THERE IS COAL IN OUR FUTURE

that read, ‘We have more coal than the Arabs have oil,
let’s use it.’ But, depending upon one’s background,
the thought of returning to massive amounts of coal consumption can
raise specters of doubt.

Most of us have had some exposure to the effects of wanton
exploitation of our natural resources. Even if it were only through
newspapers and TV we have seen the devestation of uncontrolled
strip mining or the darkness at noon from poor combustion in large
boilers. We do not wish to return to these conditions and we do not
need to if we will but take the time and effort to avoid such
consequences. There are no easy answers, however, only logical
choices. And in order to make these choices we need to be
informed.

That is just what I would like to do now. First, though, let me
say that I am not an ‘expert’ on the uses of coal. You know
what an ‘expert’ is don’t you. A guy with a two
sandwich size briefcase more than a hundred miles from home.
Rather, I have had to work with some of these problems and
therefore set out to bring together some background information
which I would like to share with you.

Let us begin by taking a look at just what coal deposits we have
and where they are located. For this it is convenient to look at a
map of the ‘lower 48’ of these United States. We will check
out Alaska later. Our deposits can be placed in four locations or
‘provinces’; eastern, western, central and gulf coast. If
we add up everything over which the Stars and Stripes fly we have
coal deposits that have been estimated to be about two and a half
million-million tons. That’s a big number. Try it this way:
2,500,000,000,000. In fact it is so big that I am not going to try
to differentiate between the various qualifications; that is,
estimated, or proven, or metric or short tons. Its a lot of
coal.

Of all of these vast deposits it can be said that the eastern
coals generally represent quality and the western ones make up for
it in quantity. For example, in the Fort Union region of Wyoming,
Montana and the Dakotas we find the largest single deposit of coal.
It is estimated to be a bit over a million-million tons. The Green
River basin has something around seven hundred thousand-million
tons and Appalachia comes in third with about five hundred
thousand-million.

To me the western deposits as typified by those in Wyoming are
simply breath taking. I remember an incident that brings this home
to me so forcefully. Recently I had the opportunity of visiting a
mining operation in the Kemerer, Wyoming area. I drove out over an
area that was being cleared by earth moving equipment. When I
stepped out of the car I was on black crumbly material to which I
exclaimed, ‘This is coal!’ ‘Yup,’ said the tactern
foreman, ‘about 90 feet of it.’ A seam 90′ thick and as
far as the eye could see and you can see a long way in Wyoming!

There is about another 100,000,000,000 tons that has been
delineated in Alaska. It has about the same variation in quality as
the deposits in the lower 48 states. Much of it is susceptible to
surface mining techniques. Which reminds me of my first encounter
with these deposits. I was on a mission in the Wainwright area on
the shores of the Arctic Ocean looking for gravel deposits with
which to build a possible marine terminal for large tankers. This
day I was hiking along the shore line just outside of Wainwright
and stumbling along on a pebble beach. Bending down to sample the
stones I picked up a handful. To my surprise these were not stones
at all but COAL. It had been washed from an outcropping some
20′ above the waterline.

This very good coal is regularly gleaned by the local people, of
Eskimo and Aluet anscestory, for their winter fuel supply. What a
nice warm fire it makes. How good it felt that day in November with
the outside temperature at minus 20.

With apologies to Gertrude Stein who said, ‘A rose is a rose
is a rose’ not all coal is the same. It is rather like the mail
order catalog with its good-better-best ratings. As we all know,
coal was derived from woody plants buried for eons in prehistoric
swamps. From this vegetal matter all of our coal has sprung.
Trouble is some of it didn’t spring far enough.

Let us define quality with the terms of the ‘proximate’
analysis. These are moisture, ash, volatile matter and fixed
carbon. Since moisture and ash are of no use to us then let us
rearrange the analysis into just volatile and fixed carbon. The
volatile matter is that gaseous part that comes from the coal when
it is heated and which is so important for ignition. The fixed
carbon is what is left and it is a mixture of carbon along with
carbon compounds of high enough molecular weight that they remain a
solid upon heating or at least a sticky mass. We can do this for
the various coals in our country and make a bar-graph that will
show us how they compare.

This has been done in the ‘Diagram Progressive Change From
Vegetal Matter To Coal.’ The volatile in each of the coals is
shown as the solid black bar and right above it we find the
corresponding fixed carbon. Note that as we read from left to right
the volatile decreases and of course the fixed carbon increases to
make up the 100%. But, more important you should note that as the
volatile decreases there is a marked increase in the heating value
until the conversion has reached anthracite. All of these are good
fuels it is just that some are better than others.

There are other qualities that go to define an acceptable coal;
ash fusion temperature, grindability and sulfur content to name a
few. To go into all of these is beyond the scope of this article.
However, we should have a word about sulfur since it is such a
currently popular item. Sulfur dioxide in flue gas is under strict
government control and it is growing in its intensity. At present
the regulations generally restrict a user to not more than 0.8
pounds of sulfur in the flue gas per million heat units (Btu).

