Pros And Cons Of Coal Energy

The first advantage of nuclear energy is that it is one of the cleanest sources of energy available to us now. The process of fission doesn’t emit any greenhouse gases or emissions that are linked to global warming. Nuclear energy is currently the largest clean air energy source. It currently occupies 63.3 percent of the emission free electricity in the United States, and this must continue to get expanded upon. With increased use of nuclear energy comes a decreased use in fossil fuels, which would result in a lower carbon footprint for the U.S. This would help slow down the impact of global warming and climate change.

Coal: Electricity from coal is the power made from the energy stored in coal. Carbon, made from ancient plant material, gives coal most of its energy. This energy is released when coal is burned. We use coal-generated electricity for:

The energy we get from coal today comes from the energy that plants absorbed from the sun millions of years ago. When an area is to be mined, topsoil and subsoil are removed from the rock and so is another material, call overburden, to expose the bed of coal. All living plants give solar energy through photosynthesis. When plants die the energy gets out as the plants decay. The whole decaying process gets interrupted which prevents the release of the stored solar energy, then the energy stays locked in the coal. The plant material gets subjected to high temperatures and pressures which causes physical and chemical changes in the vegetation, transforming it into peat and then into coal. The formation of peat is the first step in the geological formation of fossil fuels such as coal. Peat plants is not only the first step for formation but they also capture CO2 itself. There are many effect to the environment when it comes to coal; an example is AMD which stands for Acid mine drainage; it includes the outflow of acidic water from coal mines or metal mines. Mines exposed rocks containing pyrite which reacts to water and air to form acid and dissolved iron and can easily wash into rivers and streams. Coal is a huge impact when it comes to hurting our

Coal has been around for 250 million years, but only has been used since the 1800’s first by trains and now for energy all around the world and many other things that people couldn't think of! Coal is a combustible sedimentary organic rock which is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. It is formed from vegetation which has been consolidated between two other rock strata and altered by the combined effects of pressure and heat over millions of years to form coal seams. There are over 174,000 jobs in the U.S associated with coal and 83,000 of them are mining jobs, Coal miners have found many ways to extract coal from the ground which includes, surface mining, longwall mining, room and pillar mining, and underground mining. “Surface

Coal (n): A combustible black or dark brown rock consisting mainly of carbonized plant matter, found mainly in underground deposits and widely used as fuel. This little rock is what keeps 39% of our nation running. 10% of that coal comes from stripping the Appalachian mountain range of her beautiful peaks in a process called strip mining- or, more popularly, Mountaintop Removal. Coal is considered a non-renewable energy resource, meaning once it’s depleted, it will not return for millions of years. Once it's gone, it's gone. These non-renewable sources are found deep underground. Coal needs to be mined out, either by machine or by manual labor. The use of and the process in which we procure coal is a detriment to both the environment and the people in said environment. It is dangerous to the workers within the mines, the flora and fauna around the sites, and the surrounding communities.

By 1875, coal byproduct replaced charcoal as the primary fuel for iron furnaces to make steel. The burning of coal to generate electricity is a relative newcomer in the long history of this fossil fuel. It was in the 1880s when coal was first used to generate electricity for homes and factories. Long after homes were being lighted by electricity produced by coal, many of them continued to have furnaces for heating and some had stoves for cooking that were fueled by coal. (U.S. Department of Energy, 2014).

What is coal? Coal is the largest domestically produced source of energy used to generate a significant portion of our nation’s use of electricity. Also it is a combustible black or brown rock consisting mainly of carbon dioxide plant matter. It is widely used as a fuel. This provides electricity and also is an essential fuel for steel and cement production, and other industrial activities. Coal information began during their carboniferous period known as the first coal agrees which spanned 360 million years ago. Coal is the most useful fuel in the fossil fuel and it has the longest and most accurate history. Coal has been used for heating since the cave men. Archeologists have also found evidence that the romans in England used in the second century.

