EROEI.COM

Coal

COAL: The Hot Little Black Rock

(beta - no graphics yet)

(You are at Part 3 of The Energy Chain, if you would like to start at the beginning part, click here.)

WHAT is COAL?

Coal is a combustible, sedimentary, organic rock (composed primarily of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen) formed from vegetation, which has been consolidated between other rock strata to form coal seams, and altered by the combined effects of microbial action, pressure and heat over a considerable time period.

TYPES of COAL

The degree of 'metamorphism' or coalification undergone by a coal, as it matures from peat to anthracite, has an important bearing on its physical and chemical properties, and is referred to as the 'rank' of the coal. Low rank coals, such as lignite and sub-bituminous coals, are typically softer, friable materials with a dull, earthy appearance; they are characterised by high moisture levels and a low carbon content, and hence a low energy content. Higher rank coals are typically harder and stronger and often have a black vitreous lustre. Increasing rank is accompanied by a rise in the carbon and energy contents and a decrease in the moisture content of the coal. Anthracite is at the top of the rank scale and has a correspondingly higher carbon and energy content and a lower level of moisture.

(from Coal - Power for Progress - Fourth Edition (January 1999), World Coal Institute, www.wci-coal.com)

[click to enlarge]

Long before Loretta Lynn became a Coal Miner's Daughter, mankind had been keeping warm with this "fire rock" found in outcroppings and washed up on beaches. Of all the fossil fuels, coal is the most abundant. Records show that coal was traded and used as early as the Roman Empire and in China for more than 4,000 years. Coal has been unearthed at Stonehenge in England.

But it wasn't until the 16th century in Europe that humans started to mine the rock on a large scale. Why the 16th century? NEED.

Firewood had become very scarce due to population increases in Europe and another source of energy for heating and cooking was required.

Coal was used primarily by the lower classes of European society. But as the wood scarcity worsened, coal was also found to grace upper society homes and parlors. In time, the soot and sulfur fumes of the burning rock became an accepted fact among all.

Mining first took place in areas where it was nearest to the surface such as today's Belgium and NW Germany. France also had coal, but it was far deeper, requiring drilling to depths of more than 500 meters. Coal finds in the western part of France occured at up to 1200m deep which necessitated the use of a new invention from England to pump out underground water.

Implementation of the newly invented steam engines was the first time that energy, other than that of a person or animal, was directly used to harness more energy. Previously, wind energy (sailing ships) and water energy (barges) had only been used for the transportation of energy (trees). Here, hydrocarbon energy was being directly used to help ACQUIRE another source of energy. Also, the steam engine could use coal as fuel. So now, the net cost of the new energy source (COAL) had to include the added COST of the energy used to acquire it.


	EROEI Concept: The deeper the mine, the greater the cost.

Also by the late 16th century people discovered that one of the benefits of coal was its higher burning temperature. It was found that by roasting coal through a similar process to that of making charcoal from wood, it produced an extremely hot-burning fuel. This discovery, called "coke", totally transformed the iron and smelting industries and set the stage for the Industrial Revolution.

The harnessing of the vast amounts of COAL energy forever changed the way people did things. Coal fires turned water into steam, which powered engines the likes of which the world had never seen. A gas extracted from coal was used to power gas lights -- which lighted towns and workplaces. The new coke fuel allowed the higher smelting temperatures needed to produce steel; steel was fashioned into better and stronger tools and machinery; the new machines made products quickly and at a lower cost...the Industrial Revolution had arrived on the back of a little black rock.