Let’s pick three coals all with 0.8% sulfur showing in the
analysis. These will be a Texas lignite, a West Virginia low
volatile bituminus and a Pennsylvania anthracite. Each of these has
a different heating value so when we figure out how much sulfur we
are going to put into the air from the stack we find that the
bituminus from West Virginia and the anthracite put in less sulfur
than the lignite. Similar comparisons can be made with the western
coals. Some of the Wyoming coal is as low as 0.4% sulfur but it is
not high in heating value so there is a trade-off.

The way things are going in the regulatory field, though, I have
the feeling that all large users of coal are going to be required
to install flue gas scrubbing equipment. There are, fortunately,
processes that have been proven that can be used to scrub out the
sulfurous gasses. One of the better ones uses a water slurry of
lime or limestone and makes a gypsum like solid when mixed with the
fly ash. These are expensive operations. Its like adding a few
dollars a ton to the cost of the coal. There has been a lot of
tonnage thrown through the fire doors of innumerable steam engines
and fixed boilers. But, today most of the coal used is in the
pulverized form. Depending upon volatile and other considerations
it is first crushed to minus ‘ and then fed to pulverizers of a
variety of design. Here it is ground to a size where 70% and 80%
will pass through a 200 mesh screen. This is a 0.0029’
aperture. That’s fine stuff. It is swept out of the pulverizers
by directing a portion of the combustion air through the machine
and that which is fine enough will be picked up by the air stream
while the larger particles remain to get further attention. It is
carried on into the furnace and burns in a cloud.

Stripping shovel operator’s view of pit, Sinclair Mine,
Peabody Coal Company, Ky. Dipper of big shovel holds 125 cubic
yards of earch and rock. Loading shovel in background scoops coal
into 135-ton trucks.

If one examines the coal-air mixture as it travels around the
boiler room in pipes like it was a liquid it is inevitable that a
conclusion will be drawn that this could be used directly in an
internal combustion engine.

Theoretically it can. However, a number of groups have been
working on the problem and the erosiveness of the ash has so far
made the approach impractical. The Bureau of Mines at its
experiment station in Morgantown, West Virginia, worked for several
years on the problem and finally concluded that a better approach
would be to liquify the coal and then burn the coal derived liquid
fuel in the engines. That seems to be where the problem resides at
the moment.

That brings us to the question of fueling all of our thousands
and thousands of farming tractors. We need plenty of gasoline and
diesel fuel to keep bread on the table. We can direct our
diminishing supplies of petroleum into these fields after we have
re-established coal in the industrial and power plant fields. But
there comes a day when maybe that is not enough. Well, we do know
how to make these liquid fuels from coal. It just takes money. The
synthetic fuels business is a very capital intensive business.

What do I mean by ‘capital intensive?’ Take the auto
industry for example. They require an investment of something like
50 for every dollar of annual sales. The oil industry requires
about a dollar of plant investment to support each dollar of annual
sales. An electric power utility takes a lot of investment. They
need about $5.00 invested for each dollar that they get from us
each year. The synthetic fuel industry is somewhat like the power
company in its ability to soak up money. So, yes, we can make these
fuels from coal and yes there is a lot of work going on to improve
the processes but it all ends up costing a whole lot more than we
are accustomed to paying to say to the guy at the pump, ‘Filler
up, please.’ I suppose we could go on and talk about nuclear
and about solar and maybe geothermal energy. But the truth is, we
have a lot of coal in the ground that we can use first. So let us
get on with learning how to use it without asphyxiating ourselves
while we are drowning in our own garbage. And, let us learn how to
fix up the land after we have dug out the coal and we can do this
for I have seen the handy work of those that care. And, let us get
our priorities organized, that is let us use coal where it can be
used to advantage and save our petroleum and our natural gas for
where they can best be used … .in our vehicles and in our homes.
And, let us tell our representatives in the Congress how we feel. I
have. Have you?

A giant bulldozer with an experimental 40′ blade works at
leveling mined land in southeastern Kansas. A helper bulldozer
lends a tow by cable. The big blade, set at a 40 degree angle, can
move 7,000 cubic yards of earth and rock per hour, more than 10
times the rate for an ordinary bulldozer.

A herd of Charola is cattle graze on reclaimed strip mined land
in the Midwest.

It’s apple blossom time in the coal mines. This commercial
orchard blooms on land reclaimed after strip mining at the Fidelity
Mine of The United Electric Coal Companies, subsidiary of General
Dynamics, at DuQuoin, Illinois. The company reports the trees grow
faster on reclaimed land, are more resistant to disease and bear
better fruit because mining brings to the surface trace elements
which were depleted in the original top soil.