Coal is a fossil fuel. It is popularly called black diamond because Coal and diamond are primarily made up of carbon. Coal was formed from organic matter that got buried under swamps and forests about 100 to 400 million years ago. The heat and pressure of the soil and rocks pressed down on this organic matter and caused a change.
The lack of sufficient oxygen slowed down the rotting process which over millions of years, turned the organic matter into coal. Coal is found in layers or seams, barely half an inch to hundreds of feet thick. This fossil fuel holds energy that the organic matter took in from the sun before it was dead.
Coal has been in use since the Stone Age that is 120, 000 years ago. The industrial Revolution in Europe has been fuelled by coal. Thereafter, coal has been used in every country.
India, large –scale coal mining for industry began in 1774 when the East India Company started digging for the mineral in the Raniganj Coalfield in west Bengal. In 1853, India got is first team engine that ran on coal. The trains were soon using up around 1 million tones of coal a year. After independence, as more and more industries started coming up, the demand for coal increased further.
360 million tones production makes, India the third largest coal producer in the world. Most Indian mines are open pits. They produce 81 percent of the total in India.
Around the world, coal produces more electricity than any other sources of energy. It also releases the most carbon dioxide, almost double the quantity released by natural gas.
When coal is burned, it releases harmful greenhouse gases like methane, oxide of sulphur and carbon dioxide. Whether underground or opencast, coal mines can not be used later for anything else. Open cast mining refers to a method of extracting coal from an open pit in the earth.
Underground mines can collapse and trap miners and large collapses are suspected to cause earthquakes. When open cast mines are dug, a large number of trees and vast tracts of top soil are lost. When coal layers exposed to air, pyrite or fool’s gold combines with water and air turns into sulphuric acid. This acid can poison rivers and streams nearby, killing fish and water plants.
Removing one layer of coal can cause the ground above to weaken and collapse. Coal mines are often full of dust and working there generates a lot of noise pollution. Sulphur, which is found in all fossil fuels, can be removed by scrubbing. Scrubbers can remove 98 percent of the sulphur oxide from coal using water and limestone, but it is an expensive process.
