Continuing Use of Coal

The reasons for allocating the shortage to the electricity is two-fold. First, electricity generation did not face international, non-EU competition as did the products of many of the industrial installations. As noted in the comment from Christine Cros (see Box 13.3), all governments were in a quandary concerning their climate change policy commitment and the feared competitive effects of that commitment. Second, power plants are commonly believed to have the ability to abate emissions at less cost than others, typically by switching to natural gas instead of the continued use of coal. 

We still manage to pollute the atmosphere and environment by the continual use of coal and petrochemicals as our main sources of energy. The impact of mercury in natural gas has been such that there have been at least six experiences of plant failure which have been traced to corrosion due to mercury attacks on aluminium rotors in the plant fabric. The six experiences of plant failure have had significant financial impact on the petrochemical companies. Since very... 

The prognosis for the continued use of coal is good. Projections that the era of fossil fuels (gas, petroleum, and coal) will be almost over when the cumulative production of the fossil resources reaches 85% of their initial total reserves (Hubbert, 1969) may or may not have some merit. In fact. 

Moreover, viable clean coal technologies also promote the continued use of coal, thereby offering some degree of energy security to those countries that are net oil importers but having plentiful supplies of coal. Clean coal combustion technologies can reduce emissions of sulfur oxides (SO), nitrogen oxides (NO), and other pollutants at various points of coal use from a mine to a power plant or factory. 

Coal is used ia industry both as a fuel and ia much lower volume as a source of chemicals. In this respect it is like petroleum and natural gas whose consumption also is heavily dominated by fuel use. Coal was once the principal feedstock for chemical production, but ia the 1950s it became more economical to obtain most industrial chemicals from petroleum and gas. Nevertheless, certain chemicals continue to be obtained from coal by traditional routes, and an interest in coal-based chemicals has been maintained in academic and industrial research laboratories. Much of the recent activity in coal conversion has been focused on production of synthetic fuels, but significant progress also has been made on use of coal as a chemical feedstock (see Coal CONVERSION processes). 

Trends in commercial fuel, eg, fossd fuel, hydroelectric power, nuclear power, production and consumption in the United States and in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, are shown in Tables 2 and 3. These trends indicate (6,13) (/) a significant resurgence in the production and use of coal throughout the U.S. economy (2) a continued decline in the domestic U.S. production of cmde oil and natural gas lea ding to increased imports of these hydrocarbons (qv) and (J) a continued trend of energy conservation, expressed in terms of energy consumed per... 

Quite often, a variation of a proximate analysis or an ultimate analysis is requested, together with one or more of the miscellaneous analyses or tests discussed in this chapter. Restrictions that have been placed on the coal used in coal-fired power plants and other coal-burning facilities have created a need for more coal analyses as well as a need for more accurate and faster methods of analysis. This trend will continue, and more testing will be required with increased use of coal in liquefaction and gasification plants. 

A number of illustrations have been given to support the statement that electrochemical mechanisms are relevant to many fields of science. The nineteenth century contributed to physics the theory of electromagnetism. The twentieth century contributed to physics the relativistic theory and the quantum theory. In the twenty-first century, it seems reasonable to assume that the major preoccupations will be in the direction of working out how we can make a sustainable world that continues to have an abundant supply of energy, and that does not suffocate in its own refuse or become too hot to live on because of the continued use of oil and coal as fuels. 

No matter what the eventual dominant fuel in a scenario, there is a shift away from noncommercial and mostly unsustainable uses of biomass, and direct uses of coal virtually disappear. Fossil sources continue to provide most of the world s energy well into the next century but to a varying extent across the scenario. Sustainable uses of renewables come to hold a prominent place in all scenarios. 

Another impetus to develop such processes is the desire of the U.S. Department of the Interior to ensure the continued utilization of coal. As our most abundant fossil fuel, it represents about 85% of the fuel reserves of this country. With the advent of nuclear technology and the pollution problems associated with burning sulfur-bearing coal in conventional power plants, much of this market will be lost to the atom. The continued use of this vast energy source will depend upon the ability to convert it into more versatile and desirable fuels. 

Oil shales occur worldwide, span geologic time from Cambrian to present, and were deposited principally in large freshwater lakes (lacustrine environment), shallow seas and continental shelves (marine environment), and in small lakes, bogs and lagoons associated with coal-producing swamps (paludal environment). Oil shale deposits occur in at least SO countries and the estimated world supply of potential oil from shale is S X 10 barrels. Shale oil industries in Scotland, Australia, France, Russia and China have been active since about 1860. In Australia, France and Scotland oil shales have been the source of products similar to that obtained from petroleum. However, the discovery of petroleum in the United States in 1859, and elsewhere soon after, sound the death knell for the economic production of shale oil and the situation remains much the same today. Limited, but continued use of oil shale as an energy resource has been made since about 1909 in China and 1916 in Rus. In Brazil, a pilot plant has been in operation since 1982 and has produced over a million barrels of ale oil. Oil shale is used for some power generation in Israel, and in Australia a new oil shale demonstration plant has been scheduled for construction in the near future. 

In coal lane tunneling, with continuous improvement of coal mining mechanization level, digging machines are widely used. This reduces labor intensity and improves driving efficiency. But in high outburst mine, because of high gas effusion intensity and easily overrun, the use of dig-... 

The production of smokeless fuel briquettes, both for domestic and industrial use, from bituminous coal using a binder is an old art and there are several commercial processes available (Franke, 1930 Haake and Meyer, 1930 Rhys Jones, 1963 Schinzel, 1981 Perlack et al., 1986). But the increasing use of petroleum, gas, and electricity for heating purposes and the reduction in the number of individual heating plants have caused a reduction in the use of coal briquettes. In spite of this, and contradictory as it may seem, the increased use of petroleum has been of some value to the briquetting industry. During the last 20 years the intense competition from petroleum products, as well as an increase in demand by consumers for briquette quality, led to automation of the production of briquettes and a continuous improvement in quality. 

Any continuing use of fossil fuels should use clean and efficient technology. Power-stations generating electricity from coal and oil (fossil fuel) release a lot of CO2 in the generating process. New-build power-stations must now be fitted with carbon capture filters to reduce the bad environmental effects. 

The use of coal tar pitch and/or bitumen in BURs has declined with the introduction of modified, petroleum-derived asphalt heated to 480 F as a sealer. The asphalts have several advantages over coal tar pitch, not the least of which relates to the reduction in skin irritation. Although asphalt possesses similar flow characteristics to pitch, it does not possess the same level of resistance to ponded water therefore, coal tars continue to be used, especially as a priming layer over the roofing felt. Nowadays, most coal tar pitch is so-called type-III bitumen, low fuming , no-burn coal tar derivative, which contains reduced amounts of irritants. 

---