, two major components of servicing, while cutting coal, while a trained crew may be able to advance ventilation, to truly earn the "continuous" label. However, very few mines are able to achieve it. Most continuous mining machines in use in the US lack the ability to bolt and dust. This may partly be because the incorporation of bolting makes the machines wider, and therefore, less maneuverable.[citation needed]
- Room and pillar mining consists of coal deposits that are mined by cutting a network of rooms into the coal seam. Pillars of coal are left behind in order to keep up the roof. The pillars can make up to forty percent of the total coal in the seam, however, where there was space to leave the head and floor coal there is evidence from recent open cast excavations that 18th-century operators used a variety of room and pillar techniques to remove 92 percent of the in situ coal. However, this can be extracted at a later stage (see retreat mining).[9]
- Blast mining or conventional mining, is an older practice that uses explosives such as dynamite to break up the coal seam, after which the coal is gathered and loaded onto shuttle cars or conveyors for removal to a central loading area. This process consists of a series of operations that begins with "cutting" the coalbed so it will break easily when blasted with explosives. This type of mining accounts for less than 5 percent of total underground production in the US today.[citation needed]
- Retreat mining is a method in which the pillars or coal ribs used to hold up the mine roof are extracted; allowing the mine roof to collapse as the mining works back towards the entrance. This is one of the most dangerous forms of mining, owing to imperfect predictability of when the roof will collapse and possibly crush or trap workers in the mine.[citation needed]
Production
Coal is mined commercially in over 50 countries. 7,921 million metric tons (Mt) of coal were produced in 2019, a 70% increase over the 20 years since 1999. In 2018, the world production of
Coal production has grown fastest in Asia, while Europe has declined. Since 2011, world coal production has been stable, with decreases in Europe and US offset by increases from China, Indonesia and Australia.[15] The top coal mining nations are:
Country | Production[16] |
---|---|
China
|
3,692 Mt |
India | 745 Mt |
United States | 640 Mt |
Indonesia | 585 Mt |
Australia | 500 Mt |
Russia | 425 Mt |
South Africa | 264 Mt |
Germany | 132 Mt |
Kazakhstan | 117 Mt |
Poland | 112 Mt |
Economic impact
Energy production from coal mining is highly concentrated in certain jurisdictions, which also concentrates much of the social and economic impacts of the industry to these regions.[17] The industry directly employs over seven million workers worldwide, which, in turn, creates millions of indirect jobs.[17]
In several parts of the world, producers have reached peak coal as some economies shift away from fossil fuels to address climate change. A 2020 study found that renewables jobs could feasibly be created in these geographies to replace many of the coal mining jobs as part of a just transition; however, renewable energy was not suitable in some of the geographies with high concentrations of miners, such as in China, which is far and away the leading coal-mining nation.[17]
2018 coal production, reserves, miners, and major coal-producing regions for China, India, the United States, and Australia, which account for approximately 70% of global annual coal production. The following table includes jurisdictions which are the top coal-producing provinces and states, responsible for over 85% of each country's coal production.[18] | |||||
Country | Coal production (million tonnes) | Coal reserves (million tonnes) | Coal miners (thousands) | Top producing provinces or states | % of national production covered |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
China | 3349 | 138,819 | 6110 | Shanxi, Shaanxi, Anhui, Heilongjiang, Xinjiang, Shandong, Henan, Guizhou | 90% |
India
|
717 | 97,728 | 485 | Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana
|
85% |
United States | 701 | 250,916 | 52 | Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Montana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming | 90% |
Australia | 478 | 144,818 | 50 | Victoria, Australia
|
99% |
Waste and refuse
Piles of coal refuse can have significant negative environmental consequences, including the leaching of iron, manganese, and aluminum residues into waterways and acid mine drainage.[21] The runoff can create both surface and groundwater contamination.[22] The piles also create a fire hazard, with the potential to spontaneously ignite. Because most coal refuse harbors toxic components, it is not easily reclaimed by replanting with plants like beach grasses.[23][24]
Gob (short for "garbage of bituminous"[25]) has about four times as much toxic mercury and more sulfur than typical coal.[19] Culm is the term for waste anthracite coal.[19]Disasters
Modern mining
The use of sophisticated sensing equipment to monitor air quality is common and has replaced the use of small animals such as canaries, often referred to as "