MAJOR INVENTIONS of the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
1701	Jethro Tull invents the seed drill.
1709	Bartolomeo Cristofori invents the piano.
1711	Englishman, John Shore invents the tuning fork.
1712	Thomas Newcomen patents the atmospheric steam engine.
1717	Edmond Halley invents the diving bell.
1722	French C. Hopffer patents the fire extinguisher.
1724	Gabriel Fahrenheit invents the first mercury thermometer.
1733	John Kay invents the flying shuttle - an improvement to looms that enabled weavers to weave faster.
1745	E.G. von Kleist invents the leyden jar, the first electrical capacitor.
1752	Benjamin Franklin invents the lightening rod.
1755	Samuel Johnson publishes the first English language dictionary on April 15th after nine years of writing.
1757	John Campbell invents the sextant.
1758	Dolland invents a chromatic lens.
1761	Englishman, John Harrison invents the navigational clock or marine chronometer for measuring longitude.
1764	James Hargreaves invents the spinning jenny.
1767	Joseph Priestley invents carbonated water - soda water.
1768	Richard Arkwright patents the spinning frame.
1769	James Watt invents an improved steam engine.
1774	Georges Louis Lesage patents the electric telegraph.
1775	Alexander Cummings invents the flush toilet. Jacques Perrier invents a steamship.
1776	David Bushnell invents a submarine.
1779	Samuel Crompton invents the spinning mule.
1780	Benjamin Franklin invents bi-focal eyeglasses. Gervinus invents the circular saw.
1783	Louis Sebastien demonstrates the first parachute. Benjamin Hanks patents the self-winding clock. Joseph Michel Montgolfier and Jacques Etienne Montgolfier invent the hot-air balloon. Englishman, Henry Cort invents the steel roller for steel production.
1784	Andrew Meikle invents the threshing machine. Joseph Bramah invents the safety lock.
1785	Edmund Cartwright invents the power loom. Claude Berthollet invents chemical bleaching. Charles Augustus Coulomb invents the torsion balance. Blanchard invents a working parachute.
1786	John Fitch invents a steamboat.
1789	The guillotine is invented.
1790	The United States issued its first patent to William Pollard of Philadelphia for a machine that roves and spins cotton. Richard Arkwright built the first steam powered textile factory in Nottingham, England.
1791	John Barber invents the gas turbine. Early bicycles invented in Scotland.
1792	William Murdoch invents gas lighting. The first ambulance.
1794	Eli Whitney patents the cotton gin. Welshmen, Philip Vaughan invents ball bearings.
1795	Francois Appert invents the preserving jar for food.
1796	Edward Jenner creates a smallpox vaccination.
1797	Wittemore patents a carding machine. A British inventor, Henry Maudslay invents the first metal or precision lathe.
1798	The first soft drink invented. Aloys Senefelder invents lithography.
1799	Alessandro Volta invents the battery. Louis Robert invents the Fourdrinier Machine for sheet paper making.
1800	Joseph Marie Jacquard invented the Jacquard Loom that weaved complex designs. Jacquard invented a way of automatically controlling the warp and weft threads on a silk loom by recording patterns of holes in a string of cards (this technology was later modified to produce computer punch cards).
1804	Freidrich Winzer (Winsor) was the first person to patent gas lighting. Richard Trevithick, an English mining engineer, developed the first steam-powered locomotive.
1809	Humphry Davy invents the first electric light - the first arc lamp.
1810	German, Frederick Koenig invents an improved printing press. Peter Durand invents the tin can.
1813	William Horrocks invented the variable speed batton (for an improved power loom).
1814	George Stephenson designs the first steam locomotive. The first plastic surgery is performed in England. German, Joseph von Fraunhofer invents the spectrocope for the chemical analysis of glowing objects. Joseph NicÈphore NiÈpce was the first person to take a photograph. He took the picture by setting up a machine called the camera obscura in the window of his home in France. It took eight hours for the camera to take the picture.
1815	Humphry Davy invents the miner's lamp.
1819	Samuel Fahnestock patents a "soda fountain". RenÈ LaÎnnec invents the stethoscope.
1823	Mackintosh (raincoat) invented by Charles Mackintosh of Scotland.
1824	Professor Michael Faraday invents the first toy balloon. Englishman, Joseph Aspdin patents Portland cement, the modern building material.
1825	William Sturgeon invented the electromagnet.
1827	John Walker invents the modern matches. Charles Wheatstone invents the microphone.
1829	American, W.A. Burt invents a typewriter. Frenchmen, Louis Braille invents braille printing. William Austin Burt patents a typographer, a predecessor to the typewriter.
1830	Frenchmen, B. Thimonnier invents a sewing machine.
1831	American, Cyrus H. McCormick invents the first commercially successful reaper. Michael Faraday invents a electric dynamo.
1832	Englishman, Louis Braille invents the stereoscope.
1834	Henry Blair patents a corn planter. Jacob Perkins invents an early refrigerator (really an ether ice machine).
1835	Englishman, Henry F. Talbot invents Calotype photography. Solymon Merrick patents the wrench. Englishman, Francis Pettit Smith invents the propeller. Charles Babbage invents a mechanical calculator.
