HISTORY OF COAL MINING
When Coal Mining Started
Coal mining has been used throughout history. Coal has been used for heating since the cave man. Archaeologists have also found evidence that the Romans and people in England used it in the second and third centuries. In the 1700s the English found that coal burned hotter and faster than wood. The Industrial Revolution played a major role in the expansion of coal During the first half of the 1800s, the Industrial Revolution spread to the United States. Steamships and steam-powered railroads were becoming the chief forms of transportation, and they used coal to fuel their boilers. During the Civil War coal was used to power more things like factories. Coal started to be used to power electricity in the 1880s.
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Coal Mining in the 1800s
Before the Industrial Revolution, two types of mines existed, rift mines and bell pits. Both were small scale coal mines and the coal which came from these type of pits was used locally in homes and local industry. Coal was in a bigger demand because coal was being used for many things like to run factories and electricity, This lead to mines becoming deeper and deeper. Coal has In the 1700s there were 2.7 million tonnes of coal collected , 10 million tonnes in the 1800s, and 250 million tonnes of coal collected in the 1900s. This shows how coal has become more important.
How Coal is Produced for Us to Use
Almost all coal plants operating today use “pulverized coal” (PC) technology, which involves grinding the coal, burning it to make steam, and running the steam through a turbine to generate electricity. A newer technology known as integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) converts coal into a gas, runs the gas through a combustion turbine to generate electricity, and uses the excess heat from that process to generate additional electricity by steam turbine.