Fun:Coal

Coalmines are frequently subject to power outages, as this illustration shows.

Coal is a major energy source providing inexpensive electricity and something for Santa Claus to leave in your stocking.

Energy solutions for the 21st Century

Every coal mining job creates 5 to 8 jobs somewhere else in the economy. If coal fails, steel fails. If steel fails, America fails. Coal is now clean and green with new technologies partnering with energy providers for unique solutions to our 21st century energy needs. Coal supplies about 48% of the electrical power demand in the United States, with the top two producers being Wyoming and West Virginia.

For more information, please visit http://www.friendsofcoal.org/

Everyone sing along now. "Cooooal, is West Vir-Gin-Iaaaa".

Coal is also clearly a cleaner energy source than oil, as BP has aptly demonstrated, and nuclear power, as Chernobyl showed us. Also, wind power kills bats and puts ugly towers all over our beautiful mountains. All three put more coal miners out of work and make baby Jesus cry. Hey wait a minute, what beautiful mountains?

Readers are also advised not to consume more than 2 fish per month caught in local lakes in coal mining regions, or play in abandoned mines.

Types of coal

• Lignite - is brown and ugly, really smoky, and isn't usually transported very far from where it is mined.
• Bituminous - this is what most people think of when they think of coal. Black, and still rather smoky and stinky makes wonderfun incense, buy some now! Most Appalachian coal is bituminous. Wyoming's Powder River Basin coal is "sub-bituminous", which is somewhere between bituminous and the lower-quality lignite, hence cheaper, but for some reason has a lower sulfur content so it also widely used.
• Anthracite - the good stuff. Cleaner burning but pricy and rarely used. In the U.S. it is mainly found in northeastern Pennsylvania.