1836	Francis Pettit Smith and John Ericcson co-invent the propellor. Samuel Colt invented the first revolver.
1837	Samuel Morse invents the telegraph. English schoolmaster, Rowland Hill invents the postage stamp.
1838	Samual Morse invents Morse Code.
1839	American, Thaddeus Fairbanks invents platform scales. American, Charles Goodyear invents rubber vulcanization. Frenchmen, Louis Daguerre and J.N. Niepce co-invent Daguerreotype photography. Kirkpatrick Macmillan invents a bicycle. Welshmen, Sir William Robert Grove conceives of the first hydrogen fuel cell.
1840	Englishman, John Herschel invents the blueprint.
1841	Samuel Slocum patents the stapler.
1842	Joseph Dart builds the first grain elevator.
1843	Alexander Bain of Scotland, invents the facsimile.
1844	Englishman, John Mercer invents mercerized cotton.
1845	American, Elias Howe invents a sewing machine. Robert William Thomson patents the first vulcanised rubber pneumatic tire.
1846	Dr. William Morton, a Massachusetts dentist, is the first to use anesthesia for tooth extraction.
1847	Hungarian, Ignaz Semmelweis invents antiseptics.
1848	Waldo Hanchett patents the dental chair.
1849	Walter Hunt invents the safety pin.
1850	Joel Houghton was granted the first dishwasher patent in 1850. The machine was made of wood and required you to hand-turn a wheel that caused water to splash on the dishes. Houghton's machine barely worked. The first practical dishwasher was invented by a woman named Josephine Cochran in 1886. Dishwashers, however, did not begin appearing in homes until the 1950s.
1851	Isaac Singer invents a sewing machine.
1852	Jean Bernard LÈon Foucault invents a gyroscope. Henri Giffard builds an airship powered by the first aircraft engine - unsuccessful design.
1853	George Cayley invents a manned glider.
1854	John Tyndall demonstrates the principles of fiber optics.
1855	Isaac Singer patents the sewing machine motor. Georges Audemars invents rayon.
1856	Louis Pasteur invents pasteurisation. William Perkin invented the first synthetic dye.
1857	George Pullman invents the Pullman Sleeping Car for train travel.
1858	Hamilton Smith patents the rotary washing machine. Jean Lenoir invents an internal combustion engine.
1861	Elisha Otis patents elevator safety brakes, creating a safer elevator. Pierre Michaux invents a bicycle. Linus Yale invents the Yale lock or cylinder lock.
1862	Dr. Richard Gatling patents the machine gun. Alexander Parkes invents the first man-made plastic.
1866	Alfred Nobel invents dynamite. J. Osterhoudt patents the tin can with a key opener. Englishmen Robert Whitehead invents a torpedo.
1867	Christopher Scholes invents the first practical and modern typewriter.
1868	George Westinghouse invents air brakes. Robert Mushet invents tungsten steel. J P Knight invents traffic lights.
1872	J.S. Risdon patents the metal windmill. A.M. Ward issues the first mail-order catalog.
1873	Joseph Glidden invents barbed wire.
1874	American, C. Goodyear, Jr. invents the shoe welt stitcher.
1876	Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone. Nicolaus August Otto invents the first practical four-stroke internal combustion engine. Melville Bissell patents the carpet sweeper.
1877	Thomas Edison invents the cylinder phonograph or tin foil phonograph. Eadweard Muybridge invents the first moving pictures.
1878	Sir Joseph Wilson Swan was the first person to invent a practical and longer-lasting electric lightbulb.
1880	The British Perforated Paper Company invents a form of toilet paper. Englishman, John Milne invents the modern seismograph.
1881	Alexander Graham Bell invents the first crude metal detector. David Houston patents the roll film for cameras. Edward Leveaux patents the automatic player piano.
1884	George Eastman patents paper-strip photographic film. Frenchmen, H. de Chardonnet invents rayon. Lewis Edson Waterman invents the first practical fountain pen. James Ritty invents the first working, mechanical cash register. Charles Parson patents the steam turbine.
1885	Harim Maxim invents the machine gun. Karl Benz invents the first practical automobile to be powered by an internal-combustion engine. Gottlieb Daimler invents the first gas-engined motorcycle.
1886	Josephine Cochrane invents the dishwasher. Gottlieb Daimler builds the world's first four-wheeled motor vehicle. John Pemberton invents Coca Cola.
1887	German, Heinrich Hertz invents radar. Rowell Hodge patents barbed wire. Emile Berliner invents the gramophone. F.E. Muller and Adolph Fick invent the first wearable contact lenses.
1888	Marvin Stone patents the spiral winding process to manufacture the first paper drinking straws. John Boyd Dunlop patents a commercially successful pneumatic tire. Nikola Tesla invents the AC motor and transformer.
1889	Joshua Pusey invents the matchbook. Sir James Dewar and Sir Frederick Abel co-invent Cordite - a type of smokeless gunpowder.
1891	Jesse W. Reno invents the escalator.
1892	Sir James Dewar invents the Dewar flask or vacuum flask.
1893	American, W.L. Judson invents the zipper. Edward Goodrich Acheson invents carborundum.
1896	American, H. O'Sullivan invents the rubber heel.
1898	Edwin Prescott patents the roller coaster. Rudolf Diesel receives patent #608,845 for an "internal combustion engine" the Diesel engine.
1899	I.R. Johnson patents the bicycle frame. J.S. Thurman patents the motor-driven vacuum cleaner.

