Coal industry

“ An interagency task force has just reported to me on a series of measures we need to take to increase coal production and exports. This report builds on the work of the International Energy Agency's Coal Industry Advisory Board. With the assurances of a reliable United States steam coal supply at reasonable prices, many of the electric power plants to be built in the 1980's and 1990's can be coal-fired rather than oil-burning. ”

“ Moreover our modern chemical industries, such as the dye industry, are based upon the substances contained in bituminous coal, most of which are wasted in our customary methods of consumption. These facts impose an immense burden of needless cost [Pg 77] upon the consumer, and draw into the overexpanded coal industry tens of thousands of miners in excess of efficient requirements. ”

“ Although the supplies of oil and gas have supplemented coal for half a century and protected the coal industry from the same sort of economic pressure which has forced reorganization upon most other enterprises, the time is at hand when they can no longer do so. ”

“ Dependence of modern industry on coal.—It would be a great mistake to consider coal necessary now only in its most common application, that of generating steam for engines. The chemical industry depends largely, though not entirely, on the heat obtained from coal, to break down its raw materials and build up its finished products. Metallurgical industries would shrink almost to infinitesimal proportions if they were denied the use of coal. It has been estimated that the manufacture of a ton of pig iron requires the use of two tons of coal or more ”

“ Wood and other fuels are rarely sufficient to maintain an industry built up on a supply of coal. Oil is being successfully substituted in some industries, notably in shipping, but the importance of coaling stations will no doubt persist.
CHANGES IN PRACTICE
The technique of coal mining in many districts, and the development of heat, power and coal products are not far advanced. Wasteful methods are used, mostly as a result of competition and lack of co-operation and organization among producers. Economies are being advocated, however. Labor-saving machinery has been installed in many mines. ”

“ Because of the great abundance of coal, the industry had been developed by overexpansion and wasteful skimming rather than by the application of scientific methods to the mining of the best coal and its efficient utilization. Not only is one ton of coal left irrecoverably underground for every ton brought to the surface, but less than one-half of the economic value of coal is utilized by our primitive methods of consumption. ”

“ The articles published on this subject do not allow any doubt that coal fields are there, and coal is now, you know, the basis of all our commercial industry. Without mentioning the coal which is used every year in firing and heating, we might think of coal used for many other purposes, of which I could mention a hundred different ones. It is certain that coal is the most precious substance, and will some day, on account of the large consumption of it; fail in its supply. Before 500 years have passed the coal mines which are at present in use will have stopped giving coal. ”

“ The by-products of coal can play an important part in the fuel industry. Where it is thoroughly integrated they can help in financing the development of hydroelectricity to supplement the electricity produced from coal. For while the running expenses of a hydroelectric plant are little more than the interest on the capital invested, the amount of that capital is large. Also the establishment of gas plants at the mines is a costly thing. ”

“ A long interment followed, during which a course of chemical changes, and new combinations of their vegetable elements, converted them to the mineral condition of coal. By the elevating force of subterranean agency, these beds of coal have been uplifted from beneath the waters, to a new position in the hills and mountains, where they are accessible to the industry of man. From this fourth stage, coal has been removed by the labours of the miner, assisted by the arts and sciences, that have co-operated to produce the steam-engine, and the safety-lamp. ”

“ Mining began on the Tyne and continued on the Wear, where the industry has been largely developed. There are in all about 57 different seams in the Great Northern coal-field, varying in thickness from 1 inch to 5 feet 5 inches and 6 feet, and these seams comprise an aggregate of nearly 76 feet of coal. Taking the area of this field to be 750 square miles—a most probable estimate—we may classify the contents as household coal, steam coal, or those employed in steam-engine boilers, and coking coal, employed for making coke and gas. ”

“ But with the revival of business, mining was again begun in the Richmond field, and from 1874 to the present time the industry has prospered and grown, and Virginia has furnished to the country at large a considerable amount of an excellent quality of bituminous [40] coal. This coal bed covers an area of about 180 square miles, and has an average thickness of twenty-four feet. It is supposed to contain about 50,000,000 of tons yet unmined.
Another of the early discoveries of coal in the United States was that of the Rhode Island anthracite bed in 1760. ”

“ The industrial stomach cannot live without coal: industry is a carbonivorous animal, and must have its proper food. ”

“ Moreover, wherever heat rather than light or power is desired, gas, in the present state of technical development, is even more economical than electricity. Under the by-product system the present annual coal output can be made to more than double its service in driving machinery and in addition it can be made to contribute heavily to our supply of fertilizers, motor fuel, and chemical [Pg 98] products. It is estimated that the aggregate loss resulting from the present wasteful utilization of coal is over ten dollars a year for each inhabitant of the United States. ”

“ The price of coals can however have but little effect upon the cost of the gas-lights; because the very refuse, or small coal, which pass through the screen at the pit’s mouth, and which cannot be brought into the market, nay, even the sweepings of the pit, which are thrown away, may be employed for the production of coal-gas. It makes no difference in what form the coal is used. ”

“ In the effective integration of fuel and power it will become necessary to separate the energy-producing elements in bituminous coal—and also of the sub-bituminous coal, of lignite and peat, of which we have reserves amounting to the billions of tons—from those which have only a commodity value. ”

“ In a time of stress it is not enough to be able to say that the United States contains more than one-half of the known world supply of coal; that we, while only 8 per cent of the world's population, produce annually 46 per cent of all coal that is taken from the ground; that 35 per cent of the railroad traffic is coal; that in less than 100 years we have grown in production from 100,000 tons to 700,000,000 tons per annum ”