In the United States, the increase in technology has significantly decreased the mining workforce. in 2015 US coal mines had 65,971 employees, the lowest figure since EIA began collecting data in 1978.[27] However, a 2016 study reported that a relatively minor investment would allow most coal workers to retrain for the solar energy industry.[28]
Safety
Dangers to miners
Coal mining has been a very dangerous activity and the list of historical coal
Open cut hazards are principally mine wall failures and vehicle collisions; underground mining hazards include suffocation, gas poisoning, roof collapse, rock burst, outbursts, and gas explosions.[citation needed]
Firedamp explosions can trigger the far more dangerous coal dust explosions, which can engulf an entire mine. Most of these risks are greatly reduced in modern mines, and multiple fatality incidents are now rare in most parts of the developed world. Modern coal mining in the US has an average 23 deaths per year due to mine accidents (2001–2020).[30][31] However, in lesser developed countries and some developing countries, many miners continue to die annually, either through direct accidents in coal mines or through adverse health consequences from working under poor conditions. China, in particular, has the highest number of coal mining related deaths in the world, with official statistics claiming that 6,027 deaths occurred in 2004.[32] To compare, 28 deaths were reported in the U.S. in the same year.[33] Coal production in China is twice that in the US,[34] while the number of coal miners is around 50 times that of the US, making deaths in coal mines in China 4 times as common per worker (108 times as common per unit output) as in the US.[citation needed]
Mine disasters have still occurred in recent years in the U.S.,[35] Examples include the Sago Mine disaster of 2006, and the 2007 mine accident in Utah's Crandall Canyon Mine, where nine miners were killed and six entombed.[36] In the decade 2005–2014, US coal mining fatalities averaged 28 per year.[37] The most fatalities during the 2005–2014 decade were 48 in 2010, the year of the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in West Virginia, which killed 29 miners.[38]
Chronic lung diseases, such as pneumoconiosis (black lung) were once common in miners, leading to reduced life expectancy. In some mining countries black lung is still common, with 4,000 new cases of black lung every year in the US (4 percent of workers annually) and 10,000 new cases every year in China (0.2 percent of workers).[39] The use of water sprays in mining equipment reduces the risk to miners' lungs.[40]
Damps
Build-ups of a hazardous gas are known as damps, possibly from the German word Dampf which means steam or vapor:
- Black damp: a mixture of carbon dioxide and nitrogen in a mine can cause suffocation, and is formed as a result of corrosion in enclosed spaces so removing oxygen from the atmosphere.[41]
- After damp: similar to black damp, after damp consists of carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and nitrogen and forms after a mine explosion.
- asphyxiation.
- Stink damp: so named for the rotten egg smell of the hydrogen sulfide gas, stink damp can explode and is also very toxic.
- White damp: air containing carbon monoxide which is toxic, even at low concentrations
- A heavy curtain used to direct air currents in mines and prevent the buildup of dangerous gases is known as a damp sheet.
Noise
Noise is also a contributing factor to potential adverse effects on coal miners' health. Exposure to excessive noise can lead to noise-induced hearing loss. Hearing loss developed as a result of occupational exposures is coined occupational hearing loss. To protect miners' hearing, the US Mine Safety and Health Administration's (MSHA) guidelines for noise place a Permissible Exposure Limit (PEL) for noise at 90 dBA time-weighted over 8 hours. A lower cutoff, 85 dBA, is set for a worker to fall into the MSHA Action Level which dictates that workers be placed into hearing conservation programs.[citation needed]
Noise exposures vary depending on the method of extraction. For example, a study has found that among surface coal mine operations, dragline equipment produced the loudest sound at a range of 88–112 dBA.[42] Within longwall sections, stageloaders used to transport coal from the mining face and shearers used for extraction represent some of the highest noise exposures. Auxiliary fans (up to 120 dBA), continuous mining machines (up to 109 dBA), and roof bolters (up to 103 dBA) represent some of the noisiest equipment within continuous mining sections.[43] Exposures to noise exceeding 90 dBA can lead to adverse effects on workers' hearing. The use of administrative controls and engineering controls can be used to reduce noise exposures.[citation needed]
Safety improvements
Improvements in mining methods (e.g. longwall mining), hazardous gas monitoring (such as
Health and environmental impacts
The
There are severe health effects caused by burning coal.
