Coal is a fossil fuel. A fossil fuel is energy that comes from dead plants and animals. After plants and animals die and are buried in the earth for a hundreds of millions of years, the heat and pressure of the earth create coal. Because it takes such a long time to create, coal is nonrenewable source of energy.

Source: http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfacts/sources/non-renewable/coal.html

Electricity and magnetism are strangely related. Because of this, spinning a magnet in coils of wires can create electricity. When electricity runs through a wire, like the wires powering up your computer, it creates a magnetic field.

To learn more about electricity and magnetism, go here! http://ippex.pppl.gov/interactive/electricity/intro.html

Coal is being used for electricity, industry, export, and making steel. You are probably thinking what? Read on to find out.

People create electricity from burning coal to boil water. The hot steam from the water rises up and pushes the turbine blades. The turbine blades spin a magnet inside wire coils that create electricity.

Industries use coal's by-products and heat. Ingredients of coal that can be separated from coal (such as methanol and ethylene) are used in making plastics, tar, man-made fibers, fertilizers and medicines. The concrete and paper industries also burn humongous amounts of coal.

Coal is melted in super hot furnaces to make coke (melted coal), which is used to smelt iron ore into the iron needed to make steel. The carbon in coal gives steel the strength things like bridges, cars and buildings.

Because the United States is one of the world’s greatest exporters, the U.S. ships coal to countries that need coal.

Pros:

The advantage with coal is that we don’t use it for anything else, and the US has lots of coal!

To see where coal areas are in the U.S. go here! http://www.nma.org/pdf/c_bearing_areas.pdf

Cons:

Burning coal emits tons of greenhouse gases, like 2 billion tons of CO₂. It also gives off 50 tons of mercury, which is very poisonous. Because of air pollution, there are usually twenty thousand to thirty thousand premature deaths. Also, coal takes a long time to form, as you can see from the picture, and we can’t make it right away if we need.