What’s COAL & Why Do We Mine Coal?

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SEDIMENTARY ROCKS // Detailed Guide
• SEDIMENTARY ROCKS // ...
COAL
Coal is a sedimentary rock, sometimes on the metamorphic side, that comes in 3 main types or coal grades. These include: Lignite, Bituminous, and Anthracite Coals. Coal forms from plant matter in swamps in a so if conditions that doesn’t break down quickly and becomes peat. Once peat is compressed and compacted it will begin the process changes in moisture, volatile, and carbon content. This is what gives us the different grades of coal. Coal is mined around the world, especially where ancient Carboniferous swamps once existed many hundreds of millions of years ago. In the United States, there is young and old coal seams, and much of the coal has come from the East in places like the West Virginia bituminous and Pennsylvania anthracite coal, and the huge coal deposits in places like the Wyoming Powder River Basin, North Dakota’s Williston Basin, sporadic coal seams in Utah, and even lignite coal from Washington state. These coals range from Cenozoic coal (Eocene, Paleocene), to Mesozoic (Cretaceous) to Paleozoic (Carboniferous, some Permian). Coal is controversial because it causes environmental damage when burnt, such as the sulfuric acid rain (the reason for scrubbers), CO and CO2 emissions that lead to climate change, the environmental impacts of strip mining such as watershed damage, and the dangers of coal mining such as explosions or toxic gas exposure. The latter is the reason for our phrase, The Canary in the Coal Mine.
#geology #wyoming #rockhound #rocksandminerals #rockhounding #minecraft #mining #earth #rocks

[@madmattstuff6709]

Excellent video. I grew up in coal country in PA so I'm always into this!

[@RafaCB0987]

You are a really good teacher and is improving more every video

[@Mistydazzle]

Very good explanation! Thanks!

[@davec9244]

Good job, thank you.

[@VolcanoGoldDiggerAdirondacks]

I am 80 and found a volcano it blew a 12 feet bolder Stright up and came down back down. It had to be a rhyolite volcano because it is acid rock it had to be to acid because it blow sand miles and miles. My forestry school said red pine and Schoch pine were not native to the U.S. That is how I found my first volcano. Lets Go Geo this 80 year old can think any way I want. To me it was a time when their was to much CO2 in the air and during the changing to oxygen coal happen. Thanks for the movie. Hear in New York they would pan for gold on the inside bend[some day] as that would be where the very find gold would be

[@dal65]

Great video as usual. Learning every video you have and will post. You’re a great teacher and I love your videos. I will never look at rocks the same way.❤️

[@beeamerica5024]

When you first said cold the first thing I thought about was the peat boggs and as for energy they say the best bet is nuclear not large plants but a lot of small plants we're already storing a lot of wasted radioactive material in the salt mines so I don't know what the answer is except Elon says let's go to Mars and I'm ready 😁😉🐝

[@user-hb2gh6wh7e]

The trap under my sink collects a graphite-like material. Really swampy there, no sunlight, oxygen-deficient.

[@fishyerik]

It's a transition. Solar panels produce more power in a single year than the energy required to produce them. Complete solar power stations, and taking all things into consideration it's somewhere around a year to cover the energy invested in production, meaning, even if everything was produced with coal power, you could only argue that they are few percent as "dirty" as keeping on using coal power.
Another way to look at it is that solar panels and wind turbines produce much more power than what's used to produce solar panels and wind turbines, and that's despite strongly increasing trends of both solar and wind power installations.

[@LetsGoGeo]

The trouble I can see is “what” we use the power for. If large solar and wind farms are built to power future projects, say like large server centers or fossil fuel industry projects themselves or to promote new construction, then we have alt energy that isn’t really replacing existing needs but serving future wants/growth. The question is, should we have such growth? This becomes a social/economic problem, because in capitalistic societies based largely on consumption and industry growth, any constriction is considered bad and causes recessions. But uncapped growth is certainly not sustainable, so therein lies the issue. Any amount of solar, wind, or for some nuclear perhaps, will not fix the “uncapped growth” issue.
Another issue arises if we decide to manufacture solar and wind in the capitalist model. As we’ve seen already, because we’ve already run the experiment, products in this model must be constantly sold and replaced for economic growth. Thats why planned obsolescence, green lighting, trade manipulation, environmental and labor cost-cutting, and so on, came about in many industries. How are we to trust that the same won’t occur in this sector?
We already see creeping issues - for instance the mining for various elements needed to make solar panels.
Now, I’m not saying because of this I’m pro-fossil fuel. It’s just a complicated scenario, not as black-and-white as some think, and I believe the problem is scale. If we power a modest society with alt energy sources for basic needs, it will be efficient and the transition is, as you’ve pointed out, worth it. But if companies eye-ball this change as a chance for them to simply ramp up production and also get to remote places to power resource extraction that was formerly difficult, then we have a problem. Unfortunately, I’m seeing the latter surfacing.
I plan to talk a lot more about this here soon. There’s a lot to unpack and I think it’s an important discussion to have. Thanks.

[@fishyerik]

Agreed, it's not a black and white scenario. But replacing fossil fuels means a huge decrease in resource extraction. While it will facilitate less desirable things too, but as far as we know, not anywhere near the problems associated with fossil fuels.
The not so desirable things people do now typically do rely heavily on fossil fuels today, and it's not like renewable power causes data canters, or makes impossible things possible.
1 kg of coal can produce about 3 kWh of power, once, that coal essentially turns into air pollution, and is impossible to recycle in a meaningful way, at relevant scale.
1 kg of solar panel can produce about 30 kWh of power, every year, for 30 years, and can be recycled. More raw materials goes into the solar panel than the mass of the panel, but ballpark 300 times more power per unit of mass, and no air pollution from that, and also being fully recyclable.
So, it's not a black and white scenario, but transitioning from fossil fuels means reducing our total problematic resource extraction to a fraction of what it is today, even with some "new" extraction of raw materials for renewable power generation and even batteries, that can be used practically indefinitely, with very small losses in recycling, typically after a few decades of operation.

[@markusstewart9298]

Lies.
If this was even remotely true, we’d be flying air planes and running cargo ships using this excess stored green energy.
I’m not saying green energy isn’t going to be huge eventually, but acting as though, at this time it is anywhere NEAR as efficient or cost effective as coal or oil… is either disingenuous or just you blowing smoke out of your ass to feel smart/wave that social Justice flag.
Wishing something to be, will not just make it happen. Be slick if if it did; but it don’t.

[@-dirk-65]

WRONG answer. Millions is all i need to hear & i'm gone. UN sub & boo

[@dal65]

Dirk, you won’t be missed

[@AzideFox]

Are you a christian by any chance? 🤨

[@-dirk-65]

@@dal65 the only thing THAT long is the future & its measured without time. I pray you get yours right.

[@garrettmillsap]

Bye boo boo!