Coal

Show Only ...
Maps - Photos - Videos

Coal Power Plants – Year First Operating

|
Fewer and fewer coal powered fired plants from the 1950s are still operating, but most are more then 40 years old at this point. Even as little as 5 years ago, there was a lot more coal plants left from the 1950s, but they are mostly gone at this point.

Coal Power Plants - Year First Operating

Anthracite Coal Mines In Pennsylvania

|

This map shows were anthracite coal is currently mined in Pennsylvania. Anthracite is the hard coal commonly used by farms and rural homesteads for inexpensive heating -- it is much hotter, drier and warmer fire then wood and last much longer a wood fire. Unlike soft coal, it burns without much soot or odor. Most of the best athracite mines are tapped out, so much of what is mined is refuse coal that is being further processed to extract useful bit of coal previously discarded.

Data Source: PASDA and Pennsylvania DCNR. Anthracite Coal Mines. http://www.pasda.psu.edu/uci/DataSummary.aspx?dataset=366

Lead Isotopes Provide New Tool for Tracking Coal Ash in Dust, Soil and Sediments | Nicholas School of the Environment

|

Lead Isotopes Provide New Tool for Tracking Coal Ash in Dust, Soil and Sediments | Nicholas School of the Environment

– Inhaling dust that contains fly ash particles from coal combustion has been linked to lung and heart disease, cancer, nervous system disorders and other ill effects. But tracking the presence of coal ash in dust has been a challenge for scientists.

Until now.

Researchers at Duke University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill have developed a new forensic tracer that uses lead isotopes to detect coal fly ash in dust and other solids, including soil and sediments. Fly ash is a fine particulate produced by burning pulverized coal.

Tests show that the tracer can distinguish between the chemical signature of lead that comes from coal ash and lead that comes from other major human or natural sources, including legacy contamination from leaded gasoline and lead paint.