There is a restricted amount of coal being supplied in power plants. The second con is the increased rates of asthma and lung cancer from coal emissions. Breathing the coal dust is extremely dangerous and can result in major health concerns for people especially those who work inside the power plants. I have a cousin who has asthma and he has trouble breathing sometimes. He does track for Ramapo College of New Jersey so he has to use an inhaler before starting his races so he could breathe normally and perform better. I can’t imagine what his pain would feel like if he had to run an event five miles away from a power plant that produces sulfur dioxide clouds. The last con is the cost of transporting coal is expensive. According to power-eng.com, “Owners of coal-fired plants invested more than $30 billion in flue gas desulfurization systems, also known as scrubbers,” (U.S. Coal-Fired Power Plants Invested More Than $30bn On Scrubbers In Four

Fossil fuels are criticized for contributing to the “global warming” theory, and the “greenhouse effect” blamed on unregulated industry, and transference pollution in our atmosphere. While energy preservation and education are important, it doesn’t solve the long-term problem: energy is needed and is increasing in demand as technology and our way of life advances. It is not possible to install a solar panel on every house, or a windmill on every hill. Fueling the future is a growing challenge for the world. At the current rate of consumption, fossil fuels will soon run out. Nuclear energy is clearly one of the best answers to our energy problems. Nuclear power system produce a tremendous amount of energy for their mass and are very safe when

The world that exists today runs on fossil fuels. Many scientists and people are questioning whether the pros outweigh the cons of using fossil fuels. Coal and nuclear power are the two largest sources of electrical energy in the U.S., but only coal is a fossil fuel. Coal and other fossil fuels are responsible for global warming, which comes from the green house gas effect. Nuclear power pollutes the natural environment the least, however many people associate it with the atomic bombs and forget it’s good qualities.

Another great factor that makes solar energy better than coal is it is renewable unlike coal which is non-renewable or limited. If you don’t know what renewable energy is, it is energy that comes from a limitless energy source. Solar energy is so renewable because it comes from the sun which is always giving off energy. Since solar energy comes from the sun it an unlimited energy source. While many countries and regions have access to coal not all do but nearly every town has access to sunlight. For those who do not have access to coal have struggled to make economic development. “Each day more solar energy falls to the Earth than the total amount of energy 6.1 billion inhabitants would consume in 27 years” (National Renewable Energy Laboratory). That means that the energy we get from the sun exceeds 35,000 times the amount of energy used by man.

First off before we get into the good and bad of nuclear power, what exactly is it? Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions that release nuclear energy. These nuclear reactions involve nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion. The nuclear energy released is turned into heat which makes electricity. This way of making electricity is very inexpensive and comes with a lot of pros. The cost of uranium is very low which is

Coal, although a hazardous resource, is a mineral that many companies use and has been very reliable for hundreds of years (The Dirty Facts on "Clean Coal Top Ten Reasons Clean Coal is Dirty). Coal is used in many businesses and they created jobs; however, “the Obama administration” imposing “regulations on coal” has made coal “uneconomical” (War on Coal). Many

“Coal energy is a nonrenewable energy, which means that this is a type of energy that we cannot re-create in sunglitz and Moore study” (as cited in Disadvantages of Using Coal to Produce Electricity). Coal energy is used for the formation of power to control mechanical or producing plants and even to control our electronics at home. “Many industrial plants or manufacturing plants use coal energy to generate electricity because coal energy is an affordable source of energy in sunglitz and Moore study” (as cited in Disadvantages of Using Coal to Produce Electricity). Advantages of using coal as energy are; it is an affordable source of energy, it burns easily then other energy sources. “Some disadvantages of coal are that coal energy produces large amount of carbon dioxide, which leads to

The advantages of nuclear plants are the fact that they do not pollute when producing electricity compared with coal and oil plants thus making them an attractive solution for reducing pollution. They also have the advantage of always running and so have a constant creation of electricity compare with the green energy’s that are solar and wind power.