Coal mining by country
Top 10 hard and brown coal producers in 2012 were (in million metric tons):
Australia
Coal has been mined in every state of Australia, but mainly in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. It is mostly used to generate electricity, and 75% of annual coal production is exported, mostly to eastern Asia.
In 2007, 428 million tonnes of coal was mined in Australia.[57] In 2007, coal provided about 85% of Australia's electricity production.[58] In the fiscal year 2008/09, 487 million tonnes of coal was mined, and 261 million tonnes was exported.[59] In the fiscal year 2013/14, 430.9 million tonnes of coal was mined, and 375.1 million tonnes was exported.[60] In 2013/14, coal provided about 69% of Australia's electricity production.[61]
In 2013, Australia was the world's fifth-largest coal producer, after China, the United States, India, and Indonesia. However, in terms of proportion of production exported, Australia is the world's second largest coal exporter, as it exports roughly 73% of its coal production. Indonesia exports about 87% of its coal production.[61]
A court in Australia has cited climate change in ruling against a new coal mine.[62]
Canada
Canada was ranked as the
The first coal mines in North America were located in Joggins and Port Morien, Nova Scotia, mined by French settlers beginning in the late 1600s. The coal was used for the British garrison at Annapolis Royal, and in the construction of the Fortress of Louisbourg.[citation needed]
Chile
Compared to other South American countries Chile has limited coal resources. Only Argentina is similarly poor.[64] Coal in Chile is mostly sub-bituminous with the exception of the bituminous coals of the Arauco Basin in central Chile.[65]
China
Colombia
Some of the world's largest coal reserves are located in South America, and an opencast mine at
The expansion of the Cerrejón mine has been blamed for the forced displacement of local communities.[67][68]
Germany
Coal mining reached its peak in the first half of the 20th century. After 1950, the coal producers started to struggle financially. In 1975, a subsidy was introduced (Kohlepfennig, coal penny as part of the electricity bill), which was discontinued in the 1990s. In 2007, due to EU regulations, the Bundestag decided to end subsidies by 2018. As a consequence, RAG AG, the owner of the two remaining coal mines in Germany, Prosper Haniel and Ibbenbüren, announced it would close all mines by 2018, thus ended underground coal mining in Germany.
Open pit lignite mining for electricity continues in Nordrhein-Westfalen, and in the eastern states of Brandenburg, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.
Greece
Lignite has been mined in Greece since 1873, and today supplies approximately 75% of the country's energy. The main mining areas are located in Western Macedonia (Ptolemaida) and the Peloponnese (Megalopolis).[71]
India
Coal mining in India has a long history of commercial exploitation starting in 1774 with John Sumner and Suetonius Grant Heatly of the East India Company in the Raniganj Coalfield along the Western bank of Damodar River. Demand for coal remained low until the introduction of steam locomotives in 1853. After this, production rose to an annual average of 1 Mt and India produced 6.12 Mt per year by 1900 and 18 Mt per year by 1920, following increased demand in the First World War, but went through a slump in the early thirties. The production reached a level of 29 Mt by 1942 and 30 Mt by 1946. After independence, the country embarked upon five-year development plans. At the beginning of the 1st Plan, annual production went up to 33 Mt. During the 1st Plan period, the need for increasing coal production efficiently by systematic and scientific development of the coal industry was being felt. Setting up the National Coal Development Corporation (NCDC), a Government of India undertaking, in 1956 with the collieries owned by the railways as its nucleus was the first major step towards planned development of Indian Coal Industry. Along with the Singareni Collieries Company Ltd. (SCCL) which was already in operation since 1945 and which became a government company under the control of Government of Andhra Pradesh in 1956, India thus had two Government coal companies in the fifties. SCCL is now a joint undertaking of Government of Telangana and Government of India.[citation needed]
Japan
The richest Japanese coal deposits have been found on Hokkaido and Kyushu.