“ The loss of motion resulting from lack of co-ordination in the use of coal is just as great in other directions as in that of coke making, and the advantages of integral usage may confidently be expected to assert themselves. Already projects of the kind are coming under serious contemplation in proposals such as those for furnishing gas to cities, for employing by-product operations located at the mine in support of the waning natural-gas supply, and for integrated heat, light, and power projects operating on coal with by-product recovery. ”

“ We do this as to wheat and meat; it is just as necessary to avoid injustice in the case of coal, and it is thoroughly practicable. The public should know the kind of coal it is buying, because it should buy the coal it needs. There need be no prohibition against the mining or selling of any coal, [4] but coal should sell in terms of its capacity to deliver heat. Some coal that is only a pint bottle is selling as a quart bottle. And the quart is hurt by the competition of the pint. A bill to effect such fuel inspection has been drafted and will be presented to Congress. ”

“ The first cause is probably the most important, and this is particularly true of anthracite coals where a sliding scale of prices is used according to the season of the year. While market conditions serve as one of the principal reasons for coal storage, most power plants and manufacturing plants feel compelled to protect their coal supply from the danger of strikes, car shortages and the like, and it is customary for large power plants, railroads and coal companies themselves, to store bituminous coal. ”

“ And in this country, with our severe climate, coal is all-important as a factor of domestic economy, as well as a necessity to manufacturing and metallurgical industries. The total cost to the consumers of the coal used in the United States every year (about 120,000,000 tons) , calling the average retail price $4.00 per ton, is nearly $500,000,000, or over $8.00 per annum for every man, woman, and child in the country. ”

“ The exhaustion of so vast a coal bed is a practical impossibility, and the questions that engage the attention of the mining engineer in these regions are not so much questions of the economy of coal as they are questions of the economy of labor. The coal lies near the surface, and the outcrops on the flanks of the hills and banks of the [194] rivers are so numerous that most of the mining can be, and is, done by drift above water level. The outlay of capital required in opening a mine is therefore very small, marketable coal being obtained at almost the first blow of the pick. ”

“ At the beginning of the present century the anthracite or stone coal was in general use, in all the districts where it was found, as a fuel for the blacksmith’s fire and the iron worker’s forge. This, however, was the limit of its utility. It was thought to be necessary to force a strong artificial air current up through it to make it burn, and since this could not well be done in grates, stoves, or furnaces, there was no demand for coal for domestic use, or for the great manufacturing industries. ”

“ Coal overshadows all other mineral resources, except water, in production, value, and demand. It is the greatest of the energy sources—coal, petroleum, gas, and water power. Roughly two-thirds of the world's coal is used for power, one-sixth for smelting and metallurgical industries, and one-sixth for heating purposes. Coal constitutes over one-third of the railroad tonnage of the United States and is the largest single tonnage factor in international trade; 70 per cent of the pre-war tonnage of outgoing cargoes from England was coal. ”

“ It is evident that the immense consumption of coal has made coal cheap and abundant. It has rendered possible the employment of vast capital in the erection of costly machinery for the working of the mines, for the construction of adequate means of transportation, thereby making remote deposits accessible, and enabling capitalists to work the mines at the minimum of cost, which never would have been done had not the vast consumption of coal rendered it wise and practicable to do so. It is true the consumption of coal is increased by cheapness ”

“ It may indeed be hard to see how a practical method for drawing on this vast reserve of heat can be devised, but it is at least conceivable that it may be rendered available when the coal and other more accessible sources have become exhausted, or even when their yield has considerably lessened.
The coal of England may last a century or two; the coal in other parts of the globe may supply our cellars for a few centuries more, but the exhaustion of this truly marvellous product is proceeding at an accelerated pace. ”

“ It would clearly appear that the coal business may be stabilized, not wholly, but in a very large measure, in some of the western fields, [3] if the public does not regard its supply of coal as it does its supply of domestic water, which requires only that the faucet shall be opened to bring forth a gushing supply. ”

“ To the poor people who live in the vicinity of the breakers these heaps of refuse coal are an unmixed blessing. Pieces of good coal are always being thrown out inadvertently with the waste, and the bony coal that is discarded is not by any means without value as a fuel; indeed it makes a very respectable fire. So, too, one can obtain, with a screen, from the culm heap quite a little percentage of material that will burn. ”

“ The investigations include the possibility of making satisfactory commercial fuels from lignite or low-grade coals which do not stand shipment well, the benefiting of culm or slack coals which are wasted or sold at unremunerative prices, and the possibility of improving the efficiency of good coals. Some of the various forms of commercial briquettes, American and foreign, are shown in Fig. 2, Plate XX. After undergoing chemical analysis, the coal is elevated and fed to a storage bin, whence it is drawn through a chute to a hopper on the weighing scales. ”

“ Much power will always be needed where no stream for power is available. But the lesson is plain that where water can be used it should be, both in order to save the coal and because it can be produced more cheaply. The 30,000,000 horse-power now available, if produced in our most modern electric plants, would require the burning of nearly 225,000,000 tons of coal, and if in the average plant run by steam-engines, more than 650,000,000 tons of coal, which is fifty per cent. more than all the coal that is now produced in this country. ”

“ And in addition to the actual pooling of the power resources of the country, there must come their intensive and economical use—economical by more standards than that of money alone—so that the miner who blasts the coal from the face, the man who sinks the oil well or runs the internal-combustion engine or strings the electric wires, will get in return for the thousands of tons of coal he has mined or the kilowatt hours he has generated from his dynamo, the material basis of the good life. ”