(Special thanks to: http://inventors.about.com)

Did you notice how many inventions were based on previous discoveries?

That is why it was called a "revolution". The discoveries and ideas were exponential in their creation. Progress was as a snowball rolling downhill.

But one thing was lacking. All these new machines also created the need for another item: lubrication. Whale oil was used as a lubricant, almost forcing whales to the brink of extinction. Vegetable oil was marginal at best. This need for keeping the wheels of this new commerce lubricated led to a push that also opened the door to another energy source: OIL.

COAL TODAY

Escalating Worldwide Energy Demand
During the period 1995 to 2020, demand for energy worldwide is forecast to increase by around 65% - equivalent to 2% per annum. Fossil fuels are expected to meet 95% of this additional energy demand.

Adequate energy supplies are essential if the world's nations are to sustain their industrial and economic expansion.

In the developing world, the first sign of improving standards of living is the supply of electricity. Initially, this may just be to provide lighting, but it is quickly required to power household and industrial appliances of every kind. Developing economies, with their industrial development and rising living standards, are consuming electricity at a rapidly expanding rate. In Indonesia, for example, power generation has increased by 13% per annum during the period 1980-1997, and is forecast to continue growing at or above this rate.

As economic development takes place, households start to switch from traditional sources of energy (such as wood) to modern ones (such as electricity). Central to the development process is the building of infrastructure (roads, railways, ports etc) and the growth of cities. Often, economic growth has depended on the export of processed raw materials and manufactured goods. Such energy intensive activities imply a rapid growth in energy use through the early stages of industrialisation.

The growth in energy demand will increasingly rely on the abundance of coal throughout the world, into the next century and beyond.

Nevertheless, it is vital that coal, along with all fossil fuels, continues to be used with ever increasing efficiency in order to conserve these valuable resources.

Supplies of Coal are Secure
A number of countries lack indigenous energy resources. Dependence on imported fuels can make a nation vulnerable to shortages if there are economic or political disturbances in the region of their main sources of supply. This risk is greater if these fuel resources are concentrated in only one or two areas of the world. For example, more than 60% of oil reserves are located in the Middle East, and more than 70% of gas reserves are in the Middle East and the Former Soviet Union (FSU). Serious disruptions in the world's energy economy resulted from a rapid price escalation and a 5% reduction in oil supply in the 1970s, when OPEC (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) became an important force in the energy market.

Such disturbances are of much less concern to those countries which rely on coal for a major part of their energy needs. This results from both geographic diversity of reserves and security of imports. Many nations can use their own indigenous coal reserves, and those without reserves can safely rely on imported coal. Security of imports is assured by the competition between the many coal-supplying countries of the world, and also because coal can usually be transported by secure sea routes directly to the consuming country. A major disruption to supplies of coal from one region of the world could soon be made up by increased supplies from other regions, which guarantees power generators and steel makers stability and security of supply. Around 37% of the world's electricity, and about 70% of the world's steel, is based on coal.

Over 3,650 million tonnes (Mt) of hard coal were produced in 1998, more than half of which was used to generate electricity. The main producers of hard coal were: the Peoples' Republic of China (China), the USA, India, South Africa, Australia, Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Germany and the UK. Of the hard coal produced in 1998, over 500 Mt were traded internationally. It is estimated that international trade in bituminous coal will continue to grow to over 560 Mt in 2000.

(from Coal - Power for Progress - Fourth Edition (January 1999), World Coal Institute, www.wci-coal.com)

Next Section:

OIL / NATURAL GAS
Human Species: Petroleum Man
[click here]

Share our Articles!