Talk:Coal

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needs update but I don't have time

https://www.iea.org/reports/coal-2019#executive-summary

Revisions of May 18-

The following factoids or comments were removed

Although coal is known from most geologic periods, 90% of all coal beds were deposited in the Carboniferous and Permian periods, which represent just 2% of the Earth's geologic history."

so what

"Jet, a compact form of lignite, sometimes polished; used as an ornamental stone since the Upper Palaeolithic"

"ornaments" seem distracting

Fossils and amber may be found in coal.<ref>Poinar GO, Poinar R. (1995) ''The quest for life in amber''. Basic Books, {{ISBN|0-201-48928-7}}, p. 133</ref>

For a big article, these hobbyist details are distracting

when dead plant matter was protected from biodegradation and oxidation, usually by mud or acidic water" removed "biodegradaton".

--Smokefoot (talk) 14:28, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Split proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

This topic is vast and important. The article is too long. I will remove "Transition away from coal" since we have a article focused on that aspect: coal phase-out

Main recommendation: 1) An article about coal, period. What is it? Where did it come from? Many classifications (rank, grade). What is it used for? 2) The rest: mining (and economics), environmental impacts --Smokefoot (talk) 14:14, 19 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Can you be more specific? There are already articles on coal mining and the health and environmental impact of the coal industry. Also I suggest excerpts, for example of coal phase-out. Chidgk1 (talk) 21:04, 20 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That would make sense. This should be general and more separate more. FairfieldAve (talk) 01:17, 1 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with the recommendations. Topics related to coal covered by other articles should only be mentioned briefly with a link Ita140188 (talk) 10:28, 7 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I agree the topic is vast and important. There is potential to reduce duplication within the article and move/remove less-important details that can be covered in sub-articles. I can spend some time on this this week. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:50, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Since the "Transition away from coal" section has been removed [1] as proposed, is it OK to remove the "It has been suggested that this article should be split into multiple articles." tag at the top of the article? I think everyone agrees on moving towards WP:Summary style so it might be time to move more towards execution rather than further discussion. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:55, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Smokefoot Can we close this now as it is still showing up on our list of alerts at Wikipedia:WikiProject Climate change? Chidgk1 (talk) 19:02, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I lost track. Split proposal has been removed.--Smokefoot (talk) 19:09, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Major producers/consumers/exporters/importers tables

A lot of space is given to statistics on the countries that are major producers, consumers, exporters, and importers of coal. Some of these tables haven't been updated in over five years. Since this is a broad overview article, I plan to replace them with a few up-to-date sentences. I've copied the content below.

Extended content

Major producers

Countries with an annual production higher than 300 million tonnes are shown.

Production of coal by country and year (million tonnes)^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]
Country	2000	2005	2010	2015	2017	Share (2017)
China	1,384	2,350	3,235	3,747	3,523	46%
India	335	429	574	678	716	9%
United States	974	1,027	984	813	702	9%
Australia	314	375	424	485	481	6%
Indonesia	77	152	275	392	461	6%
Russia	262	298	322	373	411	5%
Rest of World	1,380	1,404	1,441	1,374	1,433	19%
World total	4,726	6,035	7,255	7,862	7,727	100%

Major consumers

Countries with an annual consumption higher than 500 million tonnes are shown. Shares are based on data expressed in tonnes oil equivalent.

Consumption of coal by country and year (million tonnes)^[5]^[6]
Country	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	Share
China	2,691	2,892	3,352	3,677	4,538	4,678	4,539	3,970 coal + 441 met coke = 4,411	3,784 coal + 430 met coke = 4,214	51%
India	582	640	655	715	841	837	880	890 coal + 33 met coke = 923	877 coal + 37 met coke = 914	11%
United States	1,017	904	951	910	889	924	918	724 coal + 12 met coke = 736	663 coal + 10 met coke = 673	9%
World Total	7,636	7,699	8,137	8,640	8,901	9,013	8,907	7,893 coal + 668 met coke = 8561	7,606 coal + 655 met coke = 8261	100%

Major exporters

Exports of coal by country and year (million tonnes)^[7]
Country	2018	2019	2020	2021
Indonesia	408	443	410	434
Australia	382	393	371	366
Russia	212	223	222	238
United States	105	85	63	77
South Africa	80	79	75	66
Colombia	84	72	68	56
Canada	32	36	32	32
Netherlands	30	28	15	27
Kazakhstan	26	26	25	24
Mongolia	36	36	29	20

Exporters are at risk of a reduction in import demand from India and China.^[8]^[9]

Major importers

Imports of coal by country and year (million tonnes)^[10]^[11]
Country	2018
China	281
India	223
Japan	189
South Korea	149
Taiwan	76
Germany	44
Netherlands	44
Turkey	38
Malaysia	34
Thailand	25

Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 20:54, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ "BP Statistical review of world energy 2012". British Petroleum. Archived from the original (XLS) on 19 June 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2011.
^ "BP Statistical review of world energy 2016" (XLS). British Petroleum. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2017.
^ "BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018" (PDF). British Petroleum. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-12-06. Retrieved 6 December 2018.
^ "Global energy data". International Energy Agency.
^ EIA International Energy Annual – Total Coal Consumption (Thousand Short Tons – converted to metric) Archived 9 February 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Eia.gov. Retrieved on 11 May 2013.
^ Coal Consumption
^ "Primary Coal Exports". US Energy Information Administration. Retrieved 12 May 2023.
^ What Does "Peak Coal" Mean for International Coal Exporters? (PDF). 2018. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-11-01.
^ Overland, Indra; Loginova, Julia (2023-08-01). "The Russian coal industry in an uncertain world: Finally pivoting to Asia?". Energy Research & Social Science. 102: 103150. Bibcode:2023ERSS..10203150O. doi:10.1016/j.erss.2023.103150. ISSN 2214-6296.
^ "Primary Coal Imports". US Energy Information Administration. Retrieved 26 July 2020.
^ "Energy Statistical annual Reports". Taiwan Bureau of Energy, Ministry of Economic Affairs. 4 May 2012. Archived from the original on 29 October 2019. Retrieved 26 July 2020.

Coal power plants, pollution, and abatement/mitigation

As a heads-up, I'm planning to see if I can improve the sections on air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years there has been a lot of discussion about whether to phase out coal or "unabated coal". There is also a lot of discussion out there about "clean coal". The Coal article should help the reader understand the debates. I plan to bring in some relevant content from Carbon capture and storage and this Factcheck source. I'll try to do this without lengthening the article. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:13, 28 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Clayoquot Great - I think you have improved it enough to nominate it as a good article if you want. I have a couple of other articles in the nomination queue as I almost always find the reviewers make really useful comments which help me improve articles Chidgk1 (talk) 19:20, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding a nomination for Good article status, were you referring to the Carbon capture and storage article? The Coal article still needs quite a bit of work. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 19:38, 30 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Underground fires

I've removed the following passages from the "Underground fires" section as I think they're unnecessary detail for an overview article.The examples that have sources are already in Coal seam fire. As for the unsourced example from Tajikstan, I tried to find sourcing and couldn't.

In Centralia, Pennsylvania (a borough located in the Coal Region of the U.S.), an exposed vein of anthracite ignited in 1962 due to a trash fire in the borough landfill, located in an abandoned anthracite strip mine pit. Attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful, and it continues to burn underground to this day. The Australian Burning Mountain was originally believed to be a volcano, but the smoke and ash come from a coal fire that has been burning for some 6,000 years.^[1]

At Kuh i Malik in Yagnob Valley, Tajikistan, coal deposits have been burning for thousands of years, creating vast underground labyrinths full of unique minerals, some of them very beautiful.

The reddish siltstone rock that caps many ridges and buttes in the Powder River Basin in Wyoming and in western North Dakota is called porcelanite, which resembles the coal burning waste "clinker" or volcanic "scoria".^[2] Clinker is rock that has been fused by the natural burning of coal. In the Powder River Basin approximately 27 to 54 billion tons of coal burned within the past three million years.^[3] Wild coal fires in the area were reported by the Lewis and Clark Expedition as well as explorers and settlers in the area.^[4]

References

^ "Fire in The Hole". Archived from the original on 14 October 2009. Retrieved 5 June 2011.
^ "North Dakota's Clinker". Archived from the original on 14 September 2005. Retrieved 9 September 2005.
^ "BLM-Environmental Education – The High Plains". Archived from the original on 12 March 2005. Retrieved 9 September 2005.
^ Lyman, Robert M.; Volkmer, John E. (March 2001). "Pyrophoricity (spontaneous combustion) of Powder River Basin coals: Considerations for coalbed methane development" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 September 2005. Retrieved 9 September 2005.

Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 20:10, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 21 November 2024

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

I would like a citation added for this section "It is also customary and considered lucky in Scotland and the North of England to give coal as a gift on New Year's Day. This occurs as part of first-footing and represents warmth for the year to come."

I see no proof of this online. Magus2758 (talk) 10:01, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Done Citation found and added. DrOrinScrivello (talk) 14:32, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[BPReview2011-1] "BP Statistical review of world energy 2012". British Petroleum. Archived from the original (XLS) on 19 June 2012. Retrieved 18 August 2011.

[BPReview2016-2] "BP Statistical review of world energy 2016" (XLS). British Petroleum. Archived from the original on 2 December 2016. Retrieved 8 February 2017.

[BP2018-3] "BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018" (PDF). British Petroleum. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-12-06. Retrieved 6 December 2018.

[IEAstats-4] "Global energy data". International Energy Agency.

[5] EIA International Energy Annual – Total Coal Consumption (Thousand Short Tons – converted to metric) Archived 9 February 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Eia.gov. Retrieved on 11 May 2013.

[6] Coal Consumption

[7] "Primary Coal Exports". US Energy Information Administration. Retrieved 12 May 2023.

[IDDRI-8] What Does "Peak Coal" Mean for International Coal Exporters? (PDF). 2018. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-11-01.

[Overland-2023-9] Overland, Indra; Loginova, Julia (2023-08-01). "The Russian coal industry in an uncertain world: Finally pivoting to Asia?". Energy Research & Social Science. 102: 103150. Bibcode:2023ERSS..10203150O. doi:10.1016/j.erss.2023.103150. ISSN 2214-6296.

[10] "Primary Coal Imports". US Energy Information Administration. Retrieved 26 July 2020.

[11] "Energy Statistical annual Reports". Taiwan Bureau of Energy, Ministry of Economic Affairs. 4 May 2012. Archived from the original on 29 October 2019. Retrieved 26 July 2020.

[12] "Fire in The Hole". Archived from the original on 14 October 2009. Retrieved 5 June 2011.

[13] "North Dakota's Clinker". Archived from the original on 14 September 2005. Retrieved 9 September 2005.

[14] "BLM-Environmental Education – The High Plains". Archived from the original on 12 March 2005. Retrieved 9 September 2005.

[15] Lyman, Robert M.; Volkmer, John E. (March 2001). "Pyrophoricity (spontaneous combustion) of Powder River Basin coals: Considerations for coalbed methane development" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 September 2005. Retrieved 9 September 2005.

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