November 2014 Program
“COAL – MINES & MYTHS” presented by Club member, Deborah Grimm.
Deborah presented details from her behind-the-scenes tour of several mines in southwest Virginia (coal class offered to Virginia educators).
Everything you need to know about coal from mining to processing to potential uses; highlighted by great first hand photos and coal samples.
Some little known facts:
(1) All Coal in VA is bituminous.
(2) Mining can run 24 hours per day.
(3) Each large dump truck costs $1M.
(4) Coal takes 300 M years to form and started before the dinosaurs.
(5) 39% of electricity comes from coal in the US.
(6) Sorry, but you can’t find diamonds in coal.
Coal is washed and tested for carbon, sulfur and iron and processed/sold according to content.
Virginia has the cleanest coal processing plant in the US with 0% percent mercury emission.