Ch En 310

Reading Questions for Class 4

From Boyle et al., Chapters 5

Coal Use

A. Overall Use and Location

1. Briefly summarize the history of coal use in the U.K.  Explain why the history of coal use in the U.K. is important.

2. Compare the top 3 coal producing nations, the top 3 coal exporting nations, and the top 3 coal consuming nations.

3. Please find the mistake in Figure 5.8.  You may find the following websites convenient:  http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/reserves/chapter1.html or http://smtc.uwyo.edu/coal/WyomingCoal/us.asp

B. Description and Classification

4. Find a proposed chemical structure of coal, and please comment. Hint: search for “coal structure” using an image search.

5. Describe the four quantities measured with the “proximate” analysis

6. Compare the properties of a Utah (UT) bituminous coal with the properties of a Wyoming (WY) subbituminous coal (for analytical data, see http://www.anl.gov/PCS/pcshome.html for analytical data).  Why is Wyoming coal being purchased so much more than Utah coal to replace Illinois (IL) coal?

7. I would like all students to visit the following website to take a tour, and then comment:
http://smtc.uwyo.edu/coal/WyomingCoal/default.asp

C. Environmental Impact

8. Please discuss all the cleanup systems necessary for coal-fired power plants.

9. Ash disposal is a large problem when burning coal.  Approximately 10 wt% of the coal is ash.  Suppose that all of the ash from U.S. consumption were put into a road consisting of only flyash.  Assuming a compressed density of 1.0 g/cc, a road depth of 4 feet, and a road width of 20 feet, how many miles of road could be built per year from coal flyash?

D. Safety

10. A nice coal mine safety web site is:
http://www.msha.gov/ACCINJ/BOTHCL.HTM
(a) Please figure out the units of incidence rate (IR) by comparing numbers from the third, fourth, and fifth tables on this page for the year 2006.
(b) Please comment on the number of coal miners and the fatality incidence rate since 1931 (show a graph). You can get the number of coal miners from the number of man-hours assuming a 40-hr work week.

E. Costs

11. Compare the current costs for fuel paid by electric utilities (see
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epates.html , scroll down a little).

Write a question that will help the next class better study an important point in this chapter, or that will serve as a good discussion topic.