Japan has a long history of coal mining dating back into the Japanese Middle Ages. It is said that coal was first discovered in 1469 by a farming couple near Ōmuta, central Kyushu.[72] In 1478, farmers discovered burning stones in the north of the island, which led to the exploitation of the Chikuhõ coalfield.[73]
Following Japanese industrialization, additional coalfields were discovered in northern Japan. One of the first mines in Hokkaido was the Hokutan Horonai coal mine.[74]
New Zealand
Poland
Coal in Poland is partly mined and partly imported. 144 million metric tons of coal was mined in 2012, providing 55 percent of that country's primary energy consumption. Poland is the second-largest coal-mining country in Europe, after Germany, and the ninth-largest coal producer in the world. The country consumes nearly all the coal it mines, and is no longer a major coal exporter.[82]
Coal mines are concentrated mainly in Upper Silesia. The most profitable mines were Marcel Coal Mine and Zofiówka Coal Mine. In communist times (1945-1989) one of the most important and largest mines was 1 Maja Coal Mine.
In 2020, coal played a significant role in Poland's
In 2023 over 60% of Poland's electricity was generated from coal.[84] However extraction is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive, and has become uncompetitive against Russian imports, which are cheaper and of higher quality.[85] The industry now relies on government subsidies, taking nearly all of the annual €1.6 billion government energy sector support. In September 2020, the government and mining union agreed a plan to phase out coal by 2049,[86] but this has been criticised by environmentalists as too late to be compatible with the Paris Agreement to limit climate change.[87]
As of early 2022, Poland imported roughly a fifth of its coal, with 75% of these imports coming from Russia.Russia
Russia ranked as the fifth largest coal producing country in 2010, with a total production of 316.9 Mt. Russia has the world's second largest coal reserves.[93] Although Russian oil and gas exports get a lot more attention, Russia is the world's third largest coal exporter and these exports are an important source of foreign revenue and are important for the coal mining communities.[94] Russia and Norway share the coal resources of the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, under the Svalbard Treaty.[citation needed]
Spain
Spain was ranked as the 30th coal producing country in the world in 2010. The coal miners of Spain were active in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. In October 1934, in Asturias, union miners and others suffered a fifteen-day siege in Oviedo and Gijon. There is a museum dedicated to coal mining in the region of Catalonia, called Cercs Mine Museum.[citation needed]
In October 2018, the
South Africa
South Africa is one of the ten largest coal producing countries[96][97] and the fourth largest coal exporting country[98] in the world.
Taiwan
In Taiwan, coal is distributed mainly in the northern area. All of the commercial coal deposits occurred in three Miocene coal-bearing formations, which are the Upper, the Middle, and the Lower Coal Measures. The Middle Coal Measures was the most important with its wide distribution, great number of coal beds and extensive potential reserves. Taiwan has coal reserves estimated to be 100–180 Mt. However, coal output had been small, amounting to 6,948 metric tonnes per month from 4 pits before it ceased production effectively in 2000.[99]
The abandoned coal mine in
Turkey
Ukraine
In 2012 coal production in Ukraine amounted to 85.946 million tonnes, up 4.8% from 2011.[113] Coal consumption that same year grew to 61.207 million tonnes, up 6.2% compared with 2011.[113]
More than 90 percent of Ukraine's coal production comes from the
United Kingdom
Coal mining in the United Kingdom dates back to Roman times and occurred in many different parts of the country. Britain's coalfields are associated with Northumberland and Durham, North and South Wales, Yorkshire, the Scottish Central Belt, Lancashire, Cumbria, the East and West Midlands and Kent. After 1972, coal mining quickly collapsed and had practically disappeared by the 21st century.[118] The consumption of coal—mostly for electricity—fell from 157 million tonnes in 1970 to 18 million tonnes in 2016, of which 77% (14 million tonnes) was imported from Colombia, Russia, and the United States.[119] Employment in coal mines fell from a peak of 1,191,000 in 1920 to 695,000 in 1956, 247,000 in 1976, 44,000 in 1993, 2,000 in 2015, and to 360 in 2022.[120]
Almost all onshore coal resources in the UK occur in rocks of the Carboniferous period, some of which extend under the North Sea. Bituminous coal is present in most of Britain's coalfields and is 86% to 88% carbon. In Northern Ireland, there are extensive deposits of lignite which is less energy-dense based on oxidation (combustion) at ordinary combustion temperatures (i.e. for the oxidation of carbon – see fossil fuels).[121]
The last deep coal mine in the UK closed on 18 December 2015. Twenty-sixUnited States
Coal began being mined in the United States in the early 18th century, and commercial mining started around 1730 in Midlothian, Virginia.[128] The U.S. share of world coal production remained steady at about 20 percent from 1980 to 2005, at about 1 billion
In 2011, former U.S. president Barack Obama said that the U.S. should rely more on cleaner sources of energy that emit lower or no carbon dioxide pollution.[130] For a time, while domestic coal consumption for electric power was being displaced by natural gas, exports grew.[131] U.S. net coal exports increased ninefold from 2006 to 2012, peaked at 117 million short tons in 2012, then declined to 63 million tons in 2015. In 2015, 60% of net US exports went to Europe, 27% to Asia. US coal production increasingly comes from strip mines in the western United States, such as from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and Montana.[10][132]
Coal has come under continued price pressure from
A 2019 projection by the Energy Information Administration estimated that coal production without CPP would decline over coming decades at a faster rate than indicated in the agency's 2017 projection, which had assumed the CPP was in effect.[136]
See also
- Black lung disease
- George Bretz (photographer)
- Child labour
- Coal Measures
- Coal mining in Plymouth, Pennsylvania
- Coal slurry impoundment
- Coal train
- Coal-mining region
- Environmental impact of the coal industry
- Environmental justice and coal mining in Appalachia
- Hurrying
- List of books about coal mining
- Mine fire
- Mining accident
- Problems in coal mining
- Recovering of heat from old coal mines
References
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- ^ a b Ryan Driskell Tate, "Places of Overburden: Strip Mining and Reclamation on the Northern Great Plains," The Greater Plains: Rethinking a Region's Environmental Histories (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2021).
- ^ a b U.S. Department of the Interior, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (1987). Surface coal mining reclamation: 10 years of progress, 1977–1987. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
- ^ "Mountain Justice Summer – What is Mountain Top Removal Mining?". 29 October 2005. Archived from the original on 29 October 2005.
- ^ U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Philadelphia, PA (2005). "Mountaintop mining/valley fills in Appalachia: Final programmatic environmental impact statement."
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{{cite web}}
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Further reading
- Baylies, Carolyn. History of the Yorkshire Miners 1881–1918 (Routledge, 2003) in England online.
- Chirons, Nicholas P. Coal Age Handbook of Coal Surface Mining (ISBN 0-07-011458-7)
- Department of Trade and Industry, UK. "The Coal Authority". Archived from the original on 13 October 2008. Retrieved 16 October 2007.
- Faull, Margaret L. "Coal mining and the landscape of England, 1700 to the present day." Landscape History 30.1 (2008): 59–74.
- Gardner, A. Dudley. Forgotten frontier: A history of Wyoming coal mining (Routledge, 2019) online.
- Goin, Peter, and Elizabeth Raymond. "Living in anthracite: Mining landscape and sense of place in Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania." Public Historian 23.2 (2001): 29–45. online
- Hamilton, Michael S. Mining Environmental Policy: Comparing Indonesia and the USA (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005). (ISBN 0-7546-4493-6).
- Hinde, John Roderick. When coal was king: Ladysmith and the coal-mining industry on Vancouver Island (2003), in Canada online
- Kuenzer, Claudia. Coal Mining in China (In: Schumacher-Voelker, E., and Mueller, B., (Eds.), BusinessFocus China, Energy: A Comprehensive Overview of the Chinese Energy Sector ( Deutschland Verlag, 2007); 281 pp., ISBN 978-3-940114-00-6pp. 62–68)
- Latzko, David A. "Coal mining and regional economic development in Pennsylvania, 1810–1980." Economies et Sociétés 44 (2011): 1627–1649. online Archived 28 May 2023 at the Wayback Machine
- Lovejoy, Owen R. "The coal mines of Pennsylvania." The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 38.1_suppl (1911): 133–138. online
- Madsen, Peter M. "These lives will not be lost in vain: Organizational learning from disaster in US coal mining." Organization Science 20.5 (2009): 861–875.
- Merrill, Travers, and Lucy Kitson. End of Coal Mining in South Wales: Lessons learned from industrial transformation. (International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2017) online
- Metheny, Karen Bescherer. From the miners' doublehouse: archaeology and landscape in a Pennsylvania coal company town (Univ. of Tennessee Press, 2007) online.
- Mitchell, Brian R. Economic development of the British coal industry 1800–1914 (Cambridge UP, 1984). online
- Nielsen, Charles V., and George F. Richardson. 1982 Keystone Coal Industry Manual (1982)
- Oei, Pao-Yu, Hanna Brauers, and Philipp Herpich. "Lessons from Germany’s hard coal mining phase-out: policies and transition from 1950 to 2018." Climate Policy 20.8 (2020): 963–979. online
- Srivastava, A.K. Coal Mining Industry in India (1998) (ISBN 81-7100-076-2)
- Stern, Gerald M. The Buffalo Creek Disaster: How the survivors of one of the worst disasters in coal-mining history brought suit against the coal company—and won (Vintage, 2008) online.
- Woytinsky, W. S., and E. S. Woytinsky. World Population and Production Trends and Outlooks (1953) pp. 840–881; with many tables and maps on the worldwide coal industry in 1950
Child labour
- Kirby, Peter Thomas. "Aspects of the employment of children in the British coal-mining industry, 1800–1872" (PhD. Diss. University of Sheffield, 1995) online.
- Lovejoy, Owen R. "Child labor in the coal mines." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 27.2 (1906): 35–41. online
- McGill, Nettie Pauline. The welfare of children in bituminous coal mining communities in West Virginia (US Government Printing Office, 1923) online.
- McIntosh, Robert. Boys in the pits: child labour in coal mines (McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2000) in Canada; online.
Older textbooks
- Burns, Daniel. The modern practice of coal mining (1907)
- Hughes. Herbert W, A Text-Book of Mining: For the use of colliery managers and others (London, many editions 1892–1917), the standard British textbook for its era.
- Tonge, James. The principles and practice of coal mining (1906)
Fiction
- Grisham, John. "Gray Mountain" (2014), novel set in Appalachia about a fictional legal clinic intern in Virginia coal mining
- Zola, Émile, Germinal (novel, 1885); realistic story of a coalminers' strike in northern France in the 1860s
Government documents and primary sources
- Illinois Dept. of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. Coal mining in Illinois 2010 (2010) online
- Kowalski-Trakofler, K. M., et al. "Underground coal mining disasters and fatalities—United States, 1900–2006." (2009). online
- National Energy Information Center. "Greenhouse Gases, Climate Change, Energy". Retrieved 16 October 2007.
- U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources. MINING IN AMERICA: POWDER RIVER BASIN COAL MINING, THE BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES (2013) online
External links
- Glossary of Mining Terms
- Global Coal Mine Tracker, Global Energy Monitor
- Coal Mine exploration and preservation
- Abandoned Mine Research
- Methods of mining – overview and graphic of coal mining methods
- Coal Mining in the British Isles (Northern Mine Research Society)
- National Coal Mining Museum for England
- NIOSH Coal Workers' Health Surveillance Program
- Purdue University – Petroleum and Coal
- University of Wollongong – educational resource on longwall mining
- Virtual coalmine Archived 27 September 2019 at the Wayback Machine – visual e-learning source with comprehensive display of long-wall face
- World Coal Institute – Coal Mining Archived